As historic rainfall flooded parts of Milwaukee last August, Peter Balistrieri, workplace market sector leader at design firm HGA, took his kids to Davidson Park. While neighborhoods nearby were under water, the park remained dry — exactly as its designers intended. It was a proud moment for Balistrieri, whose firm designed the park with Heatherwick Studio and the Harley-Davidson Foundation in the Near West Side neighborhood that has been home to Harley-Davidson’s former factory-turned headquarters since 1906. “Stormwater was the theme from day one,” Balistrieri told Smart Cities Dive, and it was the design challenge that shaped everything else about the park. Just west of downtown, the Near West Side — once one of Milwaukee’s wealthiest areas — is now home to affordable housing, plentiful businesses and a diverse population, according to the nonprofit Near West Side Partners. In 2021, Near West Side Partners and the Harley-Davidson Foundation brought together more than 200 neighborhood stakeholders to identify the community’s needs. “One of the outcomes of that event was a need for green space,” Balistrieri said. Harley-Davidson recognized an opportunity to put an underutilized employee parking lot to better use. “Harley quickly measured up,” Balistrieri said. “They said, ‘Hey, we have this big impervious surface just collecting stormwater. No one’s using it, and it’s not great for the neighborhood. Let’s turn it into a park.’” The paved parking lot and a vacated city street were transformed into the 4-acre park, which features 120 native plant species, a playground, a serenity garden and a 260-foot-wide multi-use events space. The park, which opened in 2024, is “a place where people can come together with friends and family to enjoy some of the wildness of Wisconsin’s incredible nature, listen to the state’s best music, or experience the energy of a motorcycle rally,” according to