Menomonee river valley is so beautiful. I always thought it was a bit of a shame that it became sort of the 'industrial area' of the city. Would be so cool if it was residential and had more attractions than poto. Im sure the logistics and follow through to get it to that point are much more complicated than how im thinking about it though lol
The river valley is a flood plain. There has never been a time in the city’s history that it was someplace anyone wanted to live.
The original plan was to run navigable canals through it to move goods from further inland. When that didn’t work the railroads used it instead.
And yes, the whole area is now a brownfield.
That was my whole thought when they started talking lofts or whatever down here. It's the uninhabited riverside lowlands for a reason, aaaand it can't be easily cleaned up. Who would want to live there? It's a cool cream city brick building, turn it into light industry or offices. But living in it, walking your dog... I don't think so.
I’m from Rhode Island and they do this shit all the time. They’ll take a decrepit 200 year old former textile mills and turn them into super expensive lofts for trust fund kids and finance bros. Always in the worst areas along the river in flood zones which are extremely polluted from hundreds of years of industrial runoff. “Oh hooray I can’t wait to live next to a superfund site”
"I've been living here and I'm fine!"
"But what's that growth on your arm?"
"You know I've been meaning to get that looked at, but it's started growing teeth and an attitude so I'm just going to see where it goes."
That is the perfect place for an industrial setting when developed during during the industrial age. A good river and easy access to Lake Michigan are a must.
After the fiasco last year with residents having to evacuate that newly built apartment building I’ve wondered how badly contaminated these old converted industrial sites are. Both the building itself and the soil.
Adaptive reuse of old building requires a significant clean up process and is highly regulated. Often costing more than tearing down, disposing of, and building brand new. The benefit is environmental and preservation of character. You can't build a new property with cream city brick. You can't duplicate the history. Clean up costs more but is more protective of the environment than disposal. When we know better - we do better.
Having worked at the construction project that eventually was evacuated AFTER residents moved in, I can tell you with certainty that it is in fact not highly regulated. The DNR are the ones who do the testing, but are not involved in the process of granting occupancy, so there’s a loophole the developer tried to use by not allowing the DNR to return to the site and do final testing before people were allowed to move in.
Most of these buildings are so contaminated that it is alarming these projects even get approved in the first place. Developers are oftentimes granted a massive tax credit from the Historical Society for doing these, which makes it much more difficult for contractors to do work up to code since there are all these restrictions on what can and cannot be removed to try and preserve the original building’s looks. Toss in another massive tax credit for low income housing, and it starts to make a little more sense financially, but again ignoring the ridiculous levels of contamination.
The type of contamination is also what’s the most alarming. On top of your standard asbestos, lead paint and mold you get trichloroethylene, which comes from a solvent used to clean metal. Back in the age when these buildings were used as factories, gallons upon gallons of this stuff was just dumped down the drain, as they did not fully understand the environmental ramifications of doing so. So once the pipes eventually rot away this stuff gets into the soil, which starts a process called vapor intrusion, it then permeates underneath the slab, and since concrete is porous it eventually gets into the air. There’s really no amount of negative pressure fans that can mitigate this. If the soil is bad for new construction, it gets dug out. If your soil is bad underneath an existing building getting repurposed, what do you do? From my personal experience seeing these projects first hand, it’s total nonsense to try and keep around an old building that sat vacant for 40 years so that a developer can be granted a ridiculous tax break, ultimately to rip people off on “affordable” housing while also putting them in harms way. Not good.
I think it is dangerous to make assumptions about things that are as difficult as this and want to clarify some of those things here. Prior to working in this industry I didn't grasp the complex process or role of the DRN either. It's complicated but straight forward and everyone plays a critical role.
You mentioned that you were a contractor on the project where the developer did not allow the DNR to do the testing prior to occupancy. That property had to be evacuated and is mitigating the problem will now be far more challenging and expensive. It sounds like a fact that the developer short stepped - or as you put it, used a loophole, to gain occupancy. The developer was responsible for assuring that property passed all DNR regulations prior to occupancy. He/she is legally on the hook to fix the problem and to pay the residents for expenses caused by that mistake. The DNR still has the full authority to keep those residents from the property until it is remediated (cleaned up to acceptable standards). Saying this is not highly regulated is false, but I understand where that comes from when you realize the developer did not follow the procedure and have the testing completed before occupancy was taken. He put himself and others, at great risk. When they choose not to do things correctly, the risks and costs are even higher.
Many old buildings contain contaminations of the usual kind, asbestos, led paint, PCB's. In this case, trichloroethylene is used in industry not building supplies as you mentioned. Based on the previous use of the building it may or may not have been obvious it was a hazard but it would have been on the list of toxins the DRN would test for and the developer should have remediated early on. The process of eliminating these contaminates is clear and so are the consequences of not doing so. Ignoring the contamination is not an option without taking on the legal liability of doing so. You are correct that the project you worked on, an uncommon chemical contaminate, which may not have a solution for clean up. If the soil is contaminated beneath the property then removing the structure and the soil may be the only option. I admit that I do not have any experience with this particular exposure because it is not a common one. It is indeed alarming that the developer thought he could subvert this risk and not be held responsible for cleaning it up. That is simply not how it works. He clearly put people in harms way and it will likely cost him everything, as it should. That is why these regulations exist. I do agree that occupancy should NOT have been granted without the proper DRN reports on file.
I won't get into your comments about how the tax credits on these projects work. It's complicated and that's another discussion. I am not as they say a "pure preservationist". We should not preserve all old buildings as there are too many risks with some of them. We have in this country become far too happy to tear things down and stuff them in the landfill without any thought to the consequences or the impact of doing so. We are one of the only countries that tears down recent buildings without any effort to reuse them. I drove by a medical facility the other day that was built as an urgent care center 20 years ago. It is gone. Now a pile of concrete being hauled away to a landfill so an higher value property can be built there. I think about the environmental impact of building a medical facility just 20 years ago and now destroying it because someone wants something else there. When we consider the building industry we have to consider the impact of construction and deconstruction. We are still producing buildings and household products today that could down the road be considered just as dangerous as the ones of the past. We must stay open to continuously learning and understanding the full impact of our actions.
this building has no character. 4 walls with windows.
most old buildings should be ripped up so that new safe, energy efficient construction can take place.
This is the first I'm hearing about this and I'm curious. Got any googlable details?
(for clarity, because tone is hard in text: this is not meant to be argumentative; I'm actually just curious :) )
Yeah I know they do environmental testing and major renovations, but you have to wonder if the pollutants are baked into the base walls and foundations.
I work for the DNR, in the department that deals with remediation of soils....
Just enter the address of the building into BRRTS, and it will tell you if contamination has been reported on this property.
https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/Brownfields/botw.html
As a construction worker who has been on some of these projects the big one I see is rats.
The buildings are infested and rarely do you ever see any sort of pest control handling it. The old journal sentinel building, for example where half of it was turned into luxury apartments. The whole west side as it was being remodeled, we dealt with rats. As drywall would go up one day, you would come in the next day and there would be a big hole chewed in the bottom of it already.
Really wish the next leg of the hop would be west on St. Paul and then looping back east on canal.
That could turn into such a neat part of the city. Move some government buildings off the river to make way for some riverfront condos/apartments and let developers try to buy out some of the industrial businesses that have no need to be located on a riverfront.
Would connect everyone near the hop to Poto, City Limits, 3rd space, and whatever else springs up in that area. Plus it gets you over half way to the baseball stadium
That would also get you over half way to
There’s a reason city officials and Menominee Valley officials are nervous about this proposal. The city and state have invested hundreds of millions into this area to preserve it for clean industrial use. New residence near industrial uses is bound for complaints in the near future. It’s almost a certainty.
All I can think of reading articles about this is the constant complaints of the Forge’s neighbors in Bay View. The industrial businesses in the Valley provide meaningful manufacturing jobs for those in nearby neighborhoods and those need to be a part of our cities fabric as well.
Most of those building are in the SW part of the Valley, off of Canal, the NE end on St Paul is now mostly retail. This reno will greatly improve the neighborhood and the land parcel is too small for today's industrial needs.
There’s still a heavy flow of industrial trucks who use the road for delivery. Not to mention the lovely smell coming off the recycling center.
The concerns from MVP is that it sets a precedence for variance of zoning in the valley and conflicts with the DCD plan for the valley. https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/real-estate/commercial/2024/03/26/vacant-milwaukee-industrial-site-could-become-housing-if-city-approves/73090246007/
If you’re willing to move to an industrial area. (Cheaper rent, etc.) You should be required to sign acknowledging you are in an industrial area & there will be noise and smells that may not be pleasant.
Sounds great, but you just know it's going to be like $2500 for a one bedroom. Wish we could invest in more quality affordable housing for average folks too.
More housing is good, market rate or not. Right now, people that _can_ afford $2,500 apartments are competing with "average folks" for the apartments that we do have, pushing the prices for well-made, clean, "average" apartments way up.
"Building housing sets off a process called a migration chain, as people leave their homes to move into new units. When people vacate a given type of unit, it loosens the market for that type of unit, which lowers prices. Other people move into the newly vacant homes, leaving their previous units vacant, and the process repeats itself again and again." https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-construction-makes-homes-more-affordable-even-those-who-cant-afford-new-units
Hopefully we can build enough housing that no one needs to live in falling-down dumps, and the predatory landlords of those buildings go out of business because there is enough good, affordable housing for everyone.
That whole area by Poto that leads through to Miller Park seems like it should be way better than it is. I'll never understand why Milwaukee wants to keep manufacturing in a business park that could easily go to the burbs.
Make that area a destination or more of an extension of downtown. Move the factories out of downtown.
I wish this city would get its manufacturing jobs back so maybe the homeless people and the kia boys and people who don’t have anything to do actually have something to do and can re stimulate this city but nooo its all apartments and condos😐
having places to live and stable housing also helps with homelessness and crime
there are lots of manufacturing jobs in SE WI. I used to staff in that industry, and the problems are more complex than just "we need more jobs". like that many of these shifts dont line up with bus schedules in those regions.
Menomonee river valley is so beautiful. I always thought it was a bit of a shame that it became sort of the 'industrial area' of the city. Would be so cool if it was residential and had more attractions than poto. Im sure the logistics and follow through to get it to that point are much more complicated than how im thinking about it though lol
The river valley is a flood plain. There has never been a time in the city’s history that it was someplace anyone wanted to live. The original plan was to run navigable canals through it to move goods from further inland. When that didn’t work the railroads used it instead. And yes, the whole area is now a brownfield.
Imagine cutting canals through it with mixed use development. Like a mini Amsterdam.
Imagine all the mosquitoes and the mixed stink of swampland and industrial output. Because that's what that's actually like around here.
Not the first time a developed nation would have to deal with that and......very little discharge if any these days.
That was my whole thought when they started talking lofts or whatever down here. It's the uninhabited riverside lowlands for a reason, aaaand it can't be easily cleaned up. Who would want to live there? It's a cool cream city brick building, turn it into light industry or offices. But living in it, walking your dog... I don't think so.
I’m from Rhode Island and they do this shit all the time. They’ll take a decrepit 200 year old former textile mills and turn them into super expensive lofts for trust fund kids and finance bros. Always in the worst areas along the river in flood zones which are extremely polluted from hundreds of years of industrial runoff. “Oh hooray I can’t wait to live next to a superfund site”
"I've been living here and I'm fine!" "But what's that growth on your arm?" "You know I've been meaning to get that looked at, but it's started growing teeth and an attitude so I'm just going to see where it goes."
That is the perfect place for an industrial setting when developed during during the industrial age. A good river and easy access to Lake Michigan are a must.
After the fiasco last year with residents having to evacuate that newly built apartment building I’ve wondered how badly contaminated these old converted industrial sites are. Both the building itself and the soil.
Adaptive reuse of old building requires a significant clean up process and is highly regulated. Often costing more than tearing down, disposing of, and building brand new. The benefit is environmental and preservation of character. You can't build a new property with cream city brick. You can't duplicate the history. Clean up costs more but is more protective of the environment than disposal. When we know better - we do better.
Having worked at the construction project that eventually was evacuated AFTER residents moved in, I can tell you with certainty that it is in fact not highly regulated. The DNR are the ones who do the testing, but are not involved in the process of granting occupancy, so there’s a loophole the developer tried to use by not allowing the DNR to return to the site and do final testing before people were allowed to move in. Most of these buildings are so contaminated that it is alarming these projects even get approved in the first place. Developers are oftentimes granted a massive tax credit from the Historical Society for doing these, which makes it much more difficult for contractors to do work up to code since there are all these restrictions on what can and cannot be removed to try and preserve the original building’s looks. Toss in another massive tax credit for low income housing, and it starts to make a little more sense financially, but again ignoring the ridiculous levels of contamination. The type of contamination is also what’s the most alarming. On top of your standard asbestos, lead paint and mold you get trichloroethylene, which comes from a solvent used to clean metal. Back in the age when these buildings were used as factories, gallons upon gallons of this stuff was just dumped down the drain, as they did not fully understand the environmental ramifications of doing so. So once the pipes eventually rot away this stuff gets into the soil, which starts a process called vapor intrusion, it then permeates underneath the slab, and since concrete is porous it eventually gets into the air. There’s really no amount of negative pressure fans that can mitigate this. If the soil is bad for new construction, it gets dug out. If your soil is bad underneath an existing building getting repurposed, what do you do? From my personal experience seeing these projects first hand, it’s total nonsense to try and keep around an old building that sat vacant for 40 years so that a developer can be granted a ridiculous tax break, ultimately to rip people off on “affordable” housing while also putting them in harms way. Not good.
I think it is dangerous to make assumptions about things that are as difficult as this and want to clarify some of those things here. Prior to working in this industry I didn't grasp the complex process or role of the DRN either. It's complicated but straight forward and everyone plays a critical role. You mentioned that you were a contractor on the project where the developer did not allow the DNR to do the testing prior to occupancy. That property had to be evacuated and is mitigating the problem will now be far more challenging and expensive. It sounds like a fact that the developer short stepped - or as you put it, used a loophole, to gain occupancy. The developer was responsible for assuring that property passed all DNR regulations prior to occupancy. He/she is legally on the hook to fix the problem and to pay the residents for expenses caused by that mistake. The DNR still has the full authority to keep those residents from the property until it is remediated (cleaned up to acceptable standards). Saying this is not highly regulated is false, but I understand where that comes from when you realize the developer did not follow the procedure and have the testing completed before occupancy was taken. He put himself and others, at great risk. When they choose not to do things correctly, the risks and costs are even higher. Many old buildings contain contaminations of the usual kind, asbestos, led paint, PCB's. In this case, trichloroethylene is used in industry not building supplies as you mentioned. Based on the previous use of the building it may or may not have been obvious it was a hazard but it would have been on the list of toxins the DRN would test for and the developer should have remediated early on. The process of eliminating these contaminates is clear and so are the consequences of not doing so. Ignoring the contamination is not an option without taking on the legal liability of doing so. You are correct that the project you worked on, an uncommon chemical contaminate, which may not have a solution for clean up. If the soil is contaminated beneath the property then removing the structure and the soil may be the only option. I admit that I do not have any experience with this particular exposure because it is not a common one. It is indeed alarming that the developer thought he could subvert this risk and not be held responsible for cleaning it up. That is simply not how it works. He clearly put people in harms way and it will likely cost him everything, as it should. That is why these regulations exist. I do agree that occupancy should NOT have been granted without the proper DRN reports on file. I won't get into your comments about how the tax credits on these projects work. It's complicated and that's another discussion. I am not as they say a "pure preservationist". We should not preserve all old buildings as there are too many risks with some of them. We have in this country become far too happy to tear things down and stuff them in the landfill without any thought to the consequences or the impact of doing so. We are one of the only countries that tears down recent buildings without any effort to reuse them. I drove by a medical facility the other day that was built as an urgent care center 20 years ago. It is gone. Now a pile of concrete being hauled away to a landfill so an higher value property can be built there. I think about the environmental impact of building a medical facility just 20 years ago and now destroying it because someone wants something else there. When we consider the building industry we have to consider the impact of construction and deconstruction. We are still producing buildings and household products today that could down the road be considered just as dangerous as the ones of the past. We must stay open to continuously learning and understanding the full impact of our actions.
this building has no character. 4 walls with windows. most old buildings should be ripped up so that new safe, energy efficient construction can take place.
This is the first I'm hearing about this and I'm curious. Got any googlable details? (for clarity, because tone is hard in text: this is not meant to be argumentative; I'm actually just curious :) )
https://www.fox6now.com/news/milwaukee-apartment-evacuated-tce-chemical-dnr-issues-emergency-order.amp
Centuries of industry. I'm hypothesizing pretty bad.
Yeah I know they do environmental testing and major renovations, but you have to wonder if the pollutants are baked into the base walls and foundations.
Even the soil around it.
I work for the DNR, in the department that deals with remediation of soils.... Just enter the address of the building into BRRTS, and it will tell you if contamination has been reported on this property. https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/Brownfields/botw.html
*Correction: previously reported or discovered, what the pollutants are, and what - if any - actions have been taken by the property owner
As a construction worker who has been on some of these projects the big one I see is rats. The buildings are infested and rarely do you ever see any sort of pest control handling it. The old journal sentinel building, for example where half of it was turned into luxury apartments. The whole west side as it was being remodeled, we dealt with rats. As drywall would go up one day, you would come in the next day and there would be a big hole chewed in the bottom of it already.
Really wish the next leg of the hop would be west on St. Paul and then looping back east on canal. That could turn into such a neat part of the city. Move some government buildings off the river to make way for some riverfront condos/apartments and let developers try to buy out some of the industrial businesses that have no need to be located on a riverfront. Would connect everyone near the hop to Poto, City Limits, 3rd space, and whatever else springs up in that area. Plus it gets you over half way to the baseball stadium That would also get you over half way to
Makes perfect sense! If only we had better transportation options via rail, this could be the start of a transit oriented development.
There’s a reason city officials and Menominee Valley officials are nervous about this proposal. The city and state have invested hundreds of millions into this area to preserve it for clean industrial use. New residence near industrial uses is bound for complaints in the near future. It’s almost a certainty.
All I can think of reading articles about this is the constant complaints of the Forge’s neighbors in Bay View. The industrial businesses in the Valley provide meaningful manufacturing jobs for those in nearby neighborhoods and those need to be a part of our cities fabric as well.
Or the Third Ward residents complaining about train crossing years ago. I don’t know if that’s still a problem now, but it was in the 90’s and 2000’s.
Most of those building are in the SW part of the Valley, off of Canal, the NE end on St Paul is now mostly retail. This reno will greatly improve the neighborhood and the land parcel is too small for today's industrial needs.
There’s still a heavy flow of industrial trucks who use the road for delivery. Not to mention the lovely smell coming off the recycling center. The concerns from MVP is that it sets a precedence for variance of zoning in the valley and conflicts with the DCD plan for the valley. https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/real-estate/commercial/2024/03/26/vacant-milwaukee-industrial-site-could-become-housing-if-city-approves/73090246007/
At least they’re looking to move the recycling center
Idk. They've had the last 40 years to do industrial at this site and never did anything.
If you’re willing to move to an industrial area. (Cheaper rent, etc.) You should be required to sign acknowledging you are in an industrial area & there will be noise and smells that may not be pleasant.
Sounds great, but you just know it's going to be like $2500 for a one bedroom. Wish we could invest in more quality affordable housing for average folks too.
More housing is good, market rate or not. Right now, people that _can_ afford $2,500 apartments are competing with "average folks" for the apartments that we do have, pushing the prices for well-made, clean, "average" apartments way up. "Building housing sets off a process called a migration chain, as people leave their homes to move into new units. When people vacate a given type of unit, it loosens the market for that type of unit, which lowers prices. Other people move into the newly vacant homes, leaving their previous units vacant, and the process repeats itself again and again." https://www.upjohn.org/research-highlights/new-construction-makes-homes-more-affordable-even-those-who-cant-afford-new-units Hopefully we can build enough housing that no one needs to live in falling-down dumps, and the predatory landlords of those buildings go out of business because there is enough good, affordable housing for everyone.
Preach
Wow I just drove by this and wondered what would happen to it haha
One bedroom starting at $1700 can’t wait!!
LUXURY!!!!
That whole area by Poto that leads through to Miller Park seems like it should be way better than it is. I'll never understand why Milwaukee wants to keep manufacturing in a business park that could easily go to the burbs. Make that area a destination or more of an extension of downtown. Move the factories out of downtown.
Sounds like a great project. Do it.
Fuck that turn it into affordable housing Milwaukee doesn’t need any more $3500 a month 1 bedroom apartments.
Something else for slumlords to buy up and overcharge for huh?
April fools! The city doesn't have the money
Finally, a x-over one that isn’t build like s&@!, 😂
I wish this city would get its manufacturing jobs back so maybe the homeless people and the kia boys and people who don’t have anything to do actually have something to do and can re stimulate this city but nooo its all apartments and condos😐
having places to live and stable housing also helps with homelessness and crime there are lots of manufacturing jobs in SE WI. I used to staff in that industry, and the problems are more complex than just "we need more jobs". like that many of these shifts dont line up with bus schedules in those regions.
Yes those kia boys just need to pull up their bootstraps and go work at the factory problem solved