After several months spent in the planning stages, Harley-Davidson and UK-based design firm Heatherwick Studio officially unveiled its plans to create The Hub. According to the plans, it will be a massive community park project that will sit directly adjacent to the MoCo’s Juneau Avenue headquarters in Milwaukee.
In December, 2022, the OEM had already busied itself obtaining approval of a certified survey map of two former employee parking lots located directly south of Harley HQ. That was our first inkling that changes might be coming to the area in light of Harley’s ongoing work-from-home policy for many employees. So, when the wraps finally came off on the overall design for The Hub, it was more a case of filling in the details, rather than a complete surprise.
Now that it’s April, 2023, local news station WISN is reporting that The Hub’s footprint could potentially become even bigger. On Saturday, April 8, 2023, a public meeting was held for the local community to discuss Harley-Davidson's potential involvement in ongoing upgrades to an existing community park nearby. It’s currently called Highland Park, and is located at the corner of 38th Street and Highland Boulevard, just south of Harley-Davidson HQ—and right next to the parking lots that will form the basis of The Hub.
The proposal that residents heard in early April would involve the Harley-Davidson Foundation investing $250,000 into improvements for Highland Park, as well as maintenance of the park for the 10-year period to follow. Under the terms of the proposal, the park would also get renamed to become Harley Park, and would also, according to WISN, “become part of the Hub.” It’s not clear whether ownership of the land would change hands, or whether this would simply be an act of civic engagement in a public park, undertaken by a successful local business.
While the public meeting was one step toward enacting potential changes to Highland Park, all changes to both the park and its name would have to go before the Milwaukee County Board first. Groundbreaking on The Hub’s development is still planned to begin sometime in spring, 2023, with initial plans to have it open for public use beginning sometime in 2024.
