Depending on which news sources you follow, Milwaukee is going through either a “renaissance” or a “reinvention.” However you want to define it, it’s safe to say that Milwaukee is currently building a lot of new and wonderful things! Here are some of them, brought to you by GTG Home Buyers!
• Remember that big plan to turn the former Sears store at 2100 W. North Ave.—a.k.a. the former Milwaukee Mall—into an 80-room Ikon Hotel and conference center? The same plan that later got changed to a brewery, art gallery, event space, office space, and apartment complex called the Sears Market”? Yeah, that one. Well, because the City has granted developer Kalan Haywood three—count ’em, three—extensions over three years to pay back a $3.75 million loan, and because the City is out $540,000 in interest payments due to the deferred payments, the City would now like to introduce legislation that will give the Common Council more power over altered tax incremental financing (TIF) agreements. The Council is expected to vote on the legislation October 10. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
• Work has begun on reimagining Zillman Park in Bay View. When finished, the park “will include 22,960 square feet of lawn area, 9,235 square feet of plaza space and 1,525 square feet of native garden area,” says [Urban Milwaukee]. “New features include LED lighting, modular seating and gathering furniture, community programming space and ‘playful elements.'”
• Speaking of parks, Milwaukee County Parks may soon start knocking down vacant buildings in its system, specifically “unused buildings and structures that have attracted nuisance activity like graffiti and vandalism.” [Urban Milwaukee]
• The fog is getting thicker, and that FPC Live concert venue planned for the Deer District is getting…smaller? [Milwaukee Business Journal]
• Looks like that former Walmart at 5825 W. Hope Ave. won’t be turned into a self-storage facility after all. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
• As part of a study into possible protected bike and bus lanes on 35th Street, temporary blockades and signs will be installed on the street between Vliet and National. [Urban Milwaukee]
• The Milwaukee Public Museum received a $10 million gift from The Kellogg Family Foundation. The money, of course, is for MPM’s new museum, which is being built north of Fiserv Forum. [Milwaukee Business Journal]
• Northwestern Mutual is gearing up for its big $500 million renovation of its downtown campus. NM will “completely overhaul its 18-story, 540,000-square-foot North Building, turning the granite-clad structure into a peer for its signature glassy 32-story tower to the south.” [Urban Milwaukee]
• It’s “time to redevelop portion of American Family Field parking lots,” says the [Milwaukee Business Journal] (and others).
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• Full “New And Wonderful Things” (formerly called “New Sh*t”) archives