It’s been just shy of a two years since plans were revealed to build an 11-story, 130-room “luxury lifestyle” hotel on the corner of Brady and Farwell. You know, on the site of that Farwell Point building that used to be home to a FedEx/Kinkos and a Mega Media Xchange. Well, after months of the site being fenced off, they’re finally demolishing the building. Yay!
Crews are currently on site, 1709 N. Farwell Ave., gutting the first floor in preparation for a full demolition. We checked things out on Wednesday, looking to get some photos and hoping to find a used PS2 copy of Resident Evil 4 that Mega Media Xchange somehow left behind. (No dice on the second one!)
“Transforming a notable corner along Brady Street in Milwaukee’s East Side, the 11-story, 130-room luxury lifestyle hotel will reinvigorate an underutilized site,” reads the project’s description from design firm Kahler Slater. “The development will feature a ground floor restaurant and a rooftop bar adding to the existing eclectic vibe currently found on Brady Street.”
In September, Urban Milwaukee reported that developers Michael Klein and Jeno Cataldo said there is “not yet a definitive date to start construction on the hotel.” The hotel is planned to be a Hilton Tapestry hotel.
“We’ve been trying to get a hotel for Brady Street, and the East Side in general, for a long time,” Cataldo told Milwaukee Record in January 2023. “There have been numerous projects over the years that just didn’t pan out. But when this site became available, my partner [Klein] and I were trying to figure out what to do with it. It’s really good real estate. And we kept coming back to this idea.”
As for the “WHAT ABOUT THE PARKING???” question, Urban Milwaukee notes that “parking for the hotel would be constructed across the street on a currently-vacant lot at 1744-1750 N. Farwell Ave. The zoning change requires the development team to provide 59 off-site spaces and 11 short-term, on-site spaces.”
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