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.
• Hilton will build an eight-story, 155-room Tempo By Hilton Milwaukee hotel at 915 N. Old World Third St.—a.k.a. the old surface parking lot of the old Milwaukee Journal Sentinel building. The “elevated lifestyle” hotel will also boast 4,600 square feet of meeting space, a first-floor restaurant, and a rooftop bar. It will open in 2024. [Urban Milwaukee]
• Riverworks Development Corp. plans to buy a 7,200-square-foot chunk of city-owned property next to the Beerline Trail at 274 E. Keefe Ave. and build a restaurant and trail way station there. The restaurant will feature “local and culturally-relevant healthy food options,” while the trail way station will be a “hub for arts and cultural programs as well as way station for trail visitors.” The $600,000 development will require the demolition and replacement of the southern half of a 2,562-square-foot commercial/industrial building. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
• A New York-based investment group “with a focus on redeveloping underperforming building” recently purchased the AT&T building in Downtown Milwaukee for a cool $30.1 million. The historic 20-story building, located at 722-740 N. Broadway, has only housed the telecommunications company for its nearly 100-year existence. An AT&T spokesperson says the company will lease back space in the building and has no immediate plans to move. [Milwaukee Business Journal]
• A cleverly named Los Angeles-based investment group called 733-737 N. Milwaukee St. Mke LLC purchased a vacant building at 733-737 N. Milwaukee St. (natch) in Downtown Milwaukee and plans to build a food hall there. If all goes well, it will be the city’s 8,000th food hall. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
• Reminder: The Milwaukee Public Museum as you know it (and have known it since 1963) is not long for this world. The new museum—which will also house the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum and will apparently be renamed the Wisconsin Museum of Nature and Culture—will set up shop next to the Fiserv Forum at North Sixth Street and West McKinley Avenue in the next few years. The project is getting a cool $40 million in state cash, too. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
• The owner of the Ambassador Hotel, Rick Wiegand, has sold a bunch of his other west side properties and will use the cash “to fund a new, extended-stay hotel, the Grand Avenue Suites, in the former Wisconsin Avenue School, 2708 W. Wisconsin Ave.” [Urban Milwaukee]
• And what did we learn this week? Well, they’re always building something. Isn’t that right, old song from my old band?