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Home > BizTimes Daily > Archives > July 17, 2008
North Powerhouse building being torn down
Published July 17, 2008 - BizTimes Daily
The Brewery Works Inc. has determined that it is not feasible to redevelop the historic former North Powerhouse building, located just south of the new Manpower Inc. corporate headquarters building in downtown Milwaukee, and has begun demolition work on the five-story red brick structure.
"We're tearing it down," said Sam Denny, executive vice president and general manager of The Brewery Works. "We couldn't make (the redevelopment plans) work."
The Brewery Works, which owns the building and the Schlitz Park office complex, is owned by Milwaukee developers Gary Grunau and Scott Sampson.
Grunau and Sampson also developed the new Manpower headquarters, a four-story, 280,000-square-foot building that was completed last year. Originally that project was to include renovations of the North Powerhouse building into about 55,000 square feet of office space. The Brewery Works agreed to redevelop the North Powerhouse as a condition for Manpower agreeing to move from Glendale to the new downtown Milwaukee building
Grunau and Sampson received $25.3 million in tax incremental financing from the city for the Manpower headquarters building project.
In September Grunau said the North Powerhouse redevelopment would start later in the fall, but it was later determined that the renovation project wasn't feasible, Denny said. The building is just a shell, with no floors on the inside and it has no other useful infrastructure, he said. It would be cost prohibitive to transform the structure into an office building, he said.
When Harley-Davidson was planning to put its museum at Schlitz Park, the building was considered for a hotel and restaurant, Denny said.
The building is believed to have been constructed during the late 1920s and once housed a boiler for the city's steam system, Denny said.
After the structure is demolished the site will be used for green space, not parking, and will be a "great site" for future development, Denny said.
