Work Underway on East Side Affordable Apartments

EIGHTEEN on Water construction. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

An underutilized site along the Milwaukee River will soon house an affordable apartment building.

Without great fanfare, construction work started earlier this year on EIGHTEEN87 on Water. The six-story, 79-unit apartment building is replacing a one-story, industrial building at 1887 N. Water St., just west of N. Humboldt Ave. Sixty of the units will be set aside at below-market rates for those making no more than 60% of the county median income. Sixteen of the affordable units will be reserved for those with disabilities.

Developer Brandon Rule of Rule Enterprises is co-developing the project with Madison-based nonprofit Movin’ Out. Continuum Architects + Planners is leading the design. Emem Group is serving as the owner’s representative. Catalyst Construction is serving as the general contractor.

Fifty-three indoor parking spaces will be included in the base of the building.

New Berlin Grading started demolishing the prior building on the site in November, with a city inspector reporting the final pieces of that effort were completed in May. That building was originally constructed in 1972, long before the rest of the corridor had been redeveloped as high-end housing. It was vacant for several years.

By June pile driving for the new structure was underway. Given the site, the piles take on outsized importance in this development.

“It’s a really, really difficult site to build on,” said Rule in July 2021 when the Common Council approved a zoning change to enable the project.

The building sits atop a sizable bluff. A riverwalk will wrap the building, located high above the river to line up with that of the adjacent Riverbridge Condominiums.

It became more difficult to develop after Rule secured low-income housing tax credits in April 2020. Construction prices spiked, but the credits remained the same. The income tax credits are the central financing source for most new affordable housing in Milwaukee. Many projects were delayed by the issue.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago provided $900,000. Governor Tony Evers also created a federally-funded $20 million program designed to help close financing gaps in tax-credit-funded projects.

Using its standard partial-funding formula, the city is providing the project with $2.1 million to build an extension of the Milwaukee RiverWalk. It is to be paid back via increased property tax revenues from the tax incremental financing (TIF) district used to finance that section of the riverwalk. An additional $700,000 from the district will go to build a riverwalk to the west on the planned second phase of the River House apartment complex and for a sloped public access segment that will bridge the height difference between EIGHTEEN87 and River House.

Unlike other affordable housing projects in the city, no TIF subsidy is being used to close a funding gap.

During the zoning approval process, the building’s footprint was shifted west in response to feedback from neighbors. Then-alderman Nik Kovac publicly endorsed the project despite the objections of some nearby residents. It replaced a 2013 market-rate project planned for the same site that Kovac noted didn’t engender the same amount of negative feedback.

EIGHTEEN on Water LLC paid Carl Tomich $1.4 million for the 0.95-acre property in November.

Rule previously developed two Milwaukee apartment buildings. The buildings, SEVEN04 Place and THIRTEEN31 Place, are named for their location on W. National Ave., just east of where Rule grew up and his parents still live.

June 2021 Renderings

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Revised July 2021 Renderings

Pre-Construction Site Photos

Photos