Depending on which news sources you follow, Milwaukee is going through either a “renaissance” or a “reinvention.” Or maybe it’s a “reboot” or a “reimagining,” like that crappy Tim Burton version of Planet Of The Apes. However you want to define it, it’s safe to say that Milwaukee is currently building a lot of new shit.
• The vast majority of Milwaukee’s new shit is new shit that’s being built on top of old shit. But what happens when that shit spills out into the streets? We’ll find out soon if New Land Enterprises LLP gets its way. The ever-busy developer has proposed an intriguing addition to its impending six-story, 144-unit apartment building on the site of the old Hamburger Mary’s in Bay View—a pedestrian plaza that would take over less than one block of nearby E. Archer Avenue.
According to New Land co-owner Tim Gokhman, the so-called “Archer Plaza” would “improve the apartment building’s 16,000 square feet of street-level commercial space,” and would link up with nearby Zillman Park. Archer Plaza still needs Common Council approval, but the development—with or without the plaza—is slated to open in spring 2020. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
• In more New Land news, the company (along with Wiechmann Enterprises) wants to build a six-story, 48-unit apartment building on a vacant corner lot on S. Second Street in Walker’s Point. The building would join three other New Land and Wiechmann buildings (all of them currently at full occupancy), turning the formerly dubbed “Trio” development into the “Quartet.” [Milwaukee Business Journal]
• Work has begun on the $89 million project to transform downtown’s Grand Warner Theatre, 212 W. Wisconsin Ave., into the new home of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. [Urban Milwaukee]
• The new Griot building on the corner of W. North Avenue and N. Fourth Street currently houses the new America’s Black Holocaust Museum, but it will also soon house a “community development venture” between developer Melissa Goins and JoAnne Johnson-Sabir. [Milwaukee Business Journal]
• Discovery World is seeking an $800,000 MEDC loan to help with its $12 million expansion plan. That plan includes a “new pavilion on the museum’s north lawn and the repurposing of nearly 15,000 square feet inside the museum.” [Milwaukee Business Journal]
• YES: new proposals for the $247 million to $277 million expansion of downtown’s convention center. NO: any sort of funding plans for the $247 million to $277 million expansion of downtown’s convention center. [BizTimes]