By the late 1990s, after over a century of industrial usage, a
stretch of vacated properties waited as silent sentinels along
Commerce Street, watching over the frontier between the
Riverwest neighborhood and points south.
In 1999, the city of
Milwaukee Redevelopment Authority (RACM) requested a plan
to revitalize this blighted area along the river. The 102-page
Beerline “B” Master Plan and Neighborhood Code was born.
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“We bought these [our own] condos based on
a code. Those bureaucrats have decided to
ignore the code.”
Michael Holloway lives on the fourth floor
of the 24-unit River Court condominiums
along N. Commerce Street. It’s a gray, Ushaped
structure with a cosmopolitan view
up and down the river. Holloway spoke at
the October RACM meeting on behalf of 88
“Concerned Citizens of Commerce” opposed
to The Edge development plans, which then
called for 150 units—well beyond the 75
units the code calls for on the 1.87 acre
site.
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By the early 2000s, much of the
construction of architecturally
distinctive condominium units
has been completed, though one
puzzle piece remains undeveloped
but cleared for construction. In
October 2005, a fight broke out
over approval of the construction
of Tandem Development’s The Edge
condos, a two-building, 133-unit
development just northeast of the
Holton Street Bridge (and its new
offspring, the Marsupial Bridge,
straddling its mother’s bulky
trusses). While the city ultimately
approved the plan for The Edge
after the developer offered
some design compromises, some
neighbors remain frustrated—with
the plan that increases the density
of their neighborhood, and with
the political process they feel
failed them.
Holloway said he and neighbors
started investigating what was
going on with The Edge development
after they saw the Union Point
building going up on the triangle
of property at 2080 N. Commerce
St. With 72 units (68 percent of
which have been pre-sold to date),
it is about 375 percent beyond the
unit/area density specifications
of the 1999 code of 40 units per
acre.
The approved plans for The Edge
call for 133 units, 77 percent beyond
the 1999 density specifications.
Sales of these condo units has not
yet commenced. A grand opening
party marking the beginning of
sales that had been scheduled for
Feb. 16 is being rescheduled for
early March on the site.
The development as portrayed
by the Beerline Plan (Top of the page). The
Actual Union Point as it is being
built today (Below).
Read more by dowloading these PDF files:
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