A long-dormant downtown Milwaukee parcel is again being touted as a redevelopment site by city officials − this time with some added attractions that could help draw a new project.

The city-owned 55,626-square-foot parcel, now a parking lot, is located south of West Wisconsin Avenue between North Phillips Avenue and North Fifth Street. The city's listed selling price is $3,335,000.

The city Redevelopment Authority is issuing a request for proposals for the site − which the authority calls "one of the most unique transit-oriented development opportunities in the Midwest."

Its advantages include a location just across Wisconsin Avenue from the expanding Wisconsin Center convention facility, to be renamed the Baird Center.

Also nearby are the future Fiserv Inc. headquarters, the Hilton Milwaukee City Center, a new Kohl's store coming this fall and the future Vel R. Phillips Plaza, which is being developed near the southwest corner of Phillips and Wisconsin avenues.

The plaza, to open in 2024, will include a 2,900-square-foot food/beverage retail space, a garden, space that could host farmers markets, food trucks or other community events, an informational kiosk, public art installations, and a station for Milwaukee County’s East-West Bus Rapid Transit line.

The plaza is being built with $15.75 million in city funds under a proposal approved this spring by the Common Council and Mayor Cavalier Johnson. It is using a portion of the parking lot that previously was part of the development site.

The city has tried several times over roughly the past 25 years to draw developments to the site − once home to the Randolph Hotel that the city bought and demolished in 1985.

The Randolph Hotel had for decades been a home for people with low incomes. And its parcel was seen as a prime development opportunity by then-Mayor Henry Maier's administration.

Those development plans failed to materialize. And several attempts since 1999 to attract developers haven't resulted in new construction.

That includes two rival proposals submitted in 2016 by Marcus Corp. and Jackson Street Holdings LLC.

Tom Daykin can be emailed at tdaykin@jrn.com and followed on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee site near downtown Baird Center again seeks development