321 Jefferson Fills Up

The Historic Third Ward‘s newest apartment building quietly began welcoming its first residents in recent months.

Joseph Property Development‘s 321 Jefferson apartment complex now anchors the northeast corner of the neighborhood at N. Jefferson St. and E. St. Paul Ave.

The seven-story, 60-unit building is billed as luxury housing with floor plans ranging from an 821-square-foot, one-bedroom layout to a 1,945-square-foot, two-bedroom, 2.5-bath layout spread over two floors. A variety of one, two and three bedroom floor plans are available.

Rents, according to the website, start at $1,650 per month. And, if the website is to be believed, things are going well. A number of floor plans are listed as “leased out” while four have “only 1 left!” and “limited availability” for a corner unit. Furniture on the decks confirms that there are plenty of residents in the building.

We’ve previously referred to the building as the “Electric Apartments” a nod to a unique feature in its base – an electrical substation. Juneautown Substation, as We Energies refers to it, is a 30-foot-tall, concrete-encased structure located in the base of the building. Contractor CG Schmidt spent over a year constructing the substructure.

The housing-substation combination isn’t unheard of on a national scale. Robert Joseph told the Historic Third Ward Architectural Review Board in April 2018 that he knew of 29 of them, largely in places where real estate is more expensive like Chicago and San Francisco.

But it’s a first-of-its-kind development for Milwaukee. And, to all but the keen observer, it’s now a fairly invisible feature.

A 76-space parking garage and a double-height commercial storefront wrap the substation, four floors of apartments rise above it. The full building rises 85 feet above ground level.

Tenants will enjoy amenity offerings similar to many other new, high-end buildings: a fitness center, club room, outdoor deck and overnight guest suite. But the location is a key a selling point. It’s two blocks from the Milwaukee Public Market and three blocks from the US Bank Center.

The new building replaced a surface parking lot.

Joseph led the general contracting in-house. RINKA is led the building’s design.

The partnership between RINKA and Joseph is the third for the two firms. The first was a six-story apartment building on N. Prospect Ave. known as The Contour. And just a few blocks west of the substation site, the developer converted a warehouse at 322 N. Broadway into offices with first-floor retail. Joseph has completed a number of Third Ward projects.

The partners are exploring a development at the southeast corner of S. 1st St. and W. Pittsburgh Ave.

Joseph is also redeveloping a warehouse in Walker’s Point. Built in 1873 and billed, likely with a fair amount of hyperbole, as the largest hardware store in the world, the building has the hull of a wrecked ship underneath it.

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