City Land Sale for East Library Redevelopment Held at Committee

At the March 27th, 2012 meeting of the Public Works Committee, the committee briefly took up the purchase agreement between the City of Milwaukee and HSI Properties, LLC, which had it been approved, would have been the next step in the city’s effort redevelop the  East Library site.  HSI Properties, LLC ‘s intends to develop a $15-million mixed-use building, to be known as The Standard at East Library, which when developed will include a 16,000 SF condominium unit for the library, 92 market-rate apartments,  118 underground parking spaces, 40 street-level parking spaces reserved for library use, and approximately 2,500 SF of retail space.

During the meeting Paula Kiely, the Milwaukee Public Library Director, began presenting, but indicated that full approval was not going to be requested as the parties hadn’t finalize the purchase agreement.  Additionally, a request was to made to hold a special meeting of the Public Works Committee to take up this matter, but Alderman Bauman expressed concerns over voting on a significant project at a meeting that would not be televised.  The committee acted quickly to hold the the proposed land sale agreement for one cycle to allow the agreement to be finalized, and taken up at a regular meeting of the committee.