A large apartment building proposed for a vacant lot in the Historic Third Ward took a significant step forward this week.

An affiliate of Minnesota-based Kaeding Development Group purchased a 2.85-acre lot for $6.03 million from the Italian Community Center (ICC) according to state real estate records.

Kaeding is pursuing the development of a 258-unit, five-story apartment building on the site, located at the southeastern corner of the neighborhood. The site is located northwest of the intersection of E. Summerfest Pl. and N. Harbor Dr. It is just south of the ICC’s large surface parking lot, 132 N. Jackson St., and immediately east of the Milwaukee Ballet‘s Baumgartner Center for Dance.

The developer worked with Ramlow/Stein Architecture + Interiors to secure design approval from the Historic Third Ward Architectural Review Board earlier this year, substantially revising the design after the initial submission.

One of the most notable changes Kaeding made was to reorient the building to the north, towards the ICC’s parking lot. The city, using increased tax revenue from other nearby developments, will construct a long-contemplated addition of E. Corcoran Ave. from N. Jackson St. to N. Harbor Dr. It will also construct a sidewalk and other infrastructure along the west side of N. Harbor Dr., where there is currently only a ditch.

Three courtyards would be inset into the facade, yielding what developer Carl Kaeding told the review board in July is the visual appearance of three separate buildings. The north-facing courtyard would have a pool, a patio and grills on the east courtyard and a dog park on the south courtyard.

A 357-stall parking structure would be wrapped by the building, only visible from the west. The list of first-floor amenities that are intended to activate the building from the street in addition to attracting tenants includes a club room, coworking space, yoga room, golf simulator, billiards room, bike room, conference room, dog wash and sauna.

Known as The Coachyards, the ICC acquired the larger property from Milwaukee County in 1986 for $1.3 million. It sold the dance center property in 2017 for $2.4 million, and still maintains ownership of the majority of The Coachyards property. The site was formerly a Chicago & North Western Railway yard.

The city legally created the Kaeding lot in early November when the Common Council approved a certified survey map request to divide the larger parcel and dedicate the new public street. The only building on the site is a 6,944-square-foot warehouse addressed as 640 E. Summerfest Pl. The ICC acquired that property in 1997 according to city records.

Much of Kaeding’s past work includes hotels, but the company is also developing a mixed-use complex in downtown St. Paul.

Kaeding Building Plans

Street Plan

Weekly Recap

Nova Rises Over Van Buren

New Land Enterprises continues to reshape a key downtown corridor.

Its nine-story Nova apartment building is the firm’s latest project to rise along N. Van Buren St. Located at the intersection of N. Van Buren St. and E. Juneau Ave., the building is the third the firm has developed on the street. It joins the Lyon Court Condominiums and the recently-completed Ascent apartment tower.

The latest building uses a relatively uncommon framing material for Milwaukee buildings: steel. While steel can be found in virtually every building in the city, its use as a structural material in new apartments is relatively limited. Developers often pursue stick-frame, wood buildings constructed in a five-over-one style (five floors of wood atop a one-story concrete parking structure). The five-over-one technique maximizes the number of floors that can be legally built with a cheaper building material (traditional lumber). Taller buildings, such as The Couture, are often built with concrete. New Land is well versed in doing the unusual at this point, with Ascent also breaking the mold in an even bigger way. The 25-story mass-timber structure is now the tallest such building in the world.

Nova will feature six stories of steel framing above a three-story concrete parking podium. The resulting building will have 251 market-rate apartments.

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Harley Divides HQ Campus Lots For Future Development

There are still more questions than answers about what motorcycle company Harley-Davidson might do with its Milwaukee headquarters, but the lay of the land became a little bit clearer this month. The company completed a legal maneuver to subdivide and reconfigure most of its underused parking lots into saleable parcels.

CEO Jochen Zeitz set off a wave of speculation in October when he told Bloomberg that the headquarters campus, 3700 W. Juneau Ave., would remain “integral” to the company, but more attention would be paid to remote work capabilities.

“It democratizes the way we work together and allows you to bring the best talent into the company, no matter where they sit,” said Zeitz, who has led the company since 2010 and splits his time between Milwaukee and Santa Fe, NM.

On Dec. 13, the Milwaukee Common Council approved a request to subdivide the company’s 18.24-acre property into more parcels. The move, legally known as a certified survey map, makes it possible to sell portions of a property in the future.

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City Doesn’t Have Money To Raze Northridge Mall

Judge William Sosnay‘s early fall promises of action at the long-vacant Northridge Mall are giving way to a cold winter.

The City of Milwaukee told the court Monday that it doesn’t have the estimated $15 million it would take to demolish the mall, and the mall’s Chinese ownership group, U.S. Black Spruce Enterprise Group, continues to stall on performing the court-ordered demolition.

“Given the realities of it, and the fact that the owners of the property live outside of the country thousands of miles away, and to date have been ignoring, for all intents and purposes, the orders of the court, that places the onus unfortunately on the other side, the city,” said Sosnay at Monday’s status conference. “I think the citizens who live in that area, and this entire community, deserve some kind of response here.”

Given that the 2019 raze order has twisted and turned in court for nearly four years, Sosnay prodded both sides to state what their “final end game” is.

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Historic Commission Will Review New Downtown Hotel

Plans to construct an eight-story hotel Downtown atop what is currently a surface parking lot are moving forward.

The Tempo by Hilton Milwaukee hotel would contain 161 guest rooms, a rooftop bar and a restaurant, a first-floor restaurant and 4,600 square feet of meeting space at the corner of N. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. and W. Kilbourn Ave.

The Tempo brand is the newest Hilton hotel flag. It is billed as an “elevated lifestyle brand” with approachable, upscale amenities that help guests relax and recharge. Hilton announced in June 2021 that it had signed a development agreement and intended to open the Milwaukee hotel in 2024.

Developer HKS Holdings and architecture firm Kahler Slater filed for design approval from the Historic Preservation Commission on Dec. 14. The commission has oversight of the proposed building, 308 W. Kilbourn Ave., because it is being built on the historically-protected, former Milwaukee Journal Sentinel property.

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Milwaukee Believes Census Didn’t Count 15,800 Residents

The City of Milwaukee is formally challenging the results of the 2020 U.S. Census that show the city’s population dropped 3%, from 594,833 to 577,235, since 2010. The city believes the correct total is 593,722.

“The Census is affecting Milwaukee in more than than just undercounting our residents,” said Mayor Cavalier Johnson at a press conference Tuesday morning. There are millions of dollars on the line, city officials note.

Without a change in the total, the city would lose approximately $7 million in federal aid over the next decade and Milwaukee Public Schools would lose $14 million.

“We are here to set the record straight. Since 2010, the Milwaukee population has been relatively stable,” said Johnson, while flanked by a group of supporters.

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State Clearing 27th and Wisconsin Site For New Building

The proposed State of Wisconsin office building for Milwaukee’s Near West Side is moving forward, though only a small portion of the project has been funded.

Demolition contractor Veit is demolishing the last seven buildings on the block bounded by W. Wisconsin Ave., W. Michigan St., N. 27th St. and N. 28th St. But the Department of Administration still needs more than $100 million in funding to develop a 200,000-square-foot building on the 2.63-acre block. The Republican-controlled state Legislature stripped funding for the building from Governor Tony Evers‘ past two budget proposals.

In February 2021, the State of Wisconsin Building Commission did allow Evers’ appropriation of $4 million to purchase and clear the site to be released. In March 2021, $2 million was spent to acquire the 17-parcel site from an affiliate of Near West Side Partners. And now Veit is ramping up demolition, with some of the structures already razed.

The new building would replace the Milwaukee State Office Building, 819 N. 6th St., with most employees relocating to the new facility. Conceptual plans approved by the city in 2020 include a 200,000-square-foot office building with a 680-space parking structure. Evers proposed spending $98.5 million to advance the project in his 2019-2021 budget, but the Legislature stripped the bonding authority for the project.

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City, MATC Still Seek To Train Students in Rehabbing Homes

A 2019 idea to train Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) students in construction by having them rehabilitate city-owned, foreclosed homes still remains in its infancy, but a new group of project partners are poised to move the concept forward.

“Unfortunately with the pandemic, things changed pretty dramatically with the ability to have students in a living classroom,” said Department of City Development real estate services manager Amy Turim of the slow progress in implementing the program in her comments Thursday to the board of the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Milwaukee (RACM).

The idea, born out of Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference held in Milwaukee in 2018, relies on an approach whereby the city sells vacant homes for $1 to a private partner. That partner was to coordinate the renovation work. MATC students, supervised by professors, would rehab the homes.

JCP Construction was initially to be the private partner, but will now be replaced by Ezekiel Community Development Corp.

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