Friday Photos
The Future Rises in the Park East
The Avenir or "future" is a new five-floor, 104-unit apartment building rising before us.
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Despite temperatures in the 20s, the crew from VJS Construction Services was hard at work today on Wangard Partners’ Avenir development. The Avenir is the first new housing development to be built in the footprint of the former Park East Freeway spur, on a site bounded by N. Jefferson St. on the east, N. Milwaukee St. on the west, E. Ogden Ave. on the south, and E Lyon St. on the north.
The first phase of the project consists of a $20.7 million, five-floor, 104-unit mixed-use building, with 7,000 square feet of first floor retail. In November, the BizTimes reported that, a Great Clips and Jimmy John’s have leased a total of 2,500 square-feet of space within the building. Avenir means “future” in French and the future will arrive in September 2014, when the apartments are scheduled to open.Just over a month ago the project team held an official ground-breaking ceremony for the Avenir, and our photos show work has continued in earnest.
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Great…another Great Clips and Jimmy Johns…just the kind of variety Milwaukee needs (sarcasm).
Yes, I guess I’m an old fogy, but what’s with the French-sounding building name trend? First, we had the Moderne on Old World 3rd Street. Then, the Couture, proposed for the lakefront. Now, the Avenir. My mostly-Germanic tongue has a difficult time getting around these names! And, I agree with Dr. S. regarding the retail portion of these developments. More locally-owned businesses as opposed to franchises would be nice.
More local would be nice, I’m sure the developer would have no problem… We just need more people to start the local businesses that would fill those store fronts. We can’t waive a wand and just make it happen, unfortunately.