The long-held vision of motorcycle giants Bill Harley and Arthur Walter Davidson is one step closer to reality now that the state is providing a $1.25 million grant to remediate the future home of the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, Wis. The grant is part of a larger plan to revitalize the city’s beleaguered Menomonee Valley area.

Last spring, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barres for revitalizing its Greenlight District, which included luring companies back to the city with TIF (Tax Incremental Financing) incentives. Through a concerted effort betwett announced his planen the public and private sectors, Milwaukee managed to secure nearly $1 million in state and federal funding to redevelop several shuttered sites along the industrial corridor.

It was an easy sell for Harley-Davidson, which started its operation in Milwaukee in 1903, outfitting a bicycle with a specially designed internal-combustion engine.

The company unveiled design plans for the 20-acresite in February 2006 and broke ground four months later. Harley-Davidson is working with a number of firms to complete the museum, including New York-based Pentagram Design; Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, the principal architects; Oslund and Associates, landscape architects; and the Sigma Group, which is serving as the project’s environmental consultant. Milwaukee-based builder M. A. Mortenson Co. is handling construction, which has supplied the city with 500 jobs.

Featuring a restaurant, café, retail shop, and exhibit space, the 130,000-square-foot, three-building campus—built on the former Milwaukee Department of Public Works site—is expected to bring over 350,000 visitors to the area each year and add more than $12.3 million to the city and state coffers. When it opens this summer, it will provide Menomonee Valley with 70 full-time jobs and generate $78 million in annual spending.

Photo: Harley-Davidson

“It’s a massive redevelopment and a great example of how the city’s moving forward,” says Harley-Davidson spokeswoman Rebecca Bortner. “We hope to strengthen bonds with existing riders and reach out to new ones.”

Bortner adds that the motorcycle company has saved every prototype since 1909, and each of them will be featured as part of an ongoing exhibit.

The money for the remediation comes from the Wisconsin Department of Commerce as part of the Blight Elimination and Brownfield Redevelopment (BEBR) program, which furnishes grant funds to municipalities, development corporations and private sector entities to support cleanup efforts.

“I’m pleased to see new energy and projects in this central city region, and I’m pleased the state can support Harley-Davidson’s vision for the museum and commitment to revitalizing this site,” Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle told a crowd of residents, business owners and officials in December.