On Wednesday evening, the Beerline Trail celebrated it’s grand opening. The 4000-foot, paved trail connects the Beerline neighborhood, North Avenue Dam Pedestrian Bridge, Commerce Street, and Humboldt Avenue bridge through the river corridor to Gordon Park and much of Riverwest. The trail will facilitate a better connection for non-motorized travelers between the downtown area and Riverwest. The trail also turns a former railroad corridor into a welcoming and accessible way for visitors to interact with the Milwaukee River.

Beerline B Apartments

General Capital Group plans to break ground on the 140-unit Beerline B apartment project, located at the long vacant corner of Commerce St. and Pleasant St., in November.

The riverwalk segment for the proposed Beerline B Apartments will go before the Milwaukee City Plan Commission on August 23rd. General Capital Group is bringing the riverwalk segment forward for approval before the entire project. The 140-unit project, which recently was awarded $2,345,310 in WHEDA tax credits for 119 low-income units, will occupy the corner of Commerce St and Pleasant St.

Harry Drea, one of the developers of the Rivianna project, was before the committee to request an amendment to the previously approved General Planned Development, and approval of the Detailed Planned Development. The change to the original General Planned Development was to include the building’s parapet, it was an increase of four feet three inches to the buildings height, but overall the massing of the project stayed essentially the same.

John and Anne Nehring will open Nehring Family Marketplace in a building owned by New Land Enterprises at the intersection of Brady and Water Streets. At 15,000 square feet the store will be the largest the husband and wife team own. The location has been the longtime home of Habhegger Wheel & Axle shop. New Land Enterprises acquired the lot in 2005. They plan to offer a flower shop, liquor store, and catering service as well as groceries, and hope to be open in late 2009 or early 2010.

1. Jazz in the Park, it’s back June 4th and despite the drama, will be just like it has been in years past. River Rhythms starts across the river on June 10th, and Chill on the Hill kicks off June 2nd.

Too often we, as Milwaukeeans, are too quick to assume all the good ideas in Milwaukee are trickling up from Chicago. That Chicago gets the latest trends, fashions, fast food restaurants (see: Sonic), and other soon-to-be-passing fads before we do.

Of course that’s not always the case, with the Quadracci Pavilion being the best example. You of course know that building better for the world renown architect that designed it, Santiago Calatrava.

Just about everyone in Milwaukee is ready for spring, right? Well in the event that you’re not, we have two pretty impressive videos to share with you that have a lot of snow (and Milwaukee) in them.

The UWM Center for Urban Initiatives and Research (CUIR) undertook the first comprehensive study on Milwaukee’s “condo boom” to understand who was actually living in the condos stretching from the northern part of Walker’s Point up to North Avenue on the East Side.

Meghan Arnold, one of the many biking santas you may have been lucky to see in downtown on Saturday, has an excellent write-up of the event complete with photos.  The story comes complete with details of a rendevous with the police and enough mentions of Diablos Rojos restaurants to make Mike Eitel blush.  Oh, and [...]