Dan Druml, the Milwaukee franchisee for Paul Davis Restoration, plans to redevelop most of two blocks near the Park East corridor in downtown Milwaukee. The blocks are bounded by West McKinley Avenue, North Sixth Street, West Vliet Street and North Eighth Street.
Druml, who formed McKinely Avenue LLC for the 5-acre, $16 million redevelopment project, which is called Haymarket Square, plans to create a campus on the two blocks with extensive landscaping, 400 to 500 surface parking spaces and decorative lighting. The power lines will be buried and the buildings will be renovated with upgraded finishes creating a consistent theme between them. Two or three buildings will be demolished to clear space for parking spaces.
The surface parking spaces in the Haymarket Square plans take up a large amount of space in the planned campus, but they are necessary for the project to succeed, said David Ferron, Druml’s property and real estate manager.
“This area of the city has no parking,” Ferron said. “To attract a tenant to the (project’s) main building, parking is critical.”
McKinley Avenue LLC already owns the eastern block of the two Haymarket Square blocks and it plans to purchase the southern two-thirds of the western block from two owners, Trade Tech Inc., which moved its operations to Hartford, and Trade Design Inc., which will continue to occupy its building at 1324 N. Eighth St. The northern third of the block is occupied by part of the Hillside Terrace public housing development.
Haymarket Square will be anchored by the redevelopment of the former Milwaukee Journal Sentinel garage at the corner of 6th Street and McKinley Avenue, at the southern end of the eastern block of the project. The entire first floor of the 2-story, 67,500-square-foot building would be occupied by Everest College, a private college owned and operated by Santa Ana, Calif.-based Corinthian Colleges Inc. Corinthian Colleges has about 93,000 students in about 90 schools in the U.S. and about 20 schools in Ontario.
Work is well underway on the building and will include new windows on all sides and a large skylight.
The two other buildings on the block would remain. One is an 8,000-square-foot building occupied by Wolf’s Cleaners and the other is a vacant, 9,000-square-foot building.
Some have raised concerns about Corinthian Colleges opening a campus at Haymarket Square because of some legal problems the company has had, including some stemming from complaints from students about allegedly being misled about their ability to get a job after graduation or transfer credits to another school.
The city of Milwaukee Redevelopment Authority has approved the issuance of $11 million in tax-exempt bonds for the project, which will be paid back by Druml. However, a Board of Zoning Appeals review of a special use permit request for the project was pushed back a month as Alderman Milele Coggs raised concerns with Corinthian Colleges.
“I am not convinced the proposal is a good fit for that building (located just steps from the Hillside Terrace housing development),” Coggs said in a news release.
Corinthian Colleges representatives have met with Coggs and others in an attempt to address their concerns. The college will play a vital role in providing workforce training that is needed in Milwaukee, Corinthian Colleges spokesman Evan Zeppos said.
“I think the more people learn about it the more they will feel comfortable with the role that (the college) will play,” Zeppos said. “We’re very confident with the track record that we have.”
If city officials refuse to allow Corinthian Colleges to occupy space in the building, that would provide a significant setback for the Haymarket Square project, said Ferron.
“It would cause us to reconsider our options,” he said.
The Haymarket Square project is a big opportunity to revitalize obsolete industrial space and could help spark more development in the Park East corridor and to the area north of downtown, said James T. Barry III, president and chief executive officer of Colliers Barry, which is marketing the former Journal Sentinel garage building for Druml and is representing Trade Tech and Trade Design in the sale of their properties.
“(McKinley Avenue LLC is) turning a boarded up warehouse at Sixth and McKinley into a class A office building,” Barry said. “That’s a huge transformation of a key corner.”
If the city rejects the Corinthian College plans, “I just think it would be a hugely missed opportunity,” Barry said. “They are committed to coming in here.”
Most of the land where the Park East freeway once stood remains vacant. Developments like Haymarket Square will help bring more people to the area on an everyday basis, and will therefore make the area more attractive for development, Barry said. The college will have 90 to 100 employees and about 700 students per day.
“This project is going to not only have a huge catalytic affect on the Park East, but also on Sixth Street going north,” he said.
North Sixth Street has attracted some new development in recent years including a new Days Inn hotel and the J.H. Findorff & Son Milwaukee office.
“This will help add to the momentum of Sixth Street,” Barry said. “(Haymarket Square) will be the entry-point to that whole Sixth Street corridor.”
And although the bulk of the Park East corridor remains vacant, Haymarket Square and other developments such as the Aloft hotel, the 30-story Moderne residential tower and the redevelopment of the former Pabst brewery will help turn the area around, Barry said.
“Along the periphery (of the Park East corridor) you are starting to see stuff happen that in the long run is going to help (develop the rest of it),” he said.
The Haymarket neighborhood, located north of the Park East corridor, has several old buildings that could be redeveloped similar to how old buildings have been transformed in the Third Ward and Fifth Ward, Barry said. The Haymarket Square project would help attract development to that area as well, he said.
For years the Haymarket Square properties have been occupied by industrial users. But now that the Park East freeway is gone the area is essentially an extension of the downtown area. The buildings are old and obsolete and the site is no longer appropriate for industrial users, Barry said.
“We had been marketing it for industrial use. Trying to find an industrial use for the site has been an uphill battle,” he said. “Quite honestly, that is not the highest and best use of the property at this time.”
