Long-Vacant Riverfront Lot to be Developed

A long-vacant riverfront lot at 1120 E. Kane Pl. is being cleared for the development of “Kane River Apartments,” a three-family apartment building.

The 3,865-square-foot lot, assessed for $119,200 [$30.84/s.f.], was sold to Forged Real Estate LLC of Wausau for a hefty $290,000 — more than double the assessment — on Aug. 9, 2023. The entity is registered to Zach Tesch, who plans to develop it through his Wolverine Construction.

A July permit application indicates the project is “to include riverfront restoration,” now underway.

Tesch tells Urban Milwaukee:

We’re currently in the process cleaning up our lot as well as the neighbors [at 1118 and 1126]. We plan on putting a dock/boat slips and riprap similar to Chicago style neighbor two houses from our lot [at 1128].

As for our plans for our lot we are in the process of getting ready to put a three-story apartment building on the vacant lot. The apartment will consist of three 3,200 [square foot] units with 12′ x 25′ balconies overseeing the river. We are aiming to create an elevated standard of living on the river with luxury apartments and to increase the presence of boating in the Milwaukee community with the dock and boat slips.”

A Neighborhood Transformed

In 1875 what is now E. Kane Place was an unbuildable ravine. Within two decades, the ravine had been filled with a variety of debris from foundries and furnaces, along with soil from street-leveling projects. This created 28 riverfront lots between what is now N. Humboldt Avenue and N. Arlington Place. The lots held over 52 structures, including sheds, rear dwelling units, and one “tenement building.” Large families, largely from Poland, crowded the simple dwellings. For them, the river was not an attraction: it was the city’s sewer. It was not uncommon for children to perish from cholera each summer.

The neighborhood, generally bounded by N. Humboldt and N. Warren avenues, E. Brady St. and the river, is not connected to the city’s grid, nor are the “East Village” streets particularly well-connected to each other. This led to a sort of insularity that Wolski’s Tavern [Est. 1908] exploited when advertising its “hard to find, harder to leave” location at 1836 N. Pulaski St.

As late as the turn of this century the neighborhood was a mix of well-tended owner-occupied homes, with a great number of rental units housing a transient population.  The 19-story Riverview Apartments, owned by the City of Milwaukee, was built in 1966, on a site where a dozen homes were razed for its construction. With the exception of a number of storefronts that had been boarded up and converted to housing, things looked much the same as they had for decades.

A Crash, then a Boom

Around 2008, as the real estate market plummeted, Julilly Kohler began construction of Kane Commons in the 1100 block of E. Kane Place.

The west side of the site had held two four-family units, stacked one behind the other, and a quaint pink cottage behind a duplex fronting on the street. To the east was a vacant city-owned lot. The cottage and the rear four-family units were razed. The front one was converted into a three-unit dwelling, the duplex was retained as a rental unit, while two courtyard and three river-facing homes were built, all equipped with green roofs and geothermal heating and cooling. Kohler built the city’s first straw bale home for herself there, had her contractors finish one courtyard model for show, and left the others in “grey box” condition, with the exteriors finished, while the interiors awaited customization by future buyers. There remained two vacant lots on the street.

It took a number of years for the homes to be completed. The final vacant lot was sold in 2016. By that time Kane Commons had established that the river was a vital asset. Once-vacant lots with river frontage now house large single-family homes, while many homes in the area sported new finishes, with a number of “gut-rehabs” in evidence.

The Kane River Apartments will add yet another dock to the two that have been constructed here since 2016, after the complexities of the riverfront restoration are complete.

If you want to try your hand at riparian construction, keep walking upstream a half mile along this uninterrupted sidewalk to 1415 E. North Ave., where the former Judge’s Tavern has been razed, its site awaiting redevelopment

Brewers Owner Sued for Sand Theft

While the shoreline work at 1120 E. Kane Pl. appears to progress without issues, Milwaukee Brewers principal owner Mark Attanasio faces a lawsuit in California for his actions taken in what his lawyer calls a “fully-permitted emergency repair” to his eroding seafront home in Malibu. He bought it for $23 million in 2007, and, in 2017, added a $6.6 million vacant lot next door.

Broad Beach California, the site of the home, was once appropriately named. But the high tide line has moved landward 2.5 feet per year since 1974, resulting in a loss of 65 feet of dry sand beach by 2001.

According to The Washington Post:

…(I)n recent years sea-level erosion has washed away nearly all of the dunes in this Malibu neighborhood — turning sand into a premium commodity and a source of conflict between neighbors.

One of the neighbors on E. Sea Level Drive who did not appreciate Attanasio’s efforts to stay above water is James Kohlberg. He had video evidence of earth-moving equipment loading wet sand from the beach to Attanasio’s adjacent property, leaving a trail of gasoline behind, streaking the remaining sand. (In California, “wet sand” is public property.) His attorney provided the video to the Los Angeles County Court system, along with a request that Attanasio cease and desist such work, replace the sand and be liable for fines through his 2XMD Corporation.

Kohlberg’s lawyer said:

This case is about a private property owner using a public beach as their own personal sandbox.

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