The apartment development boom in downtown Milwaukee and nearby neighborhoods is showing no signs of slowing down. Several apartment buildings are under construction or have been completed recently, and new projects seem to be announced on a weekly basis.
Some of the latest apartment building developments announced downtown and in surrounding neighborhoods include:
- Greenfield-based The Ladner Group LLC plans to build an 18-story, 57-unit apartment building at 107-115 E. Wells St. The building will also have office space and a restaurant. The existing two-story, 8,014-square-foot vacant building on the site will be torn down. The site is on the Milwaukee River and adjacent to the Bronze Fonz statue. “It’s a phenomenal and iconic site at a great section of the river,” said Cory Sovine of Colliers International|Wisconsin, who was the listing broker on the property.
Rendering of the Ladner Group project. - Milwaukee-based developer James Wiechmann plans to build a 13-story, $33 million building with 153 apartments and 10,000 square feet of office and retail space at 1832-40 N. Farwell Ave. on the East Side. The building will have four stories of frontage along Farwell Avenue, including a ground floor restaurant, owned by Ardent chef and owner Justin Carlisle. There will be nine additional stories of residential, but those floors will be set back from the street, closer to the alley, east of Farwell.
- Milwaukee-based multifamily housing developer Mandel Group Inc. closed on the financing and recently started construction on its long-planned 132-unit DoMUS apartment development in the Historic Third Ward in Milwaukee. The six-story DoMUS is being built on a vacant site along the Milwaukee River in the 300 block of East Erie Street. Mandel Group has been working on the DoMUS project for several years. The firm’s original plans for the project called for a 61-unit condominium building, but that project was scrapped when the downtown area’s condo market collapsed and the Great Recession set in. “This (project) has been a long time coming. However, we feel that it has been worth the wait,” said Robert Monnat, partner and chief operating officer of Mandel Group.
- Mandel Group also recently began work on the fourth phase of its The North End project, which will add 155 apartments to the 650-unit mixed-use development along the Milwaukee River. The $200 million project is the largest concentration of new apartment development within Milwaukee’s downtown. So far, 406 apartments have been constructed. Mandel Group says it continues to experience strong demand for apartments within The North End. Completed phases of the development are 96 percent occupied.
- New York-based Whitestone Realty Capital LLC recently purchased the former Malt House and grain warehouse (also called the malt elevator) buildings at the former Pabst brewery complex for $1.6 million, allowing a long-planned redevelopment project to finally move forward. Whitestone plans to create 111 apartments in the buildings. Madison-based Palisade Property Management LLC recently submitted plans to build a $55 million, 26-story, 202-unit apartment tower on the site of the 118-year-old Goll Mansion at 1550 N. Prospect Ave. on Milwaukee’s East Side. The mansion would have to be moved forward on the site before the tower could be built.
