Historic Restoration & Adaptive Re-Use

The renovation of a historic structure like Germania Apartments on a tightly constrained downtown Milwaukee site is complex, challenging and interesting. We took a building that had always functioned as an office building, removed every interior wall, wire, conduit, pipe and flooring material to take the building down to its concrete and steel skeleton. The resulting mountain of debris was partially recycled when materials could be and the rest disposed of according to requirements based on the material.  We then began the process of coring every floor for all new plumbing and electrical, replacing the elevator cars and controls while leaving the lobby level historic doors in place, building the walls of each of the 90 new apartments. We installed the same finishes and appliances in all of the units, 44 affordable and 46 market rate. We completed this in 12 months when we commenced demolition in June of 2016 and received our certificate of occupancy on July 1st 2017, the same day we moved in the first 24 tenants.