Like Joni Mitchell once sang: they paved an East Side dive bar, and put up some luxury apartments. Yes, Judge’s Irish Pub, located at 1431 E. North Avenue, vacant since 2013, and once a beacon for some of the city’s finest fake IDs, will probably be demolished and replaced with the sort of five-story, 58-unit “luxury” apartment building that seems to be popping up everywhere in Milwaukee these days. On Sunday, the Milwaukee Business Journal broke the story:
Budding developer Brandon Rule has an option to buy the former Judge’s Irish Pub property on Milwaukee’s East North Avenue, and will seek approval to build apartments there.
The property abuts the Milwaukee River bluff line at 1431 E. North Ave. Rule, of Rule Enterprises LLC in Milwaukee, said he plans to demolish the vacant bar and build a five-story building with 58 luxury apartments.
“The site is very, very walkable,” Rule said.
MBJ goes on to note that Rule is in talks with an architectural review board, and that the proposed project “may have a first-floor commercial space. It will have indoor parking on part of its first floor and underground levels, with about one space for each of the 58 apartments.” Plans unveiled in 2013 to turn the space into the Irish Genie (an offshoot of downtown’s Bad Genie) never materialized.
Rule is currently focusing on a four-story, 56-unit building at South Seventh Street and West National Avenue, which he describes as “affordable.” The Judge’s project, meanwhile, is described as “market-rate,” which translates to “not affordable.”