69th Street Center
Welcome to our "Front Porch"
North Avenue is a 16-block-long, mixed-use corridor that runs through the center of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin and is flanked by beloved neighborhood retailers and restaurants. This urban district - known locally as 'East Tosa' - attracts a broad range of customers and is steadily establishing its own niche. Despite its popularity, this heavily trafficked section of street lacked pedestrian-friendly public spaces. To support local connections and future growth, the city of Wauwatosa adopted a plan to make North Avenue a destination street by developing a series of walkable subdistricts, each with its own civic node or center.
Picking a Leader
To produce the design for this effort, the city chose international landscape architecture firm SmithGroup, who has an office in nearby Milwaukee. Together, they worked with a steering committee to develop the overall vision, which was to create spaces that could host community events and large annual festivals while also offering comfortable places to enjoy neighborhood shopping and dining experiences. The first of four public plazas was the 69th Street Center. The team set specific goals for the site's conversion from a small parking lot into East Tosa's front porch.
Defining the Objectives
Ambitious for a relatively small space, the design goals included making the 69th Street Center the preferred spot for visitors and residents to meet, hang out, and attend community events. The intent was to make the new center flexible enough to accommodate a range of potential uses and user groups, as well as provide much-needed open space and outdoor seating. As the location is intended to attract many people, the design had to carefully balance pedestrian and parking spaces. For safety and sustainability, the site would also implement sustainable stormwater practices to accommodate its own stormwater in addition to the runoff from adjacent properties. Finally, the center would reflect the neighborhood's historic craftsman and prairie-style architecture, tie to the region's manufacturing heritage, and express a contemporary vibe consistent with North Avenue's rebirth.
Receiving Input from Stakeholders
SmithGroup led an 18-month public process involving the city and steering committee as well as neighborhood residents and business owners. This engagement brought about unanimous support for the design program and pushed it beyond what the corridor plan originally envisioned. Lead designer and Landscape Architect Tom Rogers, PLA directed a multidisciplinary team responsible for developing a series of conceptual designs for the site. Using an iterative approach, these varying concepts were then presented over several rounds, each design creatively solving program challenges. Two of the concepts were developed further before the final program was determined.
Honing the Design
Besides the objectives mentioned, the 0.3-acre site also had to establish a unique brand identity for the East Tosa neighborhood and set a new precedent for incorporating green infrastructure on pre-developed sites in the city. To create a distinctive identity, the team designed a complete custom amenities package including furniture, a shade structure, and lighting. Wood and steel served as the base materials, with red as a primary accent color. The site furnishings are simple-but-contemporary and unified, sharing clean lines and form. Landscape Forms' custom workshop Studio 431 was awarded the site furnishings contract, and they worked directly with the Landscape Architects to validate, refine, and manufacture all custom pieces.
Putting the Pieces in Place
The pillars marking the North Avenue entrance are the center's signature foundation pieces. They feature a custom top light over a combined structural-steel-and-wood spire mounted on a precast concrete base. Both entrance pillars feature the 69th Street address cast into the base while one pillar is also adorned with an 'East Tosa' neighborhood identifier. These pillars are replicated along the plaza's east side, providing structural support for the shade structure and incorporating vertical accent lights. The structure and flanking pillars are united with strings of Edison-style lightbulbs, creating an inviting, warm space during evening hours. Similar pillars have been installed at other plazas and parking lots along North Avenue, each customized with their respective addresses and space identifiers.
Movable picnic tables feature plate steel supports with timber seating and tabletops. Reclining lounge chairs also have timber on their seats and backs while red accented steel composes the bases, which contain a light alcove just below the seat. Backless bench versions of the loungers flank the sidewalk, replicating the materials, lighting, and forms that unify the site's identity. A custom bicycle rack spelling out "TOSA" reinforces this identity. Further accentuating the individuality of this location, the city permitted the pedestrian lights to be more contemporary than the municipal standard.
Greening the Site
Sustainability is important to the City of Wauwatosa, evidenced by their current investment in green alleys with permeable paving. The 69th Street Center's design set out to continue this directive while becoming an expanded green infrastructure demonstration project. The subsoil contamination of the former service station site presented a challenge to typical infiltration methods. The Landscape Architects worked with specialized environmental and soil engineers to develop a rain garden and permeable paver system that accommodates small-scale event stormwater while avoiding infiltration through potentially harmful subsoils. The publicly visible methods of conveying stormwater to the rain garden and the sustainably designed permeable pavement serves as an exemplary project for the district and the city.
Reviewing the Results
Redefining East Tosa as both a neighborhood hub and regional shopping and dining hot spot, the 69th Street Center is an iconic gathering place residents can access by walking or biking to meet their neighbors, relax, or attend sizeable events. Additionally, only two parking spaces were lost, thanks to the reconfiguration of on-site parking and the creative repurposing of an adjacent property owned by the city. Thoroughly embraced by residents, Wauwatosa's 69th Street Center shows how making the most out of a small space can yield huge community benefits.
Summarizing the center's impact, former alderman Bobby Pantuso stated, "We all want to build something that lasts beyond us. It means everything to me to visit the 69th Street Plaza and see neighbors chatting and working and children running around and enjoying this phenomenal public space."
As seen in LASN magazine, February 2025.
