New Land Plans 25-Story Apartment Tower

New Land Enterprises is pursuing a project to replace a Farwell Avenue parking lot with a 24 or 25-story, amenity-rich apartment tower.

The building, which requires a zoning change, would have approximately 300 apartments.

New Land managing director Tim Gokhman, in an interview, said it would be part of a new generation of high-end rental buildings coming to Milwaukee.

Those buildings, including New Land’s recently completed Ascent tower, often include swimming pools and other amenities made feasible by their scale.

Others referenced by Gokhman include The Couture, 7Seventy7 and 333 N. Water St., all located in Downtown or the Historic Third Ward.

“There are people that want to live on the East Side and not Downtown,” said Gokhman.

He said it was too early to get into specific amenities planned for the building, in part because of what could happen with the rest of the site.

It would be located on the 1400 block of N. Farwell Ave., behind the Mexican consulate at 1443 N. Prospect Ave. and Renaissance Place event venue, 1451 N. Prospect Ave.

“One of the critical conversations that we are going to have is how we reactivate Renaissance Place,” said the developer.

The event venue closed in 2022. New Land hopes to find a new operator that could potentially reconfigure it as a social club with coworking space, lounge space or other amenities that could be leveraged by residents of its proposed building.

“We are focused on finding a partner right now,” said Gokhman. The Mexican consulate would continue to operate in the building under a lease agreement.

Consistent with its other recent projects, New Land is working with Korb + Associates Architects on the design. It would be a concrete high rise, similar to many other residential high rises.

Its Ascent building, the tallest mass timber building in the world, has an indoor swimming pool, sauna and 25th-floor bar and club floor.

The building still needs to undergo review from the Department of City Development and would be subject to a public hearing before the Common Council.

“It’s a great location and I hope we can find a way to put in some mixed-income housing there,” said area Alderman Jonathan Brostoff. The newly-elected alderman has championed finding ways to expand the supply of affordable housing on the East Side.

The 20,000-square-foot Renaissance Place building was constructed in 1907 as a home for First Church of Christ, Scientist under the designs of Solon Spencer Beman. The consulate building was constructed in 1950 as a school for the former church.

They are currently owned by affiliates of Taxman Investment Company. Gokhman said the final development site, similar in size to Ascent, is approximately 0.6 acres.

The proposed tower would be located a block southwest of the proposed 1550 building, a 25-story, 192-unit apartment tower. That project is estimated to cost $69 million and involves relocating the historic Goll Mansion on the site. New Land is one of several firms that once contemplated placing a tower on the site.

Further north on N. Farwell Ave., New Land has developed or rehabilitated several buildings. Urbanite, its most recent Lower East Side development, houses the firm’s offices and 153 apartments at 1840 N. Farwell Ave. It also developed The Sterling (1550 E. Royall Pl.) and The Abbotsford (1920 N. Farwell Ave.), secured approval for the Latitude apartments (1857 E. Kenilworth Ave.) and rehabilitated several existing buildings.

Renaissance Place

Consulate Photos

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