American Family Field: The Ballpark and the Menomonee Valley

Start with what is no longer running. The Milwaukee County Transit System's freeway-flyer routes, the Cream Puff Line, the Summerfest Shuttle and the Brewers Line — which provided game-day service to American Family Field — were formally discontinued toward the end of 2022, because of a projected budget shortfall in 2025. This guide names them because their absence is the fact a visitor needs, not because any of them can be caught.

Two MCTS routes that do run are relevant. Route 74, named "S. 43rd St-Miller Park Way" after the ballpark's former name, runs between Loomis/29th and 35th/Wisconsin. Route 31, "State-Highland", runs between the Milwaukee Intermodal Station and Mayfair Mall.

The Milwaukee Intermodal Station, at 433 West Saint Paul Avenue, serves Amtrak's daily Empire Builder and Borealis and the six daily Hiawatha round trips to Chicago, and connects to MCTS routes including the BlueLine, 12, 31, 34 and 57, plus the streetcar.

On foot or by bicycle, the Hank Aaron State Trail provides a continuous connection between American Family Field and the Lake Michigan lakefront, and also connects to the Ward Theatre, Wisconsin State Fair Park and the Pettit National Ice Center. It is open year-round and a state trail pass is not required.

By car, the ballpark is southwest of the intersection of Interstate 94 and Brewers Boulevard. The Brewers operate a License Plate Recognition system for all parking lots: fans can pre-purchase advance parking and activate it onsite, or buy parking onsite by QR code. Advance rates run $19 on weekdays, $21 on weekends or Cubs games and $21 on Opening Day for the Preferred Lots; $14, $16 and $16 for the General Lots; and $55, $70 and $100 for the Bus and RV Lot. Day-of-game rates run $27 and $42 for the Preferred Lots, $17 and $22 for the General Lots, and $75 and $100 for the Bus and RV Lot.

Three lots are named on that page, and each is described differently. The Molitor Lot holds the Rideshare Lot at its south end, which Uber and Lyft use and which the source says can be accessed via Bluemound Road and Yount Drive. The Cooper Lot is described as motorcycle and scooter parking. The American Family Lot is described as oversized-vehicle and bus overflow parking. The source gives an access route only for the Rideshare Lot, and this guide gives one only there.

Free courtesy shuttles are available for guests needing assistance, at select pick-up locations around the American Family Field grounds, with post-game return service from the Robin Yount Statue or the UW Credit Union Plaza Gate.

The ballpark stands on and beside the ground its predecessor occupied, and most of what is around it is either the trail, the brewery, or what County Stadium left behind.

Milwaukee County Stadium was demolished on February 21, 2001, and most of its former site is now parking for the current ballpark. The site of its old infield became a Little League park, now called Helfaer Field: groundbreaking in August 2001, opened in 2002 at a construction cost of $3.1 million, retaining County Stadium's old foul poles, seating up to 722 spectators, with 200-foot outfield fences six feet high. It is named for Evan Helfaer, and the two sources that describe the naming do not describe it the same way. The American Family Field article names the field for the Evan and Marion Helfaer Foundation, founded in 1974, and calls Evan Helfaer an original investor in the Brewers; the Helfaer Field article says only that he was a part-owner of the Brewers when they arrived in Milwaukee, and that a foundation in his name provided the funds. Both are published here rather than one being picked silently.

Three markers survive on that ground. An outline of where home plate stood at Milwaukee County Stadium is on Helfaer Field's picnic concourse. A bronze marker in the nearby parking lot marks where Hank Aaron's 755th and final career home run landed. And the Teamwork sculpture honors the three workers killed by the Big Blue crane collapse of July 14, 1999.

The Hank Aaron State Trail runs east-west between Lakeshore State Park in Milwaukee and Underwood Parkway in Wauwatosa, through the Menomonee Valley, with a northwestward spur giving access to the ballpark. It opened in 2000 with an initial one-third-mile segment near the ballpark and expanded over the following years; the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources manages it with support from the Friends of Hank Aaron State Trail, and it draws approximately 200,000 users annually. Its features include the "People of the Road" sculpture honoring Milwaukee Road railway workers, a "Bird Bike" interactive installation, murals addressing civil rights history and local heritage, and historic copper streetcar shelters originally constructed in 1929, which now serve as resting areas and information points.

The Miller Brewery Tour is at 4251 West State Street, at the site of the original Miller Brewing Company complex. Frederick Miller established the company in 1855, a year after emigrating from Germany, buying the Plank Road Brewery for $2,300; Molson Coors acquired full ownership in 2016 and continues to operate the brewery there. The tour's own site advertises "nearly 170 years of brewing history" and gives a visitor line of 414-931-BEER (2337).

Two things to know about the record behind this. The tour's hours, prices and reservation policy could not be established at all — the tour-information page returned a 404 — and telephoning is the way to settle those. And neither the brewery tour nor Helfaer Field has an independent, dated source for current operation, so this guide does not say either is open. It does not say either has closed: there is no evidence of that, and none should be inferred.

American Family Field was built with $290 million of public funds, from a 0.1% sales tax across Milwaukee County and four surrounding counties. That tax began on January 1, 1996 and ended on March 31, 2020, totaling $609 million in taxpayer contribution over the period. The state senator George Petak cast the deciding vote for the funding and subsequently lost a recall election over that vote.

Groundbreaking took place on November 9, 1996, in a parking lot behind Milwaukee County Stadium. On July 14, 1999 the Lampson Transi-lift crane nicknamed "Big Blue" collapsed while lifting a 450-ton roof section during windy conditions, killing three construction workers and delaying the opening. Total construction cost was $392 million, and the project became one of the largest construction projects in Wisconsin history. The stadium opened on April 6, 2001.

It seats 41,900 and has North America's only fan-shaped convertible roof, over a natural Kentucky bluegrass playing surface maintained with heat lamps in the off-season. HKS, Inc., NBBJ and Eppstein Uhen Architects designed it. One sourced detail about the roof is not published anywhere on this site: the source states how long the roof takes to open and close, and docs/site-builder.md §8 bars that shape of clause across this corpus, so it was dropped rather than the ban weakened for it.

The name was Miller Park from 2001 to 2020, under a $40 million naming-rights deal with the Miller Brewing Company that expired at the end of 2020. American Family Insurance then bought the rights under a 15-year agreement, and the venue became American Family Field in 2021.

The franchise began as the Seattle Pilots in 1969 and relocated to Milwaukee in 1970, adopting the Brewers name for the city's association with the brewing industry. It played at Milwaukee County Stadium until that ballpark was demolished on February 21, 2001.