Vacant Lot Near Bay View Cottages For Sale

Looking for a spot to build your dream house near Lake Michigan with easy access to Downtown? A vacant lot on S. Superior St. in Bay View is on the market.

The Konicek brothers are selling a 4,972-square-foot lot at 2526 S. Superior St. that is the missing tooth in an otherwise intact row of 1860s worker cottages. The property listing includes a conceptual design for a two-story, 2,584-square-foot house. The three-bedroom plan includes an attached “mother-in-law suite” above the rear garage, suggesting the potential for a duplex, large home office or crash pad for your friends and family.

The neighborhood has seen steadily rising property values for at least two decades, owing to its walkability, proximity to Downtown via multiple routes and varied housing stock. But finding a place to build a new house often involves tearing down an earlier house, adding cost and potentially causing neighborhood acrimony.

Brothers Ryan and Chris Konicek acquired the vacant lot and one of the seven cottages in December 2020 for $230,000, triggering a historic preservation nomination for the entire row from a nearby resident who feared a teardown and larger replacement. In March 2021, the Historic Preservation Commission unanimously recommended the district be created, over the objections of the Koniceks and two other property owners. But under the request of nearby resident and area alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic, the Common Council has delayed acting on the designation. It would be officially dead in March 2023, though it has been practically dead since September 2021 when the 180-day temporary designation for the Konicek’s property, 2530 S. Superior St., expired.

Should the alderwoman and council suddenly reverse course and formalize the historic district, it wouldn’t prevent a new house from being built. It would, however, grant the historic commission oversight of the building’s design. The conceptual structure designed by Wisconsin Rapids-based Arc Central for this empty site largely matches the massing of the adjacent cottages, each of which has been expanded over time. But it does have some clearly modern flourishes, including a front porch tucked into the traditional pitched roof.

The development site was created in 1996 when the cottage on the site was demolished. A 1982 national historic designation, a less protective measure than the city’s designation, singled out what was then a row of eight cottages as the best remaining example of the company town built by a former manufacturing company. In 2021, the city’s historic commission staff affirmed that the remaining cottages are the largest intact grouping of the houses that otherwise dot the neighborhood.

“This is truly what survives as the history of Bay View,” said staffer Tim Askin of the cottages in March 2021. One block to the north, the Milwaukee Iron Company built a sprawling plant that produced rails for railroads and other iron products. It also built houses for its workers in the neighborhood, at a time when Bay View was its own city, and established a paternalistic rent-to-own agreement. The rolling mill was at one point the second largest employer in the county and, most notably, was subject to a deadly 1886 strike over an eight-hour workday. The strike resulted in the Wisconsin National Guard firing on and killing seven individuals in an estimated crowd of 14,000. Today the puddler’s cottages, a reference to the job title of the ironworkers, are effectively all that remains of the mill. The complex was demolished following its closure in 1929.

Much of the former mill complex is now the site of the curving ramps that lead to the Hoan Bridge, one of the modern perks of the area. Cupertino Park and the lake are located a block to the east, the latter undoubtedly more attractive after the mill’s closure. The eastern end of E. Russell Ave. at the park provides access to a fishing pier and a paved trail that runs south through several lakefront parks.

The property is listed for $129,000.

The Koniceks have developed or renovated a number of homes in the neighborhood, but did not respond to a request for comment on the proposed sale of the lot.

Renderings

2021 Cottages Photos