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 and wonderful things.
• A new seven-story office building in the Haymarket neighborhood isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A new seven-story office building in the Haymarket neighborhood made out of mass timber.
Yep, Milwaukee sure does love its mass timber. Sid Grinker Restoration wants to build the modestly sized mass timber office building on the corner of Vel R. Phillips Avenue and Walnut Street, kind of in the area between Fiserv Forum and Bronzeville, kind of where the new Milwaukee Public Museum is being built. And while the seven-story mass timber building won’t be as imposing as Milwaukee’s 25-story Ascent mass timber tower—a.k.a. THE TALLEST MASS TIMBER TOWER IN THE WORLD—it’ll have first-floor commercial space, so there’s that. Oh, and it will be made out of mass timber! Mass timber, people! Mass timber! [Milwaukee Business Journal]
• A new East Side apartment tower isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? Eight thousand new East Side apartment towers.
Okay, just two, but still. The first, from New Land Enterprises, is a 24-story, 300-unit apartment tower planned for the parking lot behind the Mexican consulate building and the shuttered Renaissance Place event venue, on the 1400 block of Farwell. The plan is still in its early stages. [Urban Milwaukee]
• The second new East Side apartment tower is just blocks away, at 1550 N. Prospect Ave. That’s where Madison-based Willow Partners LLC plans to build a 25-story, 192-unit behemoth. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
• An affordable/workforce housing development may be built on an empty lot in the Deer District, where the old Sydney HiH building once stood. [Urban Milwaukee]
• Meanwhile, in another district, work has begun on the 99 affordable housing units that will be part of the Iron District. [Milwaukee Business Journal]
• Per the Historic Preservation Commission, the design of a proposed eight-story, 161-room Tempo by Hilton hotel at 308 W. Kilbourn Ave. will be refined. The site is a former parking lot for the old Milwaukee Journal Sentinel complex—a complex that has since been redeveloped into apartments. [Urban Milwaukee]
• The single non-bar in the bar-laden Water Street nightlife district—the A. Werner Silversmiths Inc. building—is going to be a bar now (Water Street University). [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
• Plans for a new location for Foxtown Brewing AND A NEARBY DOG PARK along the Milwaukee River are moving along nicely. [Milwaukee Business Journal]
• Plans for a new 32-bed youth prison on the site of the old Lincoln Hills facility are moving along, too. [Urban Milwaukee]
• So long, Jackson Park boathouse; hello, Jackson Park open-air pavilion. [Urban Milwaukee]
• So long, “unusual Art Deco-style building on Milwaukee’s Historic Mitchell Street”; hello, “you’re getting razed to make room for new and wonderful things (apartments).” [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
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