Once-abandoned Pabst brewery has become active neighborhood
Once-abandoned Pabst brewery has become active neighborhood Back to the full article.
You must be an Urban Milwaukee member to leave a comment. Membership, which includes a host of perks, including an ad-free website, tickets to marquee events like Summerfest, the Wisconsin State Fair and the Florentine Opera, a better photo browser and access to members-only, behind-the-scenes tours, starts at $9/month. Learn more.
If you are an existing member, sign-in to leave a comment.
Have questions? Need to report an error? Contact Us
This area has filled in rapidly in the last few years. What has been the biggest accelerator, the economy or the political atmosphere?
Jeffrey, multiple developers have been involved with various projects. The pace of development seems to be partially based on incremental drivers. For example, Jackson’s, Brewhouse Suites and Best Place have been big successes, thus bringing more activity and interest. Historic tax credits have also served as incentives for repurposing buildings. Several projects serve higher education (UWM, Cardinal Stritch and student housing for multiple institutions). The food court will serve student and other populations, so it’s all related.
Jeramey: That’s good news about the park. Do you know if it will be considered a “privately owned, publicly accessible space”? That requires having a public easement. Or will it be a community space for the use of residents, or a traditional publicly owned park? Each has value but functions differently.
@Virginia – The park will be managed by the neighborhood improvement district that also manages Zilber Park. I don’t know off the top of my head if the NID also will own the park. They are effectively public parks to the end user, although I would suspect they vary in a few ways from a county-owned park.
@Jeff – I think there are a number of factors. First, Joseph Zilber had the bold vision to attempt the project and buy the entire complex (with the exception of Best Place). Second, the city wisely rejected the entertainment district TIF plans, and supported a TIF for Zilber’s plans. Zilber contributed personal funds to seed at least one of the projects (the UWM Zilber School of Public Health). They also built a large, central parking garage shared by all of the tenants.
Second, the tax credits have certainly helped, but things were moving incrementally before that. WHEDA low-income housing tax credits helped. EB-5 financing is a huge driver. If there is a financing method out there, Zilber Ltd and partners have found it and utilized it.
The project is impressive not only for its diversity of uses, emphasis on preservation and pace at which it happened (during a recession), but in addition for where it happened. Sure the brewery is “downtown,” but it’s less than two blocks from public housing, a jail, homeless shelter , and welfare center. Not exactly a developer’s dream. Yet, they’ve made it work and hopefully in due time will drive investment in the adjacent neighborhoods.
The success makes it that much more head scratching why Milwaukee County was unable to do much of anything with the western Park East land before ultimately selling to the Bucks. Kudos to Zilber.
It took a Master Developer like Zilber to get the ball rolling and a huge leadership commitment that we will do this. The City of Milwaukee did their part with tax incremental financing. Dan McCathy was hired as the lead project manager, and had previously held a similar position with Milwaukee. Dan had a lot of history and knowledge about the properties and potential directions for development.
The entire project sought LEED Neighborhood, and attained Platinum status. Many of the individual projects attained levels of LEED status. Again, this did not happen by accident.
During my career at We Energies till 2010, we ran a New Construction Program to support projects that attained higher levels of efficiency and a few projects took advantage. Support funding was also provided for the parking structure LED lighting along with a study of the benefits. http://www.seventhwave.org/publications/adjusting-lighting-levels-commercial-buildings-energy-savings-institutional-tuning
http://www.thebrewerymke.com/
The Third Ward and Menomonee Valley are other successful neighborhood wide projects that when started, were laughed off by many as impossible. We have now seen the impossible take place at least three times in Milwaukee over a short time span of about 10-15 years for each major development to come to fruition. And all still have projects ongoing.
This does not happen by accident and takes positive cooperation and effort by public, private interests, universities and non profit organizations.
Having worked in the complex for two years, I’d like to say that it will be a godsend when retail fills in. It’s like a prison on a hill right now.
Some challenges for this entire location exist. It is blocked off by freeway to the west and roadway to the north. MATC and government buildings to the south, and lack of connecting development to the east. So it still remains kind of an island. Traffic flow, bus connections, and development to the east could improve this fragmented connection.
Third Ward and Menomonee Valley were similar islands and connections were improved. All are still a work in progress.
Let’s not forget that the original “Pabst City” plan called for demolition of many of the old buildings, including the church. Advocacy by the historic preservation community helped kill that awful plan. This project is a model of how old, seemingly too-far-gone buildings can be brought back to life, creating distinctive places in the process.
My mother lives in a VERY ACTIVE senior housing project on 9th. I think the elders in the neighborhood lend to the character it is developing. They are frequently contacting representatives to improve bus stops, add lighting etc. Brewery Point Apartments is also LGBT senior friendly.
The Brewery 1
When are you guys going back
to update when the old German
Church/ Pabst Microbrewery.
Thanks, Thomas burns
@Thomas – We’ll be back real soon. It’s been near the top of the list for quite awhile. Not this week, but hopefully next.