RedPrairie’s relocation story has been a funny one, especially now that it appears they’ve finally decided to move to Delafield. To understand what’s going on it appears you don’t have to read between the lines, you just have to read the lines.

Flash back a couple years and you’ll remember RedPrairie had a CEO by the name of John Jazwiec who was constantly in the news. Jazwiec was a resident of the East Side, living in a plush house near Lake Park. Rumors at the time were centered around the company relocating from a suburban location on 94 to Park East land near the Milwaukee River. A back and forth game ensued with Jazwiec claiming he was ready to move the company out of Wisconsin, because they couldn’t find the talent they needed here. Then Jazwiec claimed he was robbed in his own home and was ready to start his own police force for his block before resigning his post and leaving the area rather abruptly. The Park East plans, which appeared to be rocky at best at the time, were suddenly off the map.

Today the company is led by R. Michael Mayoras, a Delafield resident. Well guess which relocation site is at the top of the list? One in Delafield.

If we as outsiders know anything it’s that the CEO of RedPrairie appears to have a lot of power to affect where or where not the company may be located.

The damaging thing for RedPrairie in moving to Delafield is that they’re moving further away from their future workforce. It’s nearly impossible that they could have an intern from Marquette, UWM, or MSOE that would be capable of getting out to Delafield and back on a regular basis. If Red Prairie begins to complain about not being able to find the talent they need again (as Jazwiec did openly before), it’s purely self-inflicted. As MSOE, UWM, and Marquette continue to train top-notch engineers and future business leaders looking for employment, RedPrairie is moving further away.

The Urban Milwaukee authors have been closely following the destruction of the North Powerhouse along the Milwaukee River. We’ve accumulated a nice collection of photos tracking the demolition progress. The building was built in the late 1920s and used by the city to help distribute steam throughout downtown Milwaukee.

The building always looked like a potential site for development, especially with the highly successful Commerce Street Power Plant next door gleaming as the site of the Time Warner Milwaukee headquarters. Time was running short however, as the construction of the Manpower headquarters on the north side of the building had accelerated the need to do something.

The deal to get Manpower into downtown Milwaukee and a presented reason for the TIF granted to develop the Manpower building included that something had to be done to the North Powerhouse. With the Manpower building completed in 2007, the clock was ticking.

In September of 2007, it was announced that redevelopment of the building would begin later in the fall. That never materialized as costs were prohibitive Brewery Works Inc general manager Sam Denny stated.

In a better economy with a tenant lined up to occupy the 55,000 potential square-feet redevelopment may have actually occurred. Obviously the economy isn’t strong right now, and there are numerous other development projects happening in the near vicinity, including Ruvin’s Aloft Hotel just south across the block. The Aloft development already lost Cramer-Krasselt as an anchor tenant, demonstrating that there isn’t a long list of companies looking for large spaces in Milwaukee right now.

One positive of the destruction is that the building will be replaced with green space. This will hopefully be a temporary thing, as the site is still targeted for development at some point. But it will help encourage other development in the area in the meantime as the abandoned industrial feel of the Haymarket Square neighborhood is diminished and a more productive, walkable neighborhood takes foot currently led by the Manpower headquarters, Park East Enterprise Lofts, and Time Warner Headquarters.

It could have been a parking lot, but it won’t be, so Brewery Works deserves some praise for improving the neighborhood in some way.

See more photos.

Oconomowoc-based Pabst Farms, yet another development named after what the bulldozers destroy, is not limiting itself to simply encouraging commercial and residential sprawl anymore. In a move that I can only interpret as desperation (in the face of the growing trend of industrial firms relocating to the Menomonee Valley), Pabst Farms developers Developers Diversified Realty Corp of Cleveland is set to begin the construction on the first of three speculative industrial buildings. The only tenant so-far (and you think they would be rumoring them if there were others) is Fastenal Corp building a distribution that will occupy almost 25% of a 30,000 square-feet building.

Speculative industrial buildings being built in what is supposed to be a “high-end” mixed-use development? The developers behind Pabst Farms are looking like they simply wish to make a quick buck with no-thought to the long-term viability of the neighborhood with more buildings surrounded by parking lots.

Logically, pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use neighborhood design is extremely efficient because it requires fewer roads and parking stalls, requires residents to use less gas, leaves more true “green space” (untouched forests and fields, not mowed grass), and allows space to be more rapidly and creatively redeveloped in the wake of a business closing because of its proximity to other businesses and people (it’s easier to open a restaurant on a busy street, etc). It’s good for business and good for residents.

Pabst Farms seems to wish to fight this logic, take what used to be a space of large undeveloped land, claim…

Our philosophy is to build to the land, not on the land, carrying on the spirit of conservation begun by Fred Pabst back in 1906″

… and then build parking-lot-centric developments. To give you an idea of their thinking, examine this photo of their “Commerce Centre.” Judging by the developments in place already, the area has yet to become a commerce center and is simply a distribution center. A distribution center gives you images of 18-wheelers rolling in-and-out at all hours of the day though, and that’s certainly not as attractive as the wealth-generation implied by the word “commerce.”

Now picture three more buildings that will be smaller (in square-footage), but similar to the Roundy’s Distribution Center. Even more attractive, right?

Is this your vision of high-end? Certainly not mine.

That’s the industrial space. How about the commercial development?

Again, clearly designed around the automobile, not conservation.

The Staybridge Suites that will begin construction shortly at Pabst Farms will certainly more closely resemble the Hilton Garden Inn pictured above, than it will the mixed-use, parking-lot-free (uses a hidden garage) Staybridge Suites nearing completion in downtown Milwaukee. Pabst Farms adds a parking lot, downtown Milwaukee builds over one, and hides one inside the building. Not to mention that long-term construction in the Park East area will further diminish the need for parking garages, while building parking lots only encourages more parking lots in the future.

Residential space? Largely the same story.

Again, all this is done under the name of conservation and high-end development.

Interestingly enough, as Pabst Farms positions itself as a new neighborhood on former farm/green space land, a similar “Neighborhood by Design” development is going on in downtown Milwaukee. The Mandel Group is developing The North End on what used to be an abandoned factory in downtown Milwaukee. The Mandel development will include condos, apartments, retail, and office space.

The difference between the two? The Pabst Farms development decreases the amount of green space and encourages driving through natural assets. The North End encourages public, pedestrian access to natural assets and actually increases the amount of green space. Not to mention extending the phenomenally successful Milwaukee Riverwalk yet further north.

Unlike the photos above, that show parking lot and after parking lot, The North End places buildings close together, and makes them multi-level. It also mixes uses within a building, instead of across main traffic arteries.

Thankfully for the Pabst Farms development, there is still time to turn things around. If the developers choose to do so, they can build a legitimate mixed-use community, instead of building sprawling, parking lot encircled buildings that are single-use and only next to buildings used for the same purpose.

There isn’t anything wrong with the idea of Pabst Farms on paper. It’s proposed as “the conveniences and amenities of an urban area in a breathtaking Lake Country setting. Pabst Farms offers a complete living experience by integrating residential, retail, and commercial environments into one thoughtfully developed master-planned community.” The unfortunate thing is that this isn’t how it’s being built to-date. Industrial, commercial, and residential land is separated, pedestrian access within even the different single-use areas is discouraged by using long, winding roads instead of short, interconnected streets that make pedestrian travel easy, and the beauty of Lake Country is turning into the beauty of grass yards.

Thanks to our friends at Ocono.com who asked for our input on the latest news at Pabst Farms. Here’s to hoping they get it right in the future.

Dick Lincoln from the Mandel Group presented resolution 071618 which is the job training program portion of The North End development that receives funding from TIF No. 48. He explained that it would be “a little bit different than traditional workforce development” in that in focuses more on mentoring and coaching of emerging businesses to “take them to the next level.” Specifically the program will help emerging business develop business and management skills so these firms can enter into larger contracts and participate in The North End project. This resolution was approved by the committee and will go before the full Common Council.

Resolution 080209 changed the operating plan and structure of Business Improvement Distict No. 41 which represents the Downer Avenue business district. The changes would enlarged the board from five to seven members and it would adjust various line items within the proposed operating plan to allow the BID greater flexibility in their future operations. Although this resolution seems inoucous enough it gives the appearance as though these changes are connected to New Lan Enterprises’ controvsional re-development efforts on Downer Avenue. It appears this way because while Alderman Kovac has worked to expand BID No. 41 both Boris Gokhman and Joel Lee have had their appointments to BID No. 41 held in committee. This resolution was approved by the committee and will go before the full Common Council.

While it certainly sounds ridiculous, I think it’s a distinct possibility that Robert Ruvin could have prevented most, if not all of the trouble stemming from the Saturday night fiasco at RiverSplash on Old World Third Street and Water Street.

First let’s step back to the origination of the problem. What I witnessed on Friday night first hand (and what everything I read seems to agree happened Saturday) was that teenagers began to “cruise” (drive in loops, while hanging their heads out of the window, yelling, and all sorts of other stuff that the DMV would advise against) up and down Old World Third Street from Juneau Avenue to McKinley Avenue. They would frequently block these intersections and the whole area had a general sense of lawlessness to it (I biked through around midnight on Friday, I’ll vouch for the lawlessness).

The general lawlessness of cruising spilled over into the area near the intersection of Highland and Old World Third Street, where the person ended up getting shot in the foot. I witnessed this first hand Friday night, and all indications point to that same situation occurring Saturday night. The illegal activity (cruising is against the law in Milwaukee) outside of the festival, fueled insanity within the festival.

This behavior was further enabled by the vacant Park East land where the Sydney Hih building and Gipfel Brewery sit (and Ruvin is to develop upon). In fact on a night where parking is scarce, very few cars made use of the Park East land to park in, and the few that did were certainly illegal.

If Ruvin was able to start construction on that lot already, none of this probably would have happened. The north end of the festival would have been calmer because cruising wouldn’t have taken place near the festival because the lot would have been blocked off. Why wouldn’t cruising have taken place? The cruisers were using the largely empty lot to turn around.

Now don’t misinterpret my article as saying Ruvin was at fault for the fiasco, he is certainly not. But if Ruvin had fenced off the entire block (Milwaukee County may have to do this since he technically hasn’t executed his option to purchase), it would have made the corridor along Old World Third Street a little less friendly for cruising. It also might have encouraged law enforcement to stand at that end of the festival (even though it is technically outside the edge of the festival) and discourage and ticket cruisers.

It would be hard to convince Scott Walker and company to spend money when they’re not getting any in return though, so why not for the night turn it into a parking lot? Nearby parking garage owners wouldn’t be opposed to this, since they’re owned by the city. The city and county could earn some money to help pay for police officers for the event by charging for parking. Suburbanites in town for the festival would have paid for the convenience, they don’t seem to enjoy the concept of street parking.

RiverSplash will certainly continue next year. If I was in charge (paging Robert Bauman) I would do the following things.

1. Install lights above buildings to illuminate the streets (this is done in Madison during Halloween on State Street and makes it feel safer and more welcoming late at night). Cars usually provide this, but are clearly absent during RiverSplash.

2. Patrol the areas outside of RiverSplash, I felt that there were plenty of officers inside the festival, but not enough on the fringes.

3. Institute a bottle fee at bars so that drinkers pay a deposit and earn it back for their bottles. This should reduce garbage and eliminate the urge to turn bottles into frisbees and footballs. When I studied in Kassel, Germany they made good use of this policy during festivals and it seemed to keep garbage bins largely empty.

4. Look at traffic flows, especially around Highland Avenue Pedestrian Bridge. The area seems to clog up for fairly obvious reasons (it’s narrow and the street is vertically separated from the curb at one point ). See if any barriers can be put in place to encourage movement.

I look forward to attending RiverSplash next year and hopefully seeing the construction progress at Gatehouse Capitol and Ruvin Development’s Hotel Palomar.

Resolution 071564 proposed the vacation of two “paper” alleys to support the Palomar development project within the Park East. Apparently Alderman Bauman read Mary Louise Schumacher’s article in the Journal Sentinel, History lost in Park East bait-and-switch, because he stated that “I see this as a bait and switch” referring to the dramatic change in design that the Palomar project has undergone since it was originally proposed before Milwaukee County. The original design included the utilization and preservation of both the Sydney Hih and the Gipfel Brewerys whereas the latest design would demolish the Sydney Hih structure and move the Gipfel Brewery to another site. The committee voted to hold this file in attempt to exert some influence over this development. Normally the City of Milwaukee would have influence over development projects that involve land sales and zoning changes but as the new design required neither this is an unusual course of action.

Resolution 080211 was a communication from the Public Policy Forum regarding their report on the Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS). The report indicates that in coming years MCTS will have completely spent all of a $44 million reserve of funds and will be projecting deficit spending. It goes on to show how MCTS has spent capital funds to support operational budgets and by doing so has deferred the purchase of 150 new buses. These deferments have pushed maintenance costs higher and will help create a $18 to $20 million dollar hole in upcoming budgets.

Over the past couple of years I have followed the redevelopment of the former Pabst Brewery intently.  The project is under the control of Joseph Zilber, who is taking each building determined salvageable and getting it into the hands of another developer who will fully redevelop the building.

Zilber and his company, Towne Realty, are to-date doing a phenomenal job of assembling a group of developers to build a diverse, mixed-use neighborhood.  This should ensure that the neighborhood is not only a functional part of the city, but safe 24 hours a day for pedestrians.

If you’ve ever walked around Schlitz Park at night, you’ll immediately notice this is something that has yet to be achieved (that project is far from complete though, so all hope is not lost).

It’s genuinely exciting to see someone as rich and powerful as Joseph Zilber not only committed to rebuilding a Milwaukee landmark, but not turning it into a single-use silo.  He could have probably attracted a corporate tenant to occupy a large portion of the complex and made a killing building a complex for them that was largely unusable by the rest of the city.  Instead of building a silo, Zilber is artfully constructing a new neighborhood that will not only connect with the neighborhoods around it, but encourage them to grow.

With all the positive I have just spoken, I do have a few concerns over the number of buildings being torn down.  Certainly some of them had to go (large windowless structures built cheaply by Pabst), but a few of them from the outside appeared to be buildings worthy of saving.  It’s especially sad when they’re being replaced for surface parking.  A wonderful neighborhood of cream city brick buildings should not be poisoned with the ugliness of a surface parking lot.

I’ve been taking pictures over the past couple of years, and decided I should start to examine before and after shots to get a real look at what progress is being made.

Image #1 - Building 10 (former Boiler House), Building 14 (former R&D lab) and Building 15 (former grain silos)

Notes:

• The first photo is from November 20th, 2006, the second is from May 8th, 2008.
• There is a building missing in the second image.  That building is building 11, the former dry house built in 1894.  It’s one that I think was unfortunate was removed.  It will be replaced with a surface parking lot, which I think is a shame.  According to The Daily Reporter it had a collapsed roof and floor damage that would have cost at least $250,000 to being considering repair.  I would have been okay with it coming down, it’s just upsetting it’s becoming a parking lot.
• Alderman Bauman originally opposed eliminating the building if it was replaced with a surface parking lot.  He stayed true to his word and was the only alderman to vote against it (voting in both committee and in the Common Council).  It’s a shame they couldn’t get a constraint to get green space built there.
• Obviously the smokestack is gone from the former boiler house (building 22 built in 1948).  The building didn’t have the historical look of many of the buildings around it, wasn’t made of cream city brick, and adds a ton of value to the buildings around it by exposing them to natural light for the first time in years.  They saved the brick from the smokestack that contained the legendary “PABST” white letters, but the rest of that building won’t be missed.

Image #2 - Building 1 (former Tank Storage building 902 W. Juneau Ave), Building 4 (former Stock House, 1217 N. 9th Street) and Building 8 (former barrel storage house, 1233 N. 9th Street)

Notes:

• The first photo is from March 12th, 2008, the second from May 8th, 2008.
• These buildings are part of a group of six (three are behind these) being removed to create space for the parking structure.  Zilber and company were originally going to save the facades to create a shell for the parking structure, but the buildings weren’t in good enough shape to safely complete that (according to reports).
• They were demolished partially because they were not in the condition to be used for any other uses (outside of a parking garage shell).   While I would agree with this for most of the buildings in this group, Building 4 and Building 8 appear to have enough windows to be useful.  Perhaps they were the most structurally damaged, or the sides attached to other buildings were going to be able to be remade.
• What I wish would have happened (considering my limited knowledge of the situation and guesstimate of economic costs), would be that they would have demolished the four other buildings and kept buildings 4 and 8.  They could have used the extra cream city brick from other demolitions to rebuild the sides of buildings 4 and 8.  I’m guessing this was not economically or physically feasible.
• This is the largest group of buildings destroyed for the project and unfortunately a big part of what gives the complex it’s industrial feel.  I really hope the parking garage looks great.

Image #3 - Building 10 (former Boiler House) and Building 15 (former grain silos)

Notes:

• The first photo is from March 12th, 2008, the second from May 8th, 2008.
• Restoration work is clearly well underway with Building #10.  The promises of Albion Group Architects moving in by the end of 2008 by Boiler House, LLC building (Charles Trainer and Max Dermond) seem pretty reasonable at this point.
• Good to see the cream city brick being cleaned up (this is visible on the Gorman Company’s Blue Ribbon Loft Apartments just around the corner in building 9 too).  This is really going to change the view of the area from a distance.
• The billboard on the grain silos is sad to see.  I’m perfectly okay with it, if it is a temporary thing until the project is completed.  It would be sad to see it there long-term because I think it really damages the industrial feel of the area and cheapens the feel of the area.

Overall, everything going on at “The Brewery” is really exciting.  Sure, some buildings are coming down that will be missed, but it’s worth it to see the rest of the complex restored.  Zilber should be applauded for making this project happen, as should Alderman Robert Bauman for planting this idea in Zilber.

Long-term this redevelopment is going to create an area that respects and honors Milwaukee’s brew city image and integrates that history into Milwaukee’s growing urban cityscape.  I’m especially happy to see a lot of architect Otto Strack’s work preserved as it is a true Milwaukee treasure.

In ten years when construction is long-since finished (hopefully here and at Schlitz Park), the cream city brick so dominant in the build
ings around downtown Milwaukee will be one of the things that sets the Cream City apart from the rest of the cities of the Fresh Coast that are becoming increasingly homogenous as globalization accelerates.

Rumors had circulated for weeks regarding the demise of The Residences Above portion of Ruvin Developments’ Aloft hotel project. Indications such as the website for The Residences Above being down for weeks and their sales sign coming down in record time combined with the market’s downturn made it appear likely that a change in the project was coming. As of last week the final decision hadn’t been made regarding the status of the condominiums. At the time Rob Ruvin had indicated that they would “most likely eliminate the condos” and that they would “possibly increase the size” of the hotel but they were still working it out. It appears now that decisions have been made and The Residences Above have been eliminated from the project.

On December 21st 2007 RSC & Associates signed an agreement to purchase a parcel of land, known as Block 26, in the Park East Freeway corridor from Milwaukee County. It was believed at the time of the sale that RSC & Associates would break ground on two new hotels within a 90 days. Understandably development projects take a time and as this project nears its third year, finally there is a small sign of progress at the site. RSC & Associates have begun erecting the construction fence. Although this project has had a troubled history with its lengthy delays, numerous changes, and squabbling in the press, potentially this project will be getting in the ground and the next development in the Park East will begin to rise this summer.

For most of the past year Mandel Group’s $185 million The North End development consisted of demolition and remediation. A historic winter, a fire, and significant environmental issues may have slowed progress at the site but signs of actual construction can now be seen. Along the Milwaukee River a portion of a new river wall has been constructed and the process of driving piles for the foundation has started. This first phase of construction will include 83 apartments and 15,000 square feet of retail space. This summer should see this new neighborhood begin to take shape and rise out of a formerly blighted property.