‘Signature’ Condo Tower Planned for Downtown Milwaukee
25-story Zenith would be a bookend to Ascent apartment tower.
Zenith. Rendering by KORB.
Milwaukee could be on the verge of seeing something it hasn’t seen in two decades: a new condominium high-rise.
While the city has seen a wave of apartment towers constructed, culminating in two more than 30-story buildings completed in 2024, the city’s supply of new housing for sale in Downtown has been effectively zero since the Great Recession.
One development firm, New Land Enterprises, is now making a big bet that the market is ready for change.
On Monday, New Land unveiled plans for Zenith, a 25-story, 226-unit tower. The building would be constructed at 711 E. Kilbourn Ave., a vacant lot across from New Land’s record-setting Ascent mass timber apartment tower.
The company, one of the leaders in Milwaukee’s prior urban condo boom that began in the 1990s, believes the market has matured, creating demand for new owner-occupied downtown housing units.
A growing demand for new condos and rising prices for existing housing have made the development financially feasible, said Tim Gokhman, New Land’s managing director, in an interview. The shift, he said, has happened dramatically over the past three years as housing prices have matched construction prices and demand for new owner-occupied housing has grown.
The building would be a “signature condo tower,” said Gokhman. It would offer amenities and building systems not found in other buildings, and at a price point New Land believes other buildings can’t match.
“It’s a luxury building, no question about it, but it is really optimized for efficiency,” said Gokhman. “With a luxury building, with this location, with these amenities, we get a pretty attainable price point.”
One-bedroom units would range from $458,000 to $655,000; two-bedroom units would range from $772,000 to $1.2 million; and penthouse units, with 1,997 to 3,670 square feet, would range from $1.8 million to $3 million.
Zenith would include an indoor/outdoor pool atop the parking podium, a sauna, an outdoor terrace with fire pits, a rooftop deck, a pet spa, a golf simulator and a two-story fitness center. Building staff would always be on site.
Some combination of the amenities can be found in many other new buildings, including Ascent, but Gokhman believes the total offering and ownership option will differentiate the building from both existing apartments and condos.
“There’s a segment of the population that has a strong preference for ownership, and right now they don’t have an option at all,” said Gokhman.
Compared to Kilbourn Tower and University Club Tower, two existing condo towers with a few dozen units each, the Zenith units would be smaller, said Gokhman, but the amenities and building systems would be better because of the number of units and the availability of modern technology. The indoor/outdoor pool with skyline and lake views, he said, would also be unmatched.
“In many respects, you’re chasing a different market,” he said of the two lakefront towers chasing only the very top of the market.
New Land hopes to presell 50% of the units before breaking ground in 2027.
Korb Architecture is leading the building’s design. A general contractor has not been named.
The tower would use a concrete design with no beams, a feature intended to make the units’ interiors more attractive to residents. “You have to be very intentional with your floor plan design,” said Gokhman of achieving the design. He said the beamless design is something prospective luxury buyers are looking for.
The choice to use concrete over mass timber, an engineered wood product that New Land believes gives Ascent an aesthetic advantage versus other apartment buildings, was deliberate to achieve the beamless design.
“Ascent is one of a kind, and it is going to be very difficult to repeat,” said Gokhman. He said the gap between mass timber construction costs and concrete construction costs are dramatic. New Land, he said, continues to look to develop mass timber buildings in other markets.
Gokhman is confident his company has the experience to handle the transition back to for-sale housing from rental housing. “You’re selling a unit to someone. That’s a very different process than renting a unit,” he said.
Falk Ruvin Gallagher is leading sales for the tower. A presale website was scheduled to launch Monday evening.
New Land has long eyed housing for the site. The site was initially rezoned in 2008 for The Bookends development, which envisioned a 19-story apartment tower on the site and a neighboring lot. That proposal did not move forward, but the special zoning designation remains.
New Land, in 2022, sought to develop a small food truck park on the site, but those plans never progressed after a license was initially requested. A zoning modification was made in 2025 to allow Ascent residents to have gardens at the site.
The last condo plan to receive zoning approval, The Fifteens at Park East, called for 15 large townhomes just north of Downtown. It was approved in 2024 and canceled in 2025. A proposal for the Haymarket area near Deer District could include condos, but plans have yet to be publicly introduced.
Renderings
2022 Site Photos
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This is exciting!
oh, goody, another luxury condo giant building. i thought colture cured us.
Oh joy! Another playground for the swells, while many MKE families are paying over half their monthly income on housing costs.
As someone committed to living in or near downtown, I am all for new condo housing in that area, but the “unmatched pricepoint” claim is laughable. At the very least, I say nix the 2 story gym and replace it with a couple more units to help lower the overall per unit pricepoint. If people want exercise equipment, they can buy home equipment or join a local gym.
Just over 25 years ago an upstart development team of immigrants, two husbands and two wives, shook up Milwaukee’s sleepy, risk averse development community by building the first multi-unit, multi-story condo building in a generation on a small urban brownfield site at Lyon and Van Buren. No city subsidy. No city free land. This was a time in which Milwaukee’s “smart”, experienced, seasoned developers were chasing suburban sprawl and wouldn’t touch Milwaukee without tons of subsidy that reduced risk to nothing.
New Land built Lyon Court at a time in which everyone was asking “who the hell is going to pay $400,000 for a condo off Brady Street. Well, the answer seemed to be EVERYBODY! The next 10 years (until the financial crash of 2008) set off a condo boom that led to the renaissance of our downtown and East Side. Those sleepy developers quickly became eager to build on every parcel of land they could get their hands on and get in on the action. The wealth creation for long time property and home owners and for the city at large was critical to fending off further population loss and the city actually saw growth in population and home ownership for the first time in decades. The transformation of the Milwaukee River valley, the Park East corridor, Brewers Hill, the lower East Side and Downtown made the city the place to be. Unfortunately, anti-development, NIMBY leadership killed that momentum in the 2010’s. The bright side of that coin is that it led to investment in Bay View, Walker’s Point, the Near West Side, West North Avenue and Vliet and to the stabilization of other neighborhoods.
Now, New Land once again takes the lead, with no city subsidy, to build the first multi-story, multi unit condo building in a generation. A beautiful building at arguably the finest location downtown. The usual suspects, ludites and anti-urbanites will complain about “more condos” and ask “who will pay $750,000 for a condo in downtown??? Hopefully the answer once again is EVERYBODY!! And we see another building boom in our city. Growth is good. Wealth creation is good. More housing at any price range is good for those looking for housing at every price range. Let’s hope that another decade of investment and growth in the core of our city is what we experience as new developers emerge and follow New Lands lead. Again.
Very disappointed to hear this news! Since when do we need another luxury condo in the heart of our city?! What we do need are attractive, affordable apartments that the average working individual/family can afford with walking distance to various amenities. New Land needs to develop a conscience.
Glad to see this vacant lot in my neighborhood finally getting developed. It means new tax base for the city, new neighbors, new customers for business and potentially, new friends.
I don’t get the complainers on here. This is the first major condo development in a generation. So what if they want to build a luxury building. There’s a lot of affordable/workforce developments under construction or in design; there aren’t enough, but the amount isn’t insignificant. And this building is certainly going to pay one of the highest amounts of property taxes in the city which will subsidize affordable housing and city services. The people who live here will also pay sales taxes. Also, if New Land thinks that condos can be build profitably again, they’re likely not the only ones. If this development is successful, we could see a bunch of new condo projects developed at various price points. Hell if the demand exists, the city could amend its TIF policy to include affordable condos as well.
You may not live on the eastside or downtown but there are tons of ‘luxury; condos available. I’ve lived in this same area for 60 years. We need more affordable units–not luxury condos. I used to own one of those condos and would never do that again.
Let’s see, the first new condo building in like forever on a current vacant lot, adds to the tax base (maybe to help fund other affordable housing projects which do require government support), more density downtown, more people spending money downtown, a more vibrant downtown. Sure, I can’t afford one of these units, but I’m cool with that if it makes the city stronger which then makes other affordable options easier to finance. I can still enjoy downtown surrounded by high end abodes and the homeless – all part of urban living. I don’t drive a Mercedes either, I suppose I could lament that they don’t switch to making affordable cars, but I’m good with my 10-year-old Ford. I’m not sure it is as simple as affordable vs luxury when one requires tax subsidies, and the other is private capital. We need a healthy mix of everything, and the finances to make it happen. As for affordable, please do consider looking at houses in Sherman Park – outstanding affordable housing stock needing some TLC 10 minutes from Downtown and good public transit.
Love this project. Ultimate “strong towns” project with 225 units of housing and $125 million (?) of new tax base created on a 1/6-acre vacant lot without subsidy, and likely without requiring one-foot of new sewer, water, or road, infrastructure (versus 1/4-square mile of farmland being lost and millions of new infrastructure required to built and maintained in perpetuity to construct a similar number of units in a new subdivision on the edge of the metro area). More property taxes (probably $2.5 million per year) in the city in the metro area with the greatest need for additional funding for schools, police, neighborhood programs, etc. Also – the reconstructed NML building looks pretty awesome in rendering #10.