The strong potential for a vital civic center

The Franklin Public Library, City Hall, Law Enforcement Center, Fire Station #1, the post office, and the iconic water tower all are part of our civic center district. Also within its boundaries includes The Shoppes at Wyndham Village, an Aurora Healthcare clinic, Brenwood Park, the "Crossroads" district, and several other businesses and residential projects. By far, if this portion of the City of Franklin is worked on and done properly, it could become not only the third largest commercial district in the city, but also a district where you'll find many residents of Franklin go to on a regular basis to enjoy the amenities it provides.

Here's what I believe are the 8 points to success and a strong, vital civic center for Franklin residents:

1. Create distinct districts within the district - - Since our civic center can be quite massive, break it down and give certain areas their own respective feel. We currently have several different variations of architecture displaying themselves in the district; just look at the significant differences between Brenwood Park, the Law Enforcement Center, the Franklin Public Library, and the Shoppes at Wyndham Village. This shouldn't be a bad thing, since the city can take advantage of the differences and morph them into their own little distinct section. The sections should be as follows: Wyndham Village, City Center, Brenwood Park, and Legend Creek. Wyndham Village would cover most of the Loomis/Lovers Lane/Drexel parcel, and would also include the strips of land on the west side of Lovers Lane (Hwy 100) from Drexel to St. Martins Road. The City Center would be obviously the land that has Lions Legend Park, the fire station, library, City Hall, and the Law Enforcement Center. Brenwood Park is where I will go against the grain and extend the boundaries a bit. Brenwood Park would cover all the senior complexes, the post office, and the area known as the "Crossroads" of Franklin - Hwy 100 & Loomis. Where would the Legend Creek area go? Well, I'd move that label to the SW, and include the Indian Community School, Showtime Cinema/Innovative Health & Fitness, and Polonia Soccer facilities.
2. Make the sections unique - With the 4 sections named, the opportunity to make them unique and fit into the overall landscape can be looked at. We already can see some examples of how to implement this. Wyndham Village should follow the architectural standards currently in place at the Shoppes. City Center can impose architecture similar to the Franklin Public Library. Brenwood Park would follow the example of the main senior complex along Loomis Road. Legend Creek could focus on the Indian Community School's outstanding architecture as its base. New developments in the respective districts would carry the district's standards and name. For example, if a developer decided to build several office facilities across from the Shoppes at Wyndham Village, I'd encourage the developer to name his complex with the Wyndham Village nameplate on it. The "Crossroads" would implement several developments with the Brenwood Park nameplate on them - - i.e: The Brenwood Park Shoppes, or Brenwood Park Plaza.
3. Implement better signage - - Since this district would be showcasing Franklin's civic pride, signs would be in order to point people to specific destinations. For starters, all road signs in the entire civic center should be replaced, especially those at major intersections. Those at major intersections should be replaced with something like what's shown at the bottom of this page. Furthermore, the city should work with developers and businesses to implement a pedestrian-friendly sign plan, similar to what's seen in Downtown Milwaukee along the riverwalk. Signs that point in specific directions where various shopping, dining, and civic buildings are located are needed.
4. Sidewalks, bike paths, and other pedestrian amenities - After the city lays out the plan that would include the several sections with their goals, and developers come in to begin the process of making the vision reality, the city should look into creating a pedestrian-friendly plan. This would include constructing bike paths and sidewalks which connect residential subdivisions surrounding the civic center to the various developments. It would also encourage developments to have bike racks, sidewalks to their buildings, and landscaping plans to make it appealing for residents to take advantage of the network.The City of Franklin Trails Committee could be responsible for such a plan.
5. Building height limitations - I feel that there should be height restrictions depending on the section within the civic center. I'd suggest the following height limits: Wyndham Village - 3 stories. Brenwood Park - 5 stories. Legend Creek - 4 stories. City Center - 2 stories. It makes sense to have civic buildings lower to the ground, since you don't want to be imposing on the residents who use them - - especially City Hall.
6. New City Hall - Franklin is a growing community, and while taxpayers don't have the funds at this time to support it, there should at least be a plan in the works to construct a new City Hall either on the same site or somewhere close-by. Our current City Hall was built in a time where our community only had a few thousand residents. As we all know, our population has at least tripled in that respect, and has no plans of slowing down. Perhaps to make the new City Hall more appealing for taxpayers, it should provide a variety of uses within it. For example, why not include a community center and several conference rooms that would overlook Lions Legend Park?
7. Mixed use buildings needed - For any new development in the civic center to generate more tax revenues to help lower taxes, it should be highly recommended that developers begin implementing mixed uses for their projects. To do this, developers should be given more leeway on some aspects, such as minimum parking spaces or lowering the amounts of green space needed.

As you can see, we're barely scraping the surface on what new ideas and thoughts can be used for the civic center district. Using some new ideas could possibly bring some fresh faces to Franklin in terms of developers.

This is yet another area where I believe we can continue to make our community a headline suburb for Milwaukee, the United States, and perhaps the global community.

Now, some pictures to describe my thoughts on civic center district planning:

Examples of restaurants (and/or architectual designs) to include in civic center district:


An example of multistory residential:

A true revitalization of Brenwood Park area with something like this:




Density + variety = success for Legend Creek or Brenwood Park district