AEC News You Can Use Blog

The 32-story Edison tower on downtown Milwaukee’s riverfront could begin construction next spring, adding yet another peak to the city’s skyline.

Madison-based developer The Neutral Project has filed a proposal for review by the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals, city records show. The proposal also will undergo Plan Commission and Common Council review.

The firm is planning to complete its financing package in the first quarter of 2024, and planning to break ground on the project in the second or third quarter, followed by about two and a half years of construction, according to Daniel Glaessl, a partner at the firm.

The 381-unit luxury apartment tower would be built on a vacant lot at 1005 N. Edison St. along the Milwaukee River − where the former Rojahn & Malaney Co. warehouse was demolished this spring. The residential units would range from studios to three-bedroom apartments.

Parking is planned for the second through sixth floors of the building. Plans show a seventh floor dedicated to resident amenities. Floors 28 through 31 will be penthouse levels. The first floor will house a lobby, café, and a yet-to-be-determined tenant in a 7,100-square-foot space along the Milwaukee RiverWalk. A small park next to the building will also be relandscaped for public use.

The Edison would use a construction technique known as mass timber, or cross-laminated timber, which uses layers of wood pressed together to create columns, beams and other building frame components. This approach follows The Neutral Project’s mission to construct carbon neutral buildings.

“At completion the building will be one of the tallest mass timber hybrid structures in the world, utilizing nearly 100,000 cubic feet of lumber,” Glaessl said.

The Edison would add to a flurry of recent apartment tower construction in the downtown area. Both the 44-story Couture apartment tower and 31-story 333 North Water Street apartment tower, currently under construction, are to be completed this spring. Read more here

It’s rare that a building’s design can become so immediately iconic – an attraction unto itself. Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in Barcelona comes to mind. It is a visual feast – a sculpture that takes the shape of a building. Many architecture critics are already claiming the same for the newly opened Gilder Center at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. Officially named the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation, the addition to AMNH is the icing on a very prestigious cake. AMNH boasted five million visitors in 2019 (the most recent year the TEA/AECOM Theme Index ranked museums). It is the ninth most-visited museum in the world, and in North America it is second only to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (also in New York City).

The Gilder Center is a 230,000 sq-ft addition that boasts 33 individual connections across four levels to 10 other buildings on the AMNH campus. In addition to helping unify the museum, Gilder houses impressive exhibits including an insectarium, the Davis Family Butterfly Vivarium, new collection displays and the immersive Invisible Worlds experience, a projection-mapped environment that takes guests to scientific and natural realms nearly impossible to see under normal circumstances.

Also capturing attention, of course, is the building itself. Designed by Studio Gang, the building is curvaceous and flowing, or in architect-speak, it’s nonrectilinear. The west- facing exterior features glass windows peeking out from undulating smooth pink granite forms. The 80-foot-tall interior atrium lobby, evocative of a canyon, is made from a material that coats nearly every surface, applied in novel ways. Openings into exhibit spaces and bridges spanning the atrium are amorphous – no shape is repeated in the design. The finish is off-white, and although the primary material is concrete, the effect is organic, almost like looking at bone on a microscopic level, with its crevices and tendons stretching across the space. Read more here

A home builder is accused of faking his own disappearance in an elaborate plot to steal money from clients, a Texas lawsuit says.

Lawsuits are piling up against architects as they lock horns with owners over a several-year stretch of project delays, local construction attorneys said.

In the aftermath of the pandemic’s many construction sector interruptions, there’s a battle over who should take the blame for long-delayed projects. Those eager to recoup costs associated with those delays are sometimes pointing the finger at their contractors, as well as design professionals.

That’s being seen increasingly often by Andrew Carlowicz Jr. and Lawrence Powers, co-chairs of the Construction Law Department at New Brunswick-based law firm Hoagland, Longo, Moran, Dunst & Doukas LLP.

The duo has handled many disputes over the years on behalf of architects and engineers. The civil lawsuits that have emerged from this most recent trend are what they describe as interesting and definitely some of the most complicated.

“Because, when a project finishes late, there are some instances where a delay issue was clearly the responsibility of either the design team on a project or the contractor but, that’s rare,” Carlowicz said. “Usually, it’s many different issues caused by different parties concurrently that lead to delays.” Read more here

Milwaukee's new sales tax takes effect in about six months, but one real estate developer said it's already pausing construction on a new apartment building.

Under the development plan, the Goll Mansion on Prospect Avenue would stay on its current property but move a little. Then, a 25-story building would go up. Construction crews were supposed to get started next month, but it's now all on hold.