Mandel Seeks High-Rise Subsidy

Renderings and Site Photo for The Portfolio

The Mandel Group is having trouble financing Portfolio, a proposed N. Prospect Ave. apartment tower and has turned to the city for help in closing a financing gap.

“As we have tried to work under the context of financing this without city financing, we have run into the same issues we’ve run into in the past, that I believe almost every high-rise in downtown Milwaukee is running into: The cost of rent doesn’t quite support the cost of constructing a high-rise, concrete building,” Mandel vice president Phillip Aiello told the Milwaukee Business Journal.

But the city typically doesn’t subsidize market-rate or high-end housing, and has rebuffed Mandel’s request for Portfolio in the past. Plans for the tower call for 20 or more stories and 176 apartments.

Mandel introduced a twist that has garnered interest from area Alderman Robert Bauman. The company is proposing the city use incremental property tax revenue to subsidize affordable housing. “I guess Mandel is being smart about it and throwing in a little sweetener, and the sweetener is worth it, because the reality is we have serious, serious housing issues,” said Bauman.

Walker’s Point Event Space Falls Through

Plans for a massive event space in Walker’s Point appear to have fallen through.

Brian Jost planned to convert a number of century-old industrial buildings on S. 2nd st. into over 340,000 square feet of event space for all manner of occasions from weddings to business events, Tom Daykin reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

But an application for a special use permit is being dismissed by the Board of Zoning of Appeals because it has been pending for six months.

Jost had planned to invest approximately $500,000 into the buildings at 118-122, 126 and 160 S. 2nd St.

Developer Building Speculative Industrial Building in City

Indianapolis-based Scannell Properties plans to construct a speculative industrial building at 12111–12255 W. Carmen Ave. on the city’s northwest side in the Park Knoll neighborhood.

Scannell bought the site from Archers Daniels Midland for $588,111. The developer plans to build a 150,000-square-foot building on the parcel, and  hopes to break ground next spring.

The site offers a future manufacturing tenant easy access to the freeway system, as well as the city’s pool of workers.

More Construction at Freshwater Plaza

A 3,700-square-foot building for Summit Credit Union will be built on an outlot of the Freshwater Plaza development in Walker’s Point. The new branch of the credit union will be located east of South First Street and north of East Greenfield Ave., at 1288 S. 1st St., as Alex Zank reported in BizTimes.

In Other News:

• Modjeska Theatre for Sale
• Controversial Bay View Project Moves Forward
• BMO Tower Gets Another Tenant
• Battle Coming over Marcus Center Historic Status
• Photos of the New Granary Lofts

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