The Flushing Station blog.

Yesterday I attended a meeting also attended by a couple of commercial real estate attorneys, men whose jobs it is to read complicated leases, and understand them. At a certain point, commercial leases -- and especially that subspecies known as subleases -- begin to resemble particle physics, at least in terms of comprehensibility. "Subleases are one thing," one of the lawyers said, "but it really gets tough doing a sub-sublease." And he even spoke of the exotic, seldom heard-of sub-sub-sublease; and I could imagine that such a document would include a codicil on quark and lepton mixing from differential geometry of curves on surfaces.

"One lease took 25 hours to read," he said, half-boasting, "and had about 200 defined terms, not all of which were in the index." That took a moment to sink in. Ten times the effort involved in reading Tolstoy, one-hundredth the satisfaction. Well, at least he's paid well for his trouble.

After we were done with McKinley Beach on Milwaukee's lakefront, at about 4 p.m. last Sunday, we repaired to the coffee shop Yuriko had seen on the way there. It was only a short drive south of the beach, and across from the marina. If it were up to me, coffee shops would shrivel up and die, unless they started selling really good tea. Not even Starbuck's would stand a chance. But Yuriko has a taste for coffee.

The shop was just west of Lincoln Memorial Drive, and at the base of a wooded slope. As we discovered later, just behind that wooded rise is the neighborhood surrounding the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which might help account for the shop's popularity. Popular it was. I encountered a nearly full parking lot, a sizable line to order, and something of a wait to receive your order. It wasn't Marti Gras crowded (in that case, I would have suggested that we move on), but it was lively. Many of the patrons were younger than me, and few others had little kids in tow.

A sign on the building said Alterra Coffee Roasters. Once we were able to sit down outside at a yellow table under patio umbrella, Yuriko with her coffee, me with chai tea, and Lilly with an intense chocolate muffin, I was able to look at the building. The more I looked, the more interesting it got. It was about two stories tall, no bigger than a modest suburban house, and made of a sturdy-looking light-colored stone. Clearly, its life as a head-to-head competitor with Starbucks and other overpriced coffee venues was a recent development. Soon I noticed a date chiseled over the door: 1888.

Naturally this means that when I got home. I looked it up. This from the Wisconsin Green Building Alliance Web site:

"A joint venture between the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage District and Alterra Coffee Roasters, the project is devoted to education, ecology, and resource efficiency. The City of Milwaukee constructed the Flushing Station in 1888 to address the growing problem of 'the river nuisance.' Located on the shore of Lake Michigan, the pump was designed to move more than 500,000,000 gallons of lake water per day through a 12' diameter underground tunnel to flush the lower Milwaukee River of excessive pollution and waste. The pump is fully functional and in original condition, although it was converted from coal power to electricity in 1912.

"Currently the building is on the National Engineering Register and the City of Milwaukee Register of Historic Places. The building will be reused as an interpretive center to teach the public about preservation and conservation as well as wastewater technology. Public sculpture in the cafe and extensive sitework will educate the community about Wisconsin watershed conservation and stormwater management. MMSD is widely considered to be a leader in municipal wastewater treatment and the Milwaukee River Flushing Station, functioning but no longer in use, will serve as a fascinating wayside on the road to sustainability."

Maybe the place was too crowded, but I for one didn't see anything about watershed conservation or stormwater management in that shop. It was a nicely done adaptive re-use of the property, but as a casual observer I only observed a thriving business enterprise. I can imagine that as a purveyor of potable substances, perhaps Alterra isn't eager to dwell on the building's existence as a wastewater pumping station. Or maybe everyone in Milwaukee knows that, and it's no big deal.

Yuriko said the coffee was good. I enjoyed my chai. Lilly made short work of the cupcake.