Port Washington Downtown + Lakefront Plan 

Port Washington is a city in transition. Once a blue-collar manufacturing and commercial fishing town, Port Washington (“Port”) is growing into both a visitor destination and a relatively more affordable Ozaukee County suburb within the Milwaukee metropolitan area. As a result, Port is experiencing a level of development not witnessed in at least half a century. Downtown Port has not been immune to such growing pains. Recent residential development close to the City’s marina has exacerbated long-standing fears commonplace in many waterfront towns, loss of expansive lake views, encroachment into limited marina parking, and an overall loss of character.

In 2022, GRAEF was hired to work with the City of Port to create a downtown and lakefront master plan. The over-arching goals of this plan center around two issues: successfully planning for compatible development downtown and balancing such growth with the operational needs of the marina.

To this end, the objectives of this plan are thus:

• Identify avenues to best balance growth without sacrificing the existing or desired character of downtown Port Washington.
• Balance the needs of the marina with inevitable new development and redevelopment adjacent to it. A key component being parking.
• To visually articulate a range of desired downtown Port Washington design styles.
• Showcase opportunities to improve connections within downtown and to downtown.
• Help the city avoid regretful development decisions in the future.