25-story Zenith would be a bookend to Ascent apartment tower.
25-story Zenith would be a bookend to Ascent apartment tower. Back to the full article.
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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.