Although the construction project actually began in March, Madison-based Gorman & Company Inc. will host a "construction kick off ceremony" on Monday to celebrate the start of its project that will redevelop the former keg house building at the former Pabst brewery complex into a 95-unit apartment building. The project is expected to be complete in the spring of 2009.
Gorman purchased the building, located at 925-945 W. Winnebago St., from Joseph Zilber, founder of Milwaukee-based Zilber Ltd., who is redeveloping the brewery complex in downtown Milwaukee into a mixed-use urban neighborhood. He is selling several of the old brewery complex to other developers, such as Gorman.
The apartments developed by Gorman, to be called the Blue Ribbon Loft Apartments, will be a mixed-income apartment building with some units affordable to families and individuals making 50-60 percent of the area’s median income. The development will be designed to serve local artists, entrepreneurs and other members of the "creative class" with live-work units and amenities such as a music studio, artists’ workspaces and galleries, a business center, conference rooms and a theater/presentation space.
Meanwhile, Zilber plans to begin construction of an eight-story parking structure, with 880 parking space and 8,000 square feet of retail space, just south of the Blue Ribbon Lofts building in October and the project will be completed in August of 2009.
The parking structure will be built northwest of West Juneau Avenue and North 9th Street. The parking structure will occupy the eastern half of the block. Zilber is demolishing several old tank buidings on the block to make way for the parking structure.
Most of the western half of the block, located northeast of Juneau Avenue and North 10th Street, will be left vacant for now, said Mike Mervis, Zilber’s assistant. A community garden and nursery will be planted there, and many of the plants that are grown will be used for streetscaping, he said. The 28,000-square-foot park/garden area could be the site of a building or a parking structure in the future, Mervis said.
