A five-story apartment building is being proposed for Milwaukee’s Reed Street Yards, where the city and General Capital Group have spent the last three years working to develop a water technology business park.
Linden Street Partners, which has offices in Pittsburgh and Santa Ana, California, has submitted plans to the city for a mixed-use building at southwest corner of South 2nd Street and West Oregon Street.
The $16.5 million project, to be called The Yards, would include 87 one- and two-bedroom apartments and approximately 2,000 square feet of ground-level retail space.
Fox Point-based General Capital Group would be involved as an investor, said Scott Richardson, company founder and managing partner.
The project will be similar to Linden Street’s other Milwaukee development, The Quin MKE, currently under construction at the northeast corner of Florida Street and South 2nd Street, just southeast of the site for The Yards. The Quin is a five-story mixed use project that includes ground-floor retail and 70 apartments.
“In a lot of ways, this is phase two of an overall combined project,” Richardson said. “Even though this will have a different name and a different look, it will be managed as one so there will be some good operational efficiency on the business side.”
About half of the apartments in The Yards will be standard one-bedroom apartments. A quarter of the apartments will be “junior” one bedrooms, that will be about 600 square feet, and the remaining apartments will be two-bedrooms.
Prices will average $1,500 to $1,600 per month. The second floor of the building will feature a shared club house and south-facing outdoor deck.
Milwaukee architectural firm Rinka Chung Architecture is designing the project. Rinka Chung also designed The Quin.
“We are long-term believers in the Walker’s Point neighborhood,” Richardson said. “There has been a lot of activity in Milwaukee, but relatively little here. We think we can fill a need in Walker’s Point.”
Richardson said he is also excited about the possibility of future office tenants being recruited to the Reed Street Yards development.
Reed Street Yards, is a 17-acre former rail yard in Walker’s Point that was developed into a business park by General Capital Group and Peter Moede in 2014 with the intent to create a hub for the water technology industry.
In 2013, The Global Water Center at 247 W. Freshwater Way opened. The following year, the Riverwalk along the Menomonee River Canal and a public plaza, landscaping and public parking was completed creating a public/private venture fund to provide incentives for new business developments in the Reed Street Yards. At that time, the city approved a $7 million tax incremental financing district for Reed Street Yards.
In 2015, Zurn announced it would move its headquarters from Pennsylvania to Reed Street Yards and brought 120 jobs to the city. Zurn received a $1 million grant for site issues and a $900,000 forgivable loan for relocation expenses.
Brookfield-based Fiserv Inc. is considering moving its corporate headquarters to Reed Street Yards or The Corridor development in Brookfield. The firm has not publicly commented for several months on its intention.
“We think Fiserv would be a plus and are hoping that it happens, but we did not base our decision on that,” Richardson said. “We are just pleased to be part of the overall Reed Street Yards project and want to be involved in the overall development.”
