"There's something going on downtown, and we're all aware of it," said Shelley Jurewicz, Executive Director of the Young Professionals of Milwaukee (YPM) as she opened last Tuesday night's YPM meeting entitled "Live Work Play."

Jurewicz's statement, as well as the evening's theme, seemed to strike a cord with the crowd of more than 175 young professionals. The meeting was held at the offices of Kahler Slater Architects, who presented a new downtown Milwaukee study aptly titled Live Work Play.

Patricia Algiers, a Kahler Slater designer who worked on the Live Work Play project, presented its history and goals to the YPM crowd, and asked the group to join in and participate in downtown's future. "The efforts you'll see tonight were made possible mostly by risk takers and entrepreneurs," said Algiers, "and just think of the work that could be accomplished if leadership steps in." Algiers continued by encouraging the crowd to become leaders in downtown's future.

The Live Work Play project outlined key areas in and around downtown that have shown improvement over the past few years and that have certain "clusters," or groupings of residential units, workplaces and entertainment venues. According to the report, more than 60 housing projects and 4,000 new living spaces are included in the downtown area. In addition to these living spaces there are 350 restaurants, coffee shops or bars, 200 technology-related and 155 creative-related small and medium sized companies.

In a visual awakening for some, the Kahler Slater study showed these clusters on a map, proving that people are more than beginning to live, work and play in the same general areas. This bodes well for downtown's neighborhoods since they have the density and infrastructure to support such a lifestyle. The unique identity of the clusters was another asset Algiers praised about the area's redevelopment. She illustrated this point by mentioning Brady Street, Water Street and the Historic Third Ward and how each has its own unique identity and feel. Algiers went on to state the importance that uniqueness will play in the future of the Park East and Pabst Brewery developments.

"Ignitors" to light downtown's fire

As part of the report, several "ignitors" were suggested that would spark more action, leading to favorable results for downtown. For example, several large downtown companies have in-house services, including cafeterias. The study suggests either closing these cafeterias or relocating them to the ground level and opening them to the public, which would help increase lunch crowds in downtown. In addition to the Kahler Slater ignitors, YPM members were invited to come up with their own ignitors, and submission forms were made available to those in attendance.

One fire that several felt needed igniting is downtown shopping. "Shopping is in the worst shape for every group of people in downtown," said Algiers. One of Kahler Slater's solutions to this is an idea called The Stroll. The Stroll would be a shopping and entertainment district with the new high-end condo developments as anchors, and would pass by several downtown hotels. The idea is to create a district with shopping that will attract downtown residents as well as tourists, and will make the area a more interesting and enjoyable experience.

Algiers stated that if you walk through The Stroll now you'd see several vacancies that are opportunities waiting to happen. Young professional Heidi Gilmore, owner of a boutique on emerging Milwaukee Street, echoed the comments and invited other young professionals to open more retail on Milwaukee Street.

It's with encouragement from people like Heidi Gilmore, and involved companies like Kahler Slater that professionals young and older can get inspiration and become the next leaders, risk takers and entrepreneurs that downtown and Milwaukee needs.