Though still under construction, the Midtown Center, as seen on Capitol Drive in Milwaukee, already casts a far different image than Capitol Court, which was demolished to make room for the new project.

National Survey exorcizes Capitol Court's ghosts

In the days before it swallowed a wrecking ball, Capitol Court was really just a scary, old mall in the center of Milwaukee.

That, at least, was the impression the structure, built in the 1950s, gave to Marty Worden, a senior project manager for National Survey and Engineering, a division of R.A. Smith & Associates Inc., Brookfield. National Survey is handling survey work and civil engineering in the effort to transform Capitol Court into the Midtown Center, a neighborhood shopping center that showcases new-urbanism designs that essentially turn the traditional mall concept inside out, creating a square of outward-facing stores and a more open atmosphere.

But before new urbanism, there was old creepiness.

"Anybody who knew the project right before the demolition would buy into the creepiness factor because you never knew what you would find," Worden said. "I went through some of the innards of the old mall, and there were three massive, cast-iron boilers, and the truck docks were underground. And there were guys working in these catacomb-like rooms doing asbestos removal, and there was plastic hanging everywhere.

"Then we just munched these buildings."

The project team demolished the old mall in spring 2001, started grading work and then followed that up with utility work in the fall of 2001. By late spring the next year, the 55-acre Midtown Center premiered the opening of its first phase, a 150,000-square-foot Wal-Mart and 100,000 square feet of space for a variety of shops put together in an urban town center design.

By late fall of 2002, National Survey had helped usher in the second phase of the project, a 40,000-square-foot Pick 'n Save, a Starbucks Coffee and a Culver's Restaurant.

Worden said the original plan called for four or five phases, but the owner has abandoned that approach in favor of letting leases determine the course of action. With that in mind, National Survey is now working on a new clothing store and additional restaurants for the site.

And as the project progresses, Worden said, the old site's creepiness continues to fade.

"Quite honestly, I was very dubious when we started," he said. "I thought they were biting off a lot of risk, but I'm pleasantly surprised. They've really elevated the neighborhood and redeveloped an area in the city that had problems and not a lot of services."

- Chris Thompson