Add’l info re: the Feb 4 Community Meeting about Downer Avenue at Risk

Posted on January 31, 2015 by admin

This meeting invitation is from Eastside Milwaukee Community Council. The MHNA Board has not taken any position with respect to the developments or their financing.  We encourage neighbors to attend to learn more about the development proposals.

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The Downer Avenue business district that we know and love is at risk with continued business closings, long-promised development plans nowhere in sight, and possibly another new owner to the area.

A bank has taken into receivership the west 2500 and the east 2600 blocks of Downer Ave. They will be for sale by auction in May.

Come to a community meeting Wednesday, February 4 at 7PM at St. Mark’s Church to learn more and express your viewpoint. Invited speakers include Alderman Nik Kovac and Joel Lee, President of Van Buren Management, Inc. and Downer Development LLC.

Lee has developed plans with Rinka/Chung architects for luxury apartments on the Park/Downer SE corner, and for a boutique 7-story hotel (mid 2500 block Downer), renovated Downer Theater and bookstore, and 11-story apartments with 4-story wrap-around townhouses (Webster and Stowell) that make several significant improvements over the approved planned development from 2007.

A TIF (tax incremental financing) of $2.5MM from the City of Milwaukee would allow Lee to proceed with the possible redemption of these properties and the development of the two blocks. Prompted in part by problematic vacant lots, Wisconsin adopted TIF legislation in 1975 to encourage municipal governing bodies to choose areas they would like to see developed that have unlikely other assistance. To date, the City of Milwaukee has rejected TIF for the Downer project.

We are the highest tax revenue base in the city. We all need and deserve to be informed about this situation. Our voices deserve to be heard. Please attend the meeting on Wednesday, February 4. Let us sound those voices while there is still time to act.