The Corner Side Yard Guest Correspondent Series - Welcome To Milwaukee

CSY guest writer David Holmes discusses how Milwaukee is changing its downtown skyline in innovative fashion.

Source: istockphoto.com

(Today, I’m introducing the first article in a series that I hope produces many more. Back in December I outlined some Corner Side Yard activities I wanted to kick off in 2025. Longtime follower/subscriber David Holmes answered my call for CSY correspondents who would provide content on interesting developments in Midwest/Rust Belt cities. David’s hometown of Milwaukee is featured here, with some news about innovative additions to the Milwaukee skyline. David and I have enjoyed many great exchanges on Rust Belt cities over the years. I’m pleased to present this addition to CSY readers. Enjoy. -Pete)

Milwaukee – Interesting Urban Trends or Developments: Part 1 – Mass-Timber Towers (and High-Rise Towers in General)

By David Holmes

To help kick-off Pete’s guest correspondent series, and to introduce Milwaukee, I thought I would share articles on several of the most interesting or perhaps unexpected urban trends or developments in Milwaukee in recent decades. The first trend that I will detail in this article is the construction of mass-timber towers (and high-rise buildings in general).

In 2022, a 25-story, 284-foot apartment tower (Ascent) was completed in downtown Milwaukee by New Land Enterprises, a Milwaukee-area developer, surpassing the height of an 18-story, 280-foot tower completed in Norway in 2019, and thereby becoming the tallest mass timber structure in the world. Completion of this project by a relatively small Midwest developer was no small feat, in requiring not only advanced materials testing (such as completing the world’s first three-hour column fire test for glue-laminated timber columns working with the USDA Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin) but sourcing of the mass timber materials from a supplier in Europe. World’s tallest is a term that generally hasn’t been associated with building projects in the Midwest since completion of the 108-story Willis Tower in Chicago in 1974, and the 70-story Marriott Hotel in Detroit in 1977. It is especially not a term associated with small rust belt (“innovation-belt?”) metros like Milwaukee.

But the story continues as Ascent will soon be joined in downtown Milwaukee by a new “tallest” mass timber project – the 31-story Edison, for which the developer (the Madison, Wisconsin-based “The Neutral Project” or “Neutral”) announced in early January that it had secured the project’s $133 million in construction financing. This project was first announced in 2021 as a proposed 15-story tower but has since increased twice in height based on the reported more favorable economics for taller buildings and each added floor. There was some skepticism on whether this project would move forward, in part due to the relative inexperience of the developer (founded in 2020), and the age of its CEO – 26-year-old, Nathan Helbach. The company bills itself as a “regenerative development company” with a fundamental development goal of building carbon-neutral buildings. They are in the process of completing another mass timber project in Madison – a 14-story building with 206 apartments (Bakers Place).

Source: neutral.us

Due to the on-going construction of a 40-story, 590-foot mass timber tower in Sydney, Australia, the Edison will not establish a new “world’s tallest,” but it is still on track to become the tallest mass timber building in North America. However, in addition to Edison, in July 2024, The Neutral Project proposed an even larger mixed use development project on a City-owned lot adjacent to the Edison that includes a proposed 55-story 601-foot mass timber residential tower that would potentially reclaim the world’s tallest title (depending on what other projects are proposed throughout the world over the next several years). Two other towers (a hotel and office) of approximately 25- to 30-stories are included in the concept plans – presumably also of mass timber construction. The credibility of The Neutral Project moving this project forward was significantly enhanced by their reported success in securing all funding needed for the Edison project.

Source: neutral.us

The construction of tall buildings in Milwaukee is part of a trend I previously noted in an article on the Urban Milwaukee website in 2013, at which time Milwaukee ranked only behind Chicago among cities in the Midwest in the number of buildings 18-stories or taller constructed between 2000 and 2012 (with 10 buildings completed). Since that time, the trend in Milwaukee has continued, if not accelerated, with 8 additional towers completed between 2017 and 2024 of 20, 22, 22, 22, 31, 34, 35, and 44 stories. These projects do not include the on-going $500 million “reconstruction” of a 19-story office building by Northwestern Mutual Life, nor a planned conversion of a 37-story office tower at 100 East Wisconsin to apartments. Local developers in the past 5 years have also proposed two 30-plus story towers in suburban Milwaukee locations that would have exceeded the number of stories for any tower built in suburban Chicago this century – projects that did not move forward primarily as a result of neighborhood opposition.

In spite of what would seem to be far more challenging economics in terms access to capital, local apartment lease rates relative to materials costs, and the population of residents and businesses available in the relatively small Milwaukee metro area to fill the demand for high-end apartment and office space, Milwaukee-area developers are not only finding ways to get these projects financed and constructed, but to complete some projects that are truly extraordinary in their quality and ambition. It is also noteworthy that nearly every one of these projects is being led by local developers – the only recent exception being a 31-story luxury tower completed by Houston-based Hines in 2024.

David Holmes is an environmental scientist based in Milwaukee focused professionally on supporting brownfields redevelopment projects throughout the US (including on-going or recent work for the cities of Los Angeles, Dallas, Fresno, Bakersfield, Anchorage, Spokane, among many others). He has a long-term interest in urbanism, and in particular on what he views as the flawed or outdated narratives on the Midwest in general, and the rust belt metros in particular. David is a board member and volunteer grant writer for two not-for-profit organizations in Milwaukee - the MacCanon Brown Homeless Sanctuary and the Friends of Lakeshore State Park.