The Italian Community Center (ICC) this week issued a request of interest (RFI) seeking proposals for planning and development services to create a development plan for the ICC’s 15.7-acre site in Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward.
“The purpose for the RFI is to start a conversation and produce ideas,” said Dave Spano, president of the ICC and president of Brookfield-based Annex Wealth Management LLC. “The timing is better today because of the development of the Third Ward and we feel we are at or near the bottom (for the real estate market).”
The site, located southeast of East Chicago Street and North Jackson Street and just west of the Summerfest grounds, includes the 60,000-square-foot ICC building and 12 acres of surface parking lot and vacant land.
“Sitting as vacant land is not the highest and best use,” Spano said.
The ICC wants to create development plans for the 12 acres of vacant land that is cohesive with the ICC building. The building, constructed at 631 E. Chicago St. in 1990, is the home of the ICC’s offices, the Italian Confernce Center, La Scala Restaurant and the Italian Times.
Any development plan for the 12-acre site must include plans for a mixed use development with hotel, restaurants, entertainment, retail and services plus a residential component and an office building with ground level retail and service businesses.
“We think one of the ideas we’re going to get is a hotel that connects to the conference center,” Spano said.
The ICC is sending the RFI to architects and construction firms. The ICC may serve as the developer for the project, or another developer might take on that role, Spano said. The ICC is also open to moving its offices out of the ICC building as part of a development project, he said.
Responses to the RFI are due on Aug. 18 and must be sent to Patrick Morgan at the ICC, 631 E. Chicago St., Milwaukee, WI, 53202.
More information is available by contacting: Andy Wiegman, Bow Street Partners LLC, 507 E. Ogden Ave., #237, Milwaukee, WI, 53202, (414) 614-6780 or andy@bowstreetpartners.com.
It will take several years to complete a redevelopment project for the site, Spano said.
