Construction workers at the Pabst brewery redevelopment project, which is being done by Zilber Ltd. founder Joseph Zilber, held a topping off ceremony this week for the 8-level, 880-space parking structure.

The $16.5 million parking structure was assembled in less than 16 weeks with 700 pieces of precast concrete, weighing as much as 20 tons each.

The construction of the parking structure will be complete in November, said Zilber's assistant Mike Mervis.

In addition to providing parking for the Pabst brewery tenants, the parking structure will be used by employees at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, Aurora Sinai Medical Center and students and employees at Milwaukee Area Technical College, Mervis said.

"If we need more (parking spaces), we'll put up another (parking structure) next to this one," Mervis said.

In other news at the Pabst brewery redevelopment, Zilber Park will be dedicated on June 24 and paving for all of the streets will begin in July.

"Most of the original street grid will go back in," Mervis said.

The YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee and Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare this week opened the first YMCA Healthy Lifestyle Village in the Milwaukee area on the site of the Rite-Hite Family YMCA at 9250 N. Green Bay Road in Brown Deer.

The facility includes a new 60,000-square-foot, three-story medical building connected by a common lobby to the north side of the Rite-Hite Family YMCA (formerly Schroeder Branch YMCA).

The medical building, called Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare – Brown Deer, houses physician offices, full service imaging including nuclear and stress tests, physical therapy, an endoscopy suite, pain management center, and a laboratory.

The Rite-Hite Family YMCA building recently underwent an extensive renovation. The branch offers individual and family programs including fitness, aquatics, pre-school, day camp, family and teen programs.

The Walter Schroeder Aquatic Center is also located at the YMCA Healthy Lifesytle Village campus.

“From the very inception of this partnership we have been working with Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare in order to provide relevant and innovative programs to our members and the community as a whole,” said Bob Yamachika, president and CEO of the YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee. “Our newly renovated Rite-Hite Family YMCA provides members and the community the opportunity to live healthier in spirit, mind and body, and their options are enhanced through the offerings at Wheaton.”

“This one-of-a-kind collaboration with our YMCA partners gives us tremendous opportunities to establish creative programs to help families become proactive in managing their health,” said John D. Oliverio, president and CEO for Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare. “It's exciting that patients have the chance to improve their medical outcomes with the help of our physicians and YMCA experts. We have been very proud to be a part of this exciting venture since its inception.  This new state-of-the-art facility will allow us to bring the latest in comprehensive care to our patients and the community at large.  We look forward to working closely with our partners at the Rite-Hite Family YMCA in helping families and individuals create realistic and sustainable healthy lifestyle plans which can have a big impact on general health as well as improve management of chronic illness.”

The City of Cudahy recently submitted the winning bid in a Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department auction to purchase the 31.2-acre site of the failed Iceport development at the southeast corner of Nicholson and Layton avenues.

The city's bid for the property was $10 million, but city officials said that since Cudahy held the $34.8 million mortgage for the property, the city will only have to pay the Sheriff's fee, which is under $500.

The auction was the result of a foreclosure action that the city took against the Iceport developer, Sportsites LLC.

"When I first took office in 2007, I was told that the foreclosure process would likely be resolved in 2012," said Cudahy Mayor Ryan McCue. "We're glad the judge ruled in favor of the city, which will allow us to move forward with future development in 2009 vs. 2012."

McCue expects to obtain the deed to the property by late July.

The Iceport was a proposed $29 million hockey and skating rink complex. It was only partially built, and in 2004 construction was halted because of financial problems. Later, city officials declared the project in default of a development agreement with the city.

In 2007, Sportsites agreed to sell the property to Menomonee Falls-based Continental Properties Co. Inc. However, that deal fell through after Continental's plans to develop a 60,000-square-foot indoor soccer training facility on the property with the Milwaukee Wave did not come together and after city officials rejected a Wal-Mart development proposal for the property.

"I am happy to finally put the Iceport behind us, and I now look forward to developing the land in a way that will really benefit the community," McCue said. "I hope to have (the partially built structure) torn down this fall."

City staff members are in the final stages of preparing requests for proposals (RFPs) to raze the steel Iceport structure.

City officials want to attract development to the property, but are just in the discussion phase of what they want that development to be and how they will attract it, said Cudahy economic development director Lara Fritts.

Ted Klumb, a commercial real estate broker at Equity Commercial Real Estate LLC, recently launched his own business, Ted Klumb Owner's Representative LLC.

Despite starting the new business, Klumb is still working at Equity Commercial.

His Menomonee Falls-based business will provide turnkey services to financial institutions for their non-performing commercial and residential real estate. Those services include simple board ups, repairs, cosmetic improvements, and property management while getting the properties on the market and sold quickly.

Klumb said his objective is to provide a financial institution with a single source, low cost vendor to preserve the value of their non-performing real estate while selling it as rapidly as possible. The company aims to be a single source resource for financial institutions of any size, to reduce their losses on foreclosed, distressed, real estate owned, or at risk property. The company provides services to analyze the property, list the property for sale, preserve the value of the property and perform simple repairs up to major construction completion.

“We want to give banks and credit unions more time to generate business and reduce or eliminate their duties as property caretakers,” Klumb said. “They have told us they want to concentrate on generating new business instead of fixing old business. While discussing the business model with my business advisors, we all thought there must be a million people in the market doing this right now. Through our due diligence, we discovered that few, if any, offered turnkey solutions to financial institutions and fewer were locally based.”

Five commercial real estate brokers: Marc Veras, Todd DeVillers, Sean Brick, Paul Jonas and Sal Vitale recently formed RE Commercial, a new real estate firm specializing in selling and leasing commercial real estate. The company will serve the Fox Valley, northeastern Wisconsin and southeastern Wisconsin. The company is based in Appleton. The company's web site is at: www.recommercialwi.com.

A group of Shorewood, Whitefish Bay and North Shore community activists plans to open and operate a cooperative bookstore, to be located in Shorewood. The group is still looking for a location, but ideally they hope to move into the former Harry W. Schwartz location at 4093 N. Oakland Ave.

"It will be a bookstore for the community, created by the community," said organizer Keith Schmitz. "The closing of the Harry W. Schwartz bookstore on Oakland Avenue created a big void in the community.  It's a void we plan to close. We see it as an important quality of life issue."

The new store, to be known as as Open Book, is expected to open by this fall. Open Book will offer new books, including a children's section, as well as a limited quantity of quality used books, magazines and books on CD, all at competitive prices. Open Book will also provide customer searches for hard-to-find titles.

The group's preliminary business plan calls for a quality store with a comfortable atmosphere that promotes browsing, exploration and community involvement, said store manager Lisa Zupke, who previously managed the Schwartz store on Oakland.

Open Book will be more than just a bookstore, Zupke said. "We want it to be a community gathering place where friends and neighbors meet for coffee, and small groups hold meetings. That's something the community sorely needs."

"It's an area chock-full of literate people who understand the importance of a local independent bookstore in the community, and who choose to support well-run local businesses," said Kit Vernon, a retired marketing executive in Shorewood.

The organizers plan to use the 3,500- to 4,000-square-foot space as a store, a café/coffee shop, office and storage. The store's inventory will be tailored for the market, based on Zupke's local experience.  Open Book will also host special events such as author readings, children's story hours, music and book clubs.

Open Book will be a limited liability corporation, run on a cooperative model much like the Outpost stores, REI and the Green Bay Packers. Cooperative members will help provide start-up capital and operating funding with their memberships. They will receive discounts on purchases and an annual dividend when possible, plus invitations to special events.

In the past month since the group has been planning, it has attracted nearly 400 people who have expressed interest in becoming co-op members.

Approximately 300 parking meters in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward will be replaced by the computerized LUKE parking meters that have been added to much of the downtown area in recent years, Ald. Robert Bauman announced.

People can use their credit cards to pay for parking at the LUKE spaces if they do not have coins. The current meters only take coins.

City officials hope to have as much as 50 percent of the Third Ward serviced by the LUKE parking meters by the end of the year, Bauman said.

"Not only will LUKE meters alleviate the need to carry rolls of quarters, but citizens can use credit and debit cards, can use any meter if the one closest to their spot is being used, they'll be warned by the meter about trying to pay on Saturday when no payment is required, and they'll have the option of pre-paying for meter time," Bauman said.

The new LUKE meters will be installed in the area extending from Water Street east to Milwaukee Street and from St. Paul Avenue south to Erie Street and Menomonee Street.

Exacto to move from Richmond, Ill. to Walworth County
Exacto Inc. recently purchased the 49,700-square-foot industrial building at 200 Old Factory Road in Sharon (located in Walworth County). from Lyman Lumber Company for $1.55 million. Automated Building Components Inc., part of the Excelsior, Minn.-based Lyman Lumber family of companies, ceased operations at the plant in 2008, putting 68 people out of work. Exacto will move its operations, and about 25 employees, to the facility from Richmond, Ill., which is located just south of Walworth County and about 20 miles southeast of Sharon. Exacto manufactures chemical additives. Exacto received a $850,000 SBA-backed loan from the Wisconsin Business Development Finance Corp. for the relocation. Dave Hazenfield of The Dickman Company represnted Lyman Lumber and Mark Stricker represented Exacto in brokering the property sale.