Site preparation work underway for The Moderne

The day after developer Rick Barrett closed on the financing package for the $55 million Moderne development last week, workers with J.H. Findorff & Son Inc. began preparation work at the site, located southwest of Old World Third Street and Juneau Avenue in downtown Milwaukee.
The Moderne will be a 30-story building with 203 apartments, 14 condominiums and first floor retail space. The AFL-CIO Investment Trust provided a $42 million loan, backed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 221(d)4 program, and the city of Milwaukee provided a $9.3 million loan.
Site preparation work for The Moderne is continuing this week, and construction work is expected to begin next week, said Eric Wynn, Findorff senior project manager.
“We are taking this week and doing a lot of the mobilization to the job site,” Wynn said. “The week of January 3 we hope to start actual, physical construction.”
The initial construction work will include the creation of an Earth retention system to stabilize the narrow site, so Findorff crews can dig a 25-hole straight down, he said.
“You won’t see earth move until the third week in January,” Wynn said.
A formal groundbreaking ceremony has not been scheduled yet, but will probably take place during the second week in January, Barrett said.
It will take about 20 months to build The Moderne, Barrett said, so it could be completed by August of 2012.
The city loan for the project was approved last year. Approval of the HUD loan guarantee took several months and was finally granted in August, but the final closing of financing package was not completed until last week.
“It’s been a long wait,” Wynn said. “We’re very happy and thankful the developer stuck with it. The city and HUD should be commended for working with him.”
“I can’t tell you how excited I am for the people that need jobs right now,” Barrett said.
In the next few weeks Barrett said he plans to ramp up marketing efforts for the condos and the retail space in the building. Four buyers reserved condos in the project and some potential tenants have expressed interest in the retail space, he said. However, most potential buyers and potential tenants have been waiting to see if the project would get financing and would actually get built, he said.
“There is a lot of interest in this building, but there has been a ton of skepticism,” he said.
The site is located near the Bradley Center and Barrett said some members of the Milwaukee Bucks have expressed interest in living in the building.