The BMO Harris Bradley Center is seen looking south and slightly east across Juneau Ave. Credit: Mike De Sisti

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Two new separate agreements on converting part of N. 4th St. into a pedestrian plaza and relocating a sewer out of downtown's Park East strip are paving the way for a new Milwaukee Bucks arena and related projects.

The city has agreed to close one block of N. 4th St. to create a pedestrian plaza tied to the new basketball arena, but will keep ownership of the block. The Bucks had asked that the block be closed to vehicular traffic.

The public plaza, which will be between W. Highland and W. Juneau avenues, will connect the arena with a new entertainment center.

Milwaukee Ald. Robert Bauman said the city will not vacate the street, as initially planned.

Instead, the city will keep ownership but has agreed to close the block to vehicles and turn over control of the street to the Bucks, he said. That option better ensures that a possible streetcar expansion could eventually use the street, Bauman said.

A Bucks spokesman couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation owns the storm-water sewer at the site. The sewer runs beneath former Park East Freeway parcels between N. Old World 3rd and N. 8th streets, bordered by W. Juneau and W. McKinley avenues. The sewer will be moved to beneath McKinley Ave.

The transportation department initially wanted the city to provide $765,000 to help finance the $5.9 million project, according to a city report.

Instead, the Bucks will provide $350,000, with the remaining costs to be covered by the city's work in moving traffic signals and streetlights in connection with the project, Bauman said Wednesday. The city's role will amount to an in-kind contribution, said Bauman, chair of the Common Council's Public Works Committee.

The sewer relocation is to occur this spring and summer.

Moving the sewer will make way for a new Bucks practice facility, arena parking structure and other developments.

The $500 million Bucks arena project includes $250 million in public funds. The arena will include a new city-financed parking structure, to be built in the Park East strip east of N. 6th St.

The basketball club will privately finance a new practice facility in the Park East area west of N. 6th St., and the entertainment center that will replace a city-owned parking structure at N. 4th St. and W. Highland Ave.

Also, the basketball club's affiliated investment group, Head of the Herd LLC, has long-term plans to privately develop apartments, a supermarket and offices on the remaining Park East lands between N. Old World 3rd and N. 6th streets.

The Bucks will break ground this year on the arena, which will open by the start of the 2018-'19 National Basketball Association season. It will be built just north of the BMO Harris Bradley Center on what are now mainly parking lots.

Along with council design approval for the arena, the Bucks also must negotiate a lease with the Wisconsin Center District, the state-created agency that will own the facility.

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