Mass timber office plan
Milwaukee will get a three‑story mass timber office and retail building — a concrete sign mass timber is moving into small urban developments as a carbon‑sequestering alternative. Projects like this are worth watching if you’re tracking reclaimed or low‑carbon material options for future home or ADU builds. (finance-commerce.com)
The site for the development is listed as 1703 N. Vel R. Phillips Ave at the corner of Vel R. Phillips and West Walnut, where plans call for demolishing a vacant four‑unit apartment that currently sits on the lot. (jsonline.com) The project is being advanced by an affiliate of Sid Grinker Restoration operating as It Had to be You, LLC, with Sharon Grinker listed as the property agent and the parcel purchased in 2020 for $306,900 according to city records. (bluewaterhealthyliving.com) Korb + Associates Architects is the lead designer on the Bronzeville scheme, and the firm’s Milwaukee portfolio includes Ascent, the 25‑story mass‑timber hybrid that was certified as the world’s tallest timber building. (finance-commerce.com) (korbarch.com) Earlier, the same site was proposed as a seven‑floor development before the design was scaled back, and plans call for each of the upper floors to be occupied by a single tenant with unit footprints of roughly 2,500 square feet and the primary entrance placed on Walnut Street. (bluewaterhealthyliving.com) Korb’s Ascent team ran unprecedented testing — including a three‑hour fire char test on glue‑laminated timber in partnership with the USDA Forest Products Laboratory — work that the firm and allied project teams have cited as helping clear regulatory and safety hurdles for local mass‑timber builds. (korbarch.com) Project scheduling presented in recent filings and briefings indicates design and permitting aimed for completion in spring 2026, with construction bidding and financing steps targeted for summer and a potential start of on‑site work in late 2026, with tenants being identified before project completion. (finance-commerce.com)
