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 (hold on to your monocles, everyone who complains about this column every other week) new shit.
• Want some affordable new shit for a change? You’ve got it: A whopping 210 below-market-rate apartment units may be included in a 300-unit complex planned for Milwaukee’s Harbor District. The developer behind the project is Kenosha’s Bear Real Estate Group. The group plans to purchase a 10-building industrial complex at 147 E. Becher St., which used to be the Filer & Stowell complex. According to Urban Milwaukee:
A document presented by Bear calls for 151 one-bedroom units (priced from $471 to $1,258 per month), 101 two-bedroom units ($566-$1,510) and 48 three-bedroom units ($654 to $1,744). All of the three-bedroom units would have direct access as townhomes, while the other units would be in larger apartment buildings created from the historic manufacturing campus. Engberg Anderson Architects has been retained to guide the design process. No new buildings are currently planned.
If the project goes forward, it would be the “largest private affordable housing development in Milwaukee’s history.” [Urban Milwaukee]
• Remember the old Buca di Beppo restaurant at 1237 N. Van Buren St.? The same Buca di Beppo restaurant at 1237 N. Van Buren St. that closed in 2017? Well, the site of the former restaurant—along with the adjoining parking lot and former Bally Total Fitness—will soon be redeveloped into…something. Milwaukee restauranteur Johnny Vassallo currently owns the site and wants to put a high-rise apartment building there; however, developer New Land Enterprises has a purchase option on the site until June 1, 2021. New Land has yet to reveal any potential plans for the site. [Milwaukee Business Journal]
• A development firm owned by Milwaukee Bucks guard Pat Connaughton has acquired a two-story mixed-use building at 1737 N. Palmer St. and plans to build a new four-story apartment building there. Also, Connaughton isn’t interested in any “hate” directed at a project that, according to a Twitter user, “displaces 6 small businesses all women and minority owned, during a pandemic.” [Milwaukee Business Journal]
People will scream about the hate and whisper the praise.. just keep on keeping on 🙏🏼 @WithUs_5 https://t.co/HonrfdQmDS
— Pat Connaughton (@pconnaughton) November 1, 2020
• Work has begun on THIRTEEN31 Place—a.k.a. an 89-unit apartment building at 1331 W. National Ave., complete with 74 below-market-rate units—and Urban Milwaukee has the pictures to prove it. [Urban Milwaukee]
• Work is wrapping up on the Bradley Symphony Center—a.k.a. the new home for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra at 200 W. Wisconsin Ave., complete with the Allen-Bradley Hall “for concerts and other spaces for eating, drinking and socializing”—and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has the pictures to prove it. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]
• The 44-story, $180 million Couture high-rise apartment building on Milwaukee’s lakeshore has been in various stages of development (or non-development, as it were) since…good grief, 2012. Now, it’s been announced that the building’s first-floor transit center could be up and running by…good grief, the end of 2022. [Milwaukee Business Journal]
• Anyone want to put some new shit on the one-acre vacant lot across from the Milwaukee Intermodal Station? Anyone? Anyone? [Urban Milwaukee]