A long-vacant former dry cleaning building site just north of downtown Milwaukee is slated for redevelopment as a new proposal seeks to transform the property into a five-story, mixed-use building.
The site, located at 1414–1420 N. Vel R. Phillips Ave., was once home to Vogue Cleaners, which closed in 2004. Since then, the 6,583-square-foot building has remained empty, and the site has been contaminated. According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), chemicals used in dry cleaning operations have likely polluted the site, prompting an environmental cleanup.
Now, the property owner, MNS Warehouse LLC, which is led by Mehran Farahmandpour of Long Grove, Illinois, is planning to demolish the existing building and replace it with a new building.
The company is proposing a development that includes 3,600 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, onsite parking and 22 residential units on the upper floors, according to documents from the City of Milwaukee.
The project would require a zoning change from industrial to downtown mixed, which would allow for higher density, reduced parking requirements and alignment with recent neighborhood growth, city documents say.
MNS Warehouse purchased the property in February for $80,000 from Matthew Collison, whose family previously owned the business, according to state records.
The area around the site has seen a wave of new investment, including the under-construction Milwaukee Public Museum, which will be renamed the Nature and Culture Museum of Wisconsin, and the nearby Haymarket Lofts affordable housing development. The project site is about a block north of Deer District.
Pewaukee-based environmental consulting firm EnviroForensics has been hired to manage the cleanup, and demolition of the existing structure is expected this summer, DNR records show.
No construction timeline has been confirmed, and Farahmandpour did not respond to request for comment.
The Milwaukee Plan Commission is scheduled to review the zoning request at its Aug. 18 meeting.
