Saving and restoring historic buildings is vital to any city. The mixture of styles, ages, heights, and character helps to create an interesting vibrant urban environment. Further, it is useful to have a mix of buildings with differing ages, because this allows for a variety of rental prices which allows new businesses to grow in old buildings. Unfortunately, these goals and ideals are far too often not why historic designation of buildings is implemented in Milwaukee.

This past Monday night a public meeting was held to discuss possible streetscape improvements to Downer Avenue and a change in the previously approved plan for Downer Avenue. The change would replace a proposed medical office building with a small boutique hotel.

Historic preservation is a good thing, when for example it is used to restore City Hall or re-purpose the Grain Exchange because it adds value to Milwaukee. Unfortunately, when in the name of historic preservation “creative lawyering” is used to save a high priced view or a surface parking lot, it isn’t such a good thing. These are just two of examples of how historic preservation laws have been distorted in attempts to stop development projects instead of saving historic structures. I believe that the spirit of historic preservation regulations are to save significant structures when possible and to encourage their adaptive re-use so these buildings can be enjoyed long in to the future.

This past year saw tension grow between New Land Enterprises and East Side residents over the proposed redevelopment of Downer Avenue. Although the issue isn’t completely resolved, as shown by the ongoing lawsuit, progress has been made towards the redevelopment of Downer Avenue. At this point the Schwartz building has been rehabbed and medical offices have been added to the long vacant upper floors.

The high profile Sydney Hih building and Downer Avenue redevelopment project were the main items on the agenda for this commission meeting.

The initial item regarded the proposed interim historic designation for the Sydney Hih building. The developer requested it to be held over and as it had been previously presented the developer had no immediate intention to demolish the building. Although SandraMcSweeney questioned how many times it could be held over and whether or not there was a limit, it was held again.

New Land Enterprises‘ $55 million Downer Ave. development project is going up quickly despite pending legal action. The first phase consists of a parking garage, designed by Scott Kindness of Workshop Architects, that includes first floor retail and has undergone numerous redesigns in an attempt to better fit the neighborhood. Despite the changes some neighbors [...]

The controversial Downer Ave area development that includes an 11-story high rise hotel/condo building and a parking garage on Downer Ave has finally broken ground. The neighborhood was polarized on this issue and certain residents were outraged to say the least but overall this is a good development for the area. The added foot traffic [...]