Milwaukee is Sinking

The sinking city: Dozens of buildings in Milwaukee…sinking! There's a problem and it's deep underground

Downtown Milwaukee is sinking. The signs are everywhere. Sidewalks settle unevenly, forcing city crews to “shave” the protruding edges of the slabs.

BUILT IN THE 1890'S...CITY HALL IS ONE OF THE MOST ICONIC BUILDINGS IN MILWAUKEE ... BUT A NEW REPORT SHOWS IT'S SINKING. AS WISN 12 NEWS BEN HUTCHISON FOUND OUT--- ITS GOING TO COST MILLIONS TO FIX. AFTER 76 MILLION DOLLARS IN REPAIRS TO THE OUTSIDE TERRA COTTA...2 YEARS AGO... IT STARTED CRACKING. ALDERMAN ROBERT BAUMAN SAYS THEY'RE MOVING FORWARD WITH FIXING THAT PROBLEM. ALL THE LITIGATION HAS BEEN SETTLED, THE CONTRACTOR IS ON SIGHT. AS WE SPEAK LIFTS ARE BEING BROUGHT IN TO BETTER REACH THE DAMAGED AREAS. SCAFFOLDING STILL SURROUNDS CITY HALL TO CATCH ANY FALLING TERRA COTTA FROM ABOVE, BUT ITS WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH THE FOUNDATION THAT HAS CITY OFFICIALS CONCERNED. 8 YEARS AGO ALDERMAN MICHAEL MURPHY NOTICED A PROBLEM IN HIS OFFICE. THERE WAS A SUBSTANTIAL CRACK THAT RAN FROM THE BASE OF THE FLOOR TO THE CEILING AND IN SOME POINTS, THREE INCHES WIDE. STRUCTURAL ENGINEERS DETERMINED THE BUILDING WAS SINKING . THE MAYOR SAYS THEY'LL CONTINUE TO RESEARCH THE PROBLEM.

A LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T REALIZE THIS WAS ONCE A SWAMP AND LITERALLY, THERE ARE LOGS HOLDING UP CITY HALL; UP TO 22,000 PILINGS, WITH SOME OF THEM FAILING.  THE ESTIMATED COST TO FIX THE SINKING IS 15 MILLION DOLLARS, THAT CAN BE PAID OVER TIME . SO IT WON'T HAVE A NOTICEABLE IMPACT, IF ANY ON TAXPAYERS. THIS IS A BUILDING THAT MILWAUKEANS LOVE. IT OBVIOUSLY HAS HAD SOME DIFFICULTIES OVER THE YEARS BUT THIS IS A LANDMARK THAT IS TRUE MILWAUKEE AND SHOULD BE SAVED.

The old Milwaukee Repertory Theater building was built in the late 1890s. The wooden pilings beneath the Milwaukee Rep, site of a former Wisconsin Electric Power House, are sinking and so is the building.

The basement of the Rep shows the crumbling foundations.

Downtown Milwaukee is sinking. The signs are everywhere. Sidewalks settle unevenly, forcing city crews to “shave” the protruding edges of the slabs. Lateral cracks run for blocks along city streets. Manholes stick up like iron thumbs where streets and alleys have sunk around them. Curbs protrude above receding sidewalks.
Just below the surface, the foundations of scores of old buildings are rotting and shifting as groundwater levels drop, exposing tens of thousands of wooden pilings to decay. Many, such as the Mitchell Building on East Michigan Street, have required extensive repairs. Others, such as the Milwaukee Repertory Theater complex, likely will need future repairs.
“We are in real danger of losing many wonderful historic buildings,” says contractor Dennis Barthenheier, who, for more than 30 years, has made foundation rescue his specialty.
Much of Milwaukee, you see, was built on marshland that bordered its three rivers. The entire Third Ward and nearly three-fourths of Downtown stands on a swamp. Although it was filled in with dirt and garbage and the like, underneath it, water still flowed.
Most of the substantial buildings in old Milwaukee (some erected as late as the 1940s) were constructed on foundations of wooden pilings pounded into the earth, often by Edward E. Gillen Co. The pilings would extend through the filled-in dirt into the ample water table about 10 feet beneath grade and then into the swampy soil found beneath that. The pilings were expected to remain submerged and be sound for centuries. Some buildings – such as City Hall, Northwestern Mutual Life and Boston Store – have underground irrigation systems to ensure that the pilings never dry.
But in recent years, the water table has drained away, exposing the pilings of many buildings to the air. Thus, they decay – the technical term is “pile rot.” As their structural foundation degrades, the buildings could meet with catastrophic failure. That includes the 1895 City Hall, where it will cost $13 million to repair piles that had been sound for at least a century.
And as the water table is depleted, the ground above it starts to sink, causing problems for the Milwaukee Department of Public Works, which spent $40,000 this past summer “scarifying,” or shaving down, protruding sidewalk slabs in the Third Ward.
Where did the groundwater go? Barthenheier and other experts blame the Deep Tunnel: the 28.5-mile sewage and stormwater tunnel that runs 135-300 feet below the city, beneath the marshland that Milwaukee was built upon. The Deep Tunnel is divided into three sections that extend from Downtown, giving this part of the city great exposure to its effect on the groundwater. The tunnel is so porous that huge amounts of water from the old marsh are seeping into it each day, lowering the water table and exposing the old buildings’ supportive timbers to pile rot.


The tunnel originally was to have been lined with concrete, but MMSD officials decided to line only 45 percent of the structure, says Bill Graffin, the district’s public information manager. The tunnel’s later extensions were lined, but that still leaves 10.7 miles, or nearly 38 percent, of the tunnel unlined. This was a cost-saving decision made during construction as the project went over budget, Barthenheier says. He worked on the tunnel as a laborer during its creation and says the engineers decided to not line the portion of the tunnel that was dug through dolomitic limestone on the theory these stone walls wouldn’t leak. Instead, he says, “We were sealing joints with oakum and lead.” Silty water poured in everywhere, he says.


In essence, the MMSD decided it was cheaper to not line the entire tunnel and simply pump out the millions of gallons of water leaking into it on a daily basis.  The situation is now undermining the structure of the whole downtown and many areas have already had to be torn down.

734 N. 4th St. being demolished.