Master Planning

Built as public housing in the 1940s and 50s, Hillside Terrace had become a constant maintenance and repair burden to the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee. GCA was enlisted in a multi-year process of fully redeveloping the 25-acre site as a way of alleviating the financial strain on the city, as well as correcting the segregating and exclusionary history of public housing. This massive-scale urban planning effort would be enacted over 25 years and saw the gradual removal and replacement of all the structures on the site.

The new Hillside neighborhood would have increased the density from 470 income-assisted units to over 2,300 units of both assisted and market-rate housing. Marquee design features included a large urban park centered on the historic St. John’s Evangelical Church and an ambitious elevated park over the Fond Du Lac Ave. freeway spur. This elevated park helped to reconnect Hillside with the Pabst Brewery complex to the south and provided a symbolic gesture for the city of bridge building between different racial and socioeconomic groups.