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Urban condos are on the rise in Milwaukee, and the roads leading to them are being rebuilt.
Although it is only recently that the city has seen construction of urban condos, demand appears to be high.
"Laverne and Shirley don't live here any more, but their kids do," said John Rodell, vice president and general manager of J.H. Findorff & Son Inc. in Milwaukee.
Data from McGraw-Hill Construction, publisher of Midwest Construction, show a 15 percent jump in apartment construction in Brew City this year over last year, a category that includes both condos and apartments.
Apartment construction alone, on the other hand, is not doing well. Low interest rates and changes in lending practices over the past few years have made it easier to purchase a home, thus drawing large numbers of renters into home ownership.
As a result, starts overall in the residential area are down 6.4 percent to $580 million for the first half of 2005.
Milwaukee's downtown area, which for years took on a ghost-town appearance after business hours, is seeing a surge of condo construction - and upscale condo construction at that.
"The simplicity of condo and apartment life is attractive to a lot of people," said Michael Fabishak, executive vice president of the Associated General Contractors of Greater Milwaukee.
Surge in Infrastructure
Anyone driving through town can spot the source of the city's surge in infrastructure construction: the $810 million Marquette Interchange project.
The interchange, the point at which interstates 94 and 43 meet downtown, is being completely reconstructed. The project will be completed in 2008.
"The Marquette Interchange project is consuming most of the oxygen in town," Fabishak said. He said some usual seasonal roadwork is also going on, but those projects pale in comparison to Marquette.
Rodell added that, given state budget concerns, the Marquette project likely will be the extent of state-funded projects in the area for the next few years.
WE Energies' $7 billion Power the Future project, which is upgrading and expanding the utility's power capability to meet projected demand increases in the coming years, continues in suburban Port Washington and Oak Creek.
Although there has been some activity in the manufacturing sector it remains limited.
School construction is at low ebb, with referenda becoming increasingly difficult to pass.
Rodell did point to a couple of areas in which he believed construction was likely to be strong.
"One area that has been a sleeper here is structure parking," he said, adding that from condo towers to health-care facilities and existing shopping malls, there is a high demand for parking.
He also sees Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified projects and sustainable structures dominating the construction industry in the coming years.
"LEED and sustainable design are getting feathered into every aspect of building - on all projects," Rodell added. "Even if clients elect not to do it, they look at it and talk about it."
One of the biggest local concerns is constant increases in the pressure put on time and cost, Fabishak said.
"I am not suggesting that construction firms don't want to provide value or that the industry can't rise to the challenge," he said. "But some owners are so driven by notions to get things done quicker that it can be problematic."
Downtown will likely see a burst of construction in the coming years as the land cleared from the demolition of the Park Freeway is developed and, if political hurdles can be cleared, the old Pabst Brewery structures are redeveloped.
"I think the industry should enjoy a relatively stable level of construction activity for the remainder of the decade," Fabishak said.
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