Business Improvement District Board #2 (historic Third Ward) - Regular Meeting

a special message section that provides definitions for the licenses considered in the application, and if applicable, information on public entertainment premises and extended hours establishment applications. In the lower section of the notice, there is information on how to submit objections. If you have an objection to the proposed business, you must submit it in writing to the License Division by emailing us at license at milwaukee dot gov or sending a letter to our office located at 200 East Wells Street, Room 105, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202. Make sure to include the following information in your objection. Your name. Your mailing address or email address. This allows the License Division to contact you with information about a Licenses Committee hearing for this application. Information known to you that may form the basis of denial. Please make sure that your objection reflects your own experiences, as the Licenses Committee cannot consider hearsay. Your objection should relate to the operation of the proposed license and how it will have an adverse impact on the health, safety, and welfare of the public and the neighborhood. If you do submit an objection, the License Division will notify you when the applicant is scheduled to appear before the Licenses Committee. That notice will include the date, time, and location of the hearing. If you have any questions about this notice or license applications, contact the License Division at licenseatmilwaukee.gov or call us at 286-2238.

Hey, you happen to hear what happened at the city hall yesterday? Did I hear about it? Not only did I hear about it, but I watched it as it was going down on the city channel.

Calling to order the August 3rd meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission. Ms. Roman, can you please call the roll?

Ann Piper? Here. Sally Peltz? Here. Nicholas Robinson?

Here.

Matt DeRose?

Here.

Robert Boutman?

Here.

Patricia Keaton.

Excused.

And Jordan Morales.

Here. All right. We'll start with item number.

Perfect.

Yeah. Oh, there we go. Perfect. Everybody's here. We'll start with item one, 260161, resolution relating to a certificate of appropriateness for the infill of one door at 2665 North Lake Drive in the North Point North Historic District for Anna Thames and Craig Rigby.

Carmen, could you call over to City Channel there? You haven't set me up for PowerPoint sharing.

It's disabled. Thank you.

He's coming.

Thank you. Well, it's not my district. I don't know what's in there.

Stucco will be Portland. Stucco, no exterior insulation. I finished this material. Thank you. Thank you.

Yep, that's it. Thanks.

All right. Thanks.

Okay, here we go, we've got the PowerPoint going. So we've got the J. Michael Reeves House in 1915 Foursquare. photographed here, the front elevation. This is the rear elevation, the west elevation, and they are proposing removing one exterior door, which currently is just used for exterior storage, but they want to remove that and infill the opening to enlarge the kitchen area. So here is the elevation as it is existing with that door. They would remove that opening, infill it with stucco to match the existing texture and color of the rear facade. It's not visible from the right of way, it is the rear facade. So staff is recommending approval with conditions, and the conditions just being that new stucco will be Portland cement stucco, no EFIS would be allowed, and that the stucco should match the original stucco in terms of texture, hardness, and thickness.

All right.

Can you go back to the original what it looks like now, please? Yep the photo Yeah, thank you. That's stuck out that blue.

Yes, correct Okay, it's just hard to tell and it's peeling a little bit too Okay, any of the commissioners have questions on this matter All right, do we have a second

Second.

All in favor? Aye. All right. Moving on to item two, 260404, resolution relating to a certificate of appropriateness for new patio doors and new deck at 107 West Brown Street in the Brewers Hill Historic District for Brew City B&B's company.

Thank you. So this is the house. It's circa 1891 Queen Anne, located on the corner of 1st and Brown. The front of the house faces Brown Street. It does have this very large side yard. So you can see the photograph on the left shows the front of the house. The photograph on the right shows the side yard, which is on First Street. So this is from First looking towards the house. So it is quite a large side yard. They don't have a side yard on the other side. It's the neighboring property on the west side. So they're proposing this is the existing, and this is a mock-up rendering of what they're proposing to enlarge that window opening on the bay there and install a deck. The rendering's not completely accurate. The stairs in the plans wouldn't just go onto the grass. There are stairs that would go onto the existing sidewalk. This is the side yard. Yep. This yard is on the corner. This is on first and Brown. So this side yard faces First Street North First Street Yep, and Brown is to the to the right Okay, the front facade is to the to the right around the corner. Yep So the proposed deck is would be 15 feet and a half by uh deep by 13 and a half feet wide new wood deck which would consist of pressure treated decking four by four posts two by two spindles uh one by four skirting molded rails which we could work on with the applicant to nail the final design so this is what is proposed for the deck the applicant didn't provide the exact specimens for the patio door though it is it's shown to be a sliding door so we would need a little bit more details on on that were hpc to approve that tried to draw roughly the size of the deck adjacent to the present yard so it would extend pretty significantly into the side yard and as you can see on the rendering it almost to staff's mind flips the primary elevation and makes this side elevation appear to be the primary front facade rather than a secondary facade. The preservation guidelines for Brewers Hill state to retain existing window and door openings that are visible from the public right of way to avoid enlarging openings. They also advise to avoid discarding original doors and windows that can be repaired and replaced. um the staff feels that the proposed deck and the enlarged opening don't comply with the preservation guidelines for the district and that the enlarged deck would be too prominent and too visible from the side yard and adding a deck at that location would detract from the actual front facade again making it appear as though the side elevation was the actual front recommend front elevation Steph recommends that if a deck is desired at this location, that perhaps this would be a good compromise to create a door from this rear window and add an L-shaped deck that would be adjacent to the one story addition that's kind of tucked away behind that tree. but have a deck that would be roughly the size of that addition that could wrap around slightly and connect to both the front and back sidewalks, roughly in the shape shown here, outlined in red. So with the preservation guidelines in mind, at the present proposal, staff recommends denial of the sliding doors and deck, again, with The caveat that if HPC agrees that perhaps a scaled down deck could be located along that rear facade and slightly onto the side facade.

Question to you. Is your concern the fact of a deck or the way the deck is designed?

Just its prominence, its size, how far it juts into that side yard. And again, with the addition of that larger opening there, it makes it seem as though the side facade becomes the primary facade.

This is a rendering, obviously, the finished version. Looks like a GPT. Very suburban.

I was going to say, it looks like something at Germantown.

I mean, very suburban. I mean, if they were to have a standard door, not a sliding door... Come on up if you guys.

I'm okay with doing a care store. You should come up and tell us your name and give us your address.

107 East Brown. So this is your house? Yes. And your name? Shalonda McCrory.

Thanks.

Because that looks like plastic decking, basically.

It looks like composite decking, but this...

This is a rendering I use with AI.

Yeah.

It's an AI rendering.

Yeah.

Okay. Be careful with that AI stuff. They'll be in your pocket pretty soon.

Yeah, right. What is Bruce City B&B Company?

I do fix and flips and remodels, and I house families that are on fires. Oh, okay.

But you live here?

I live here.

Nice house. This deck is a little... I think this can be designed in a more Queen Anne style. Okay. With a doorway that's consistent with the design of the house originally. And... Not composite materials, but classic tongue and groove, more traditional spindles of a larger dimension. I mean, you say two by two, but they end up being one and a half by one, one and three quarter by one and three quarter. If you use standard stock, unless you get them custom milled, which you can do to get a true two by two spindle. and use classic Blifford railings and, right? I mean, that's.

Yep, they've got all of that in stock and designed.

I mean, that's doable. This does have an awfully suburban look to it in a very unsuburban neighborhood.

Do you have a copy of the guidelines for Brewers Hill?

Yeah, I do. He was nice enough to give me the guidelines. I didn't know that this was a whole thing. So I'm learning. This is a learning process for me.

Okay, good.

So Andrew has been very nice to let me know what I can and can't do. So I'm asking permission if I can do the carriage doors with that opening. And if we want a smaller deck, we can do a smaller deck.

But for security reasons, I don't know if you want a sliding door. I wouldn't want a sliding door. Oh, that's fine. Because they're easy to penetrate.

Yes, yeah. Yeah, I think this, I think this one probably needs to go back to the drawing board for a little bit of design overall. Are you working with a contractor as well? I'm the contractor. You're the contractor.

Okay. Very, very good. So tell us more about what you do. So I do fix and flips and I also house like families. Like I have like, I'm managing our own different rentals that do midterms. So we primarily work with like relocation or people who are unhoused due to fire or floods.

And you relocate folks to what, single family homes or multi-unit? Yes, like single family homes or whatever. Do you have a stable of empty single family homes waiting around just for disasters?

They're not empty now. How many do you have? I manage about 20 of them. Wow, that's great.

And you own them or just manage them?

I own about six and I manage for other people. Awesome. I'd like to see local ownership. Interesting.

Brew City B&Bs is your company? Yes, it is. Yeah, okay. And you've got the next two matters there before us as well.

Oh, what's the next one? Okay.

I don't think this one's ready for prime time yet.

Can you work with? Yeah, absolutely.

What's HPC's feeling on having a door on that facade versus on the rear? Would you have a preference?

I would say the rear makes, which is your guys' recommendation, correct? Yeah, I would say the rear makes more sense in this neighborhood. Yeah.

There's already a door in the rear, though.

Oh, perfect.

But it's weird because there was a bump out in the house that was added in 1915. So it would be awkward. So having that patio door there opens it up from a dining room for entertaining spaces. And I can make it. HPC appropriate.

Yeah. It should be the same room, correct?

Yeah, it's the same room, but it would just be awkward to have the door there versus from the inside of the house. It would be awkward to have the door there.

Yeah.

Right now, I think my personal opinion is only three inches on each side of that window for a carriage door for that opening.

So you're one house in from the corner, but the corner lots vacant. I got the whole corner lot.

Right.

But it used to be a house there presumably.

No, no, no. Actually my grandma used to live there 45 years ago.

Maybe not last year, but 80 years ago, I bet there was no, no, no.

My grandma lived there 40 years ago. There was no house.

Cause it's strange that to be, to have a vacant corner. I mean, at some point there was a,

Yeah, there's also a quarter at on King Drive that has never ever been developed for some reason so in the house to the House shown on the other side here that faces.

Yeah the other street, correct? That's facing first. Yes

that's an awkward layout it just looks like the front entrance center yeah yeah it will yeah if you look i'm flying around in google street view here right and this is the this is the front of the house right there right which is diminutive compared to what you're proposing

Once we turn the corner. The house isn't even these colors.

It's halfway that color now.

Pardon?

It's halfway that color now. It's green right now. Okay. The black siding is probably being done right now as we speak.

Yeah, so staff, she's undergoing a large rehabilitation project. So staff recently approved a COA to remove the replacement siding and she's restoring the clabbered siding. We'll be restoring the windows. Good.

Okay. And your grandma lived there.

Yeah, 4045 years ago before I was alive, but like it's already green already and starting to restore it. So we're.

So our pictures are behind the time.

Yeah, yeah, those are older street view images.

OK. Only December 2025. Yeah.

Well, I think it needs to go back, and I think that you are correct in your, well, I will move to deny, and I will move.

We'll move to hold, right?

Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Deny and go back for changes. that you're suggesting. But then I wouldn't be able to come back until next month.

But if you deny it, you have to start over again, right? Yes. No, we don't want to do that.

Oh, I get it.

Okay.

If you hold it, she can come back next month.

Sorry about that. Yeah.

Actually, we still have time to deny this one because we're not up to deadline yet because it's so far out. We'll move you home. Yeah.

Okay. That's fine. Okay. Do I have a second for holding this one? Second.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. All right. Well, you might want to stay up here then. Item 260405, resolution relating to a certificate of appropriateness for demolition of a garage at 2328 East Back Bay Street in the North Point South Historic District for Brew City B&B's company.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So staff had not received final plans for the addition or for the garage. So staff's recommending holding three and four to next month. Perfect.

Do I have a motion for holding items three and four? Almost. All right. All in favor? Aye. All right. Aye. Oh, sorry. Somebody seconded it. Yeah. All right. Good. This house too?

Yeah.

Okay.

Very good.

Thank you. All right. Item five resolution relating to a certificate of appropriateness for rehabilitation of the grand department store Mitchell park place at one one zero one West historic Mitchell street in the Mitchell street historic district for Zuanna cotton.

All right. This is a big project, but it is also largely cosmetic, so I'm pretty much just going to hit the highlights of what's going on here. It is nonetheless complicated, so I brought the whole plan set if anyone wants to look. I realize the architects on the committee are virtual, but oh well. Let's see. I printed these in the wrong order. So this is the former Grand Department store at 11th and Mitchell. Several combined buildings with numerous connections and remodelings, pieces range from in date from 1888, prior to 1888, 1891, 1911, 1949, and then the primary facade you're seeing here is a 1937 makeover that combined two or three buildings. Oh. So we'll move on to the plans. The plan is essentially to keep the first floor retail and community serving spaces and an apartment lobby. Part of the 11th Street side will become a daycare on the ground floor. Second floor throughout will be apartments. So main projects, remove all existing exterior signage, none of which is, none of which dates to the era of the building was constructed or to the grand's operations. Clean and repair the masonry with Pro Soco products. Existing windows will be retained and repaired, replacing in kind to current conditions where necessary. There appear to be no original windows outside of the 1949 addition on 11th Street. which is this left section in this top quarter of the drawing. Very international style, differentiating it from the Mitchell Street facades art. Streamline modern. Replace tinted spandrel glass, again, mostly on the 11th Street side of the front buildings with new clear glazing. Replace non-historic entry doors on the 11th Street side. Install five new aluminum fraying hung windows on the alley side. right here in this white painted brick area to create new windows for apartments on that upper level there there is no reason to believe there have ever been wood windows in this building so aluminum is perfectly reasonable there there has never been a wood window in this building to our knowledge so adding wood and especially on a mitchell street alley would be an unusual choice They are a product we have approved before in commercial projects. Gram windows. Repair the roof deck, install 12 skylights to increase interior daylight in various units in the apartments. So overall, very good project. I do have, staff has some concerns with the masonry cleaning proposal. It may be a little too aggressive. It should be phased. The Prosoco SureClean light duty concrete cleaner that is proposed for all of the surfaces is highly caustic. And acidic cleaners can only be used on limestone with extreme care and very experienced crews who know what they're doing. Every effort should be made to clean the building with water, light surfactants and antimicrobials before resorting to strong chemicals.

TSP.

TSP, yeah. If it were a glazed tile, actually Tide is surprisingly effective.

Really?

Yes. Learned that from a conservator, tried it on my fireplace, magic.

Not Dawn. Not Dawn. Dawn cleans everything well, apparently.

Soup, much more concentrated than you would use in your laundry, but it does work.

Interesting.

but definitely not appropriate for limestone, regardless. Black staining of the limestone should be tested for its composition before selecting any particular chemical treatment. Soot and biological staining are nearly indistinguishable to the naked eye and respond very differently to cleaning agents, especially on stone surfaces. So that is the primary concern. Here's some of the conditions of the building. There's some bronze and copper storefront original that is painted, the paint will be removed. The stuff that looks like granite is a synthetic granite that is basically a dyed concrete with dark aggregate. So it's not actually concrete and will be therefore actually more repairable than true granite, less and less obvious. Current second floor windows, again, believed not to be original but will be kept. The middle section on 11th Street that is painted 1890s brick. And a highlight of the 1949 addition at the south end of the building. More details on the 1949 windows. So conditions, acquire masonry building cleaning permits. It is never included in the building permit. It is required to do separately. Staff does not believe the brick on the 1949 facade is in such condition that harsh chemical cleaning is necessary. It should be cleaned with water and light for surfactant except for dealing with graffiti. But we acknowledge that chemical cleaning of the limestone lintels on that section is probably necessary due to the dark staining. when painting the previously painted brick on various facades, use a paint certified by the manufacturer as certified for brick, and then our standard conditions on pressure washing technique, fan tip, minimum distance from the building, and PSI restrictions and GPM restrictions.

Anybody from the developer here?

Yes, the architect is present.

Oh, okay, very good.

Can you just state your name and who you're representing?

Sure. My name's Courtney Reagan. I'm here with Continuum Architects representing our client. Joanna Cotton is the client.

Awesome. Does any of the commissioners have questions? Are all these conditions satisfactory?

We are in agreement with all of those, yes.

Okay. Pretty simple then, yeah. All right, second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. All right. That was easy.

Thank you. Just as a footnote, this was a building that had been slated for demolition. Amazing. Which we denied, but the council granted. Oh. And now plans changed.

Perfect.

Same owner.

Nice.

Great outcome.

That's awesome. Great outcome. That's what we like.

Thank you. Continue.

They should have listened to us.

Thank you for helping figure out how to do it right.

All right, excellent. Item six, 260376, resolution relating to a certificate appropriateness for exterior structural repairs and masonry work at 1034 North Velar Phillips Avenue, Turner Hall, an individually designated historic property for the Milwaukee Turners.

All right, so here is Turner Hall. It dates to 1882. The area that is receiving the approval The majority of the work is the shorter two-story north wing. You can see here, and it's highlighted in yellow with proposed areas of work. Approval is to install C-channel bracing across the primary facade of the annex, and general repointing and masonry repairs mostly on the front of the building, but will be done as needed everywhere. The core of the proposal is two bent steel C channels that will be installed on the primary facade to improve structural integrity. These channels would be secured to the building with metal rods, run back into the building approximately eight feet through joists and rafters, as you can see on the drawings here. Blocking would be added to the joists and rafters along with steel rods. The bending of the steel is required to address the present bowing of the front of the building. The steel, when installed, will be painted to be blended into the facade as best as possible. So based on the photos provided in the file, staff is somewhat reluctantly recommending approval of this as it is presented as a temporary stabilization measure. We don't have word on long-term or a timeline, but they are doing their best to stabilize and make it as presentable as possible by they will be painting the steel to blend it into the brickwork. Um, the bigger, uh, the particular issue I have is the, uh, the repointing of the building is, uh, proposed as type and mortar, um, from prior experience and private, uh, with reviewers at, uh, Wisconsin Historical Society. Um, uh, I had an experience with Mark Beekle where he, shall we say, threw a hairy canary about using type N mortar on Cream City brick. He did not allow it to be used anywhere in the Pabst complex. So I think since Turner Hall is a National Historic Landmark and Pabst is not, we should certainly be upholding the same standard and be as careful with the brick as possible. so staff is recommending a type o mortar or an nhl natural hydraulic lime mortar rather than type n that would be just too much portland cement in the mix for this except in possible locations where some possible locations where extreme structural support is necessary but it shouldn't but natural lime water should be sufficient for almost all of the work

So this is a balloon frame building with a brick facade separating from the wood? Vertical members?

Yeah, I'll let the engineer speak to that because that was not drawn in, but you are probably correct.

And then those rods have to go through multiple joists? Yes. Okay.

Should we identify ourselves? Yeah, please. My name is Emilio DeTore. I'm the executive director of the Milwaukee Turners at Turner Hall. Eric Pitt. I'm the facility manager for Turner Hall.

And Jeff Bean, president of Bean Engineering, the structural engineer for the project. So it is a balloon frame, so it's a continuous burying wall construction. And the joists parallel to the front facade has... Yeah, they're being difficult today. Oh, is that what the ring was? Yeah. The joist parallel to the front facade, which is the west elevation, is there, but the facade is separated, and there's no direct attachment of that joist to the facade. A lot of this stemmed from the deep water deep tunnel project and the crack in the facade that we've seen evidence of. that they're as far back as photographic evidence of that facade is around that time. So we've seen cracks in the same location, appear to be the same size. So we're just addressing this need for lateral stabilization of that facade, because as we know, that can tend to lean off the building and fall into the street sometimes. we're proposing a temporary stabilization of that facade just by strapping it and Emilio and Eric can speak for the long term timeline but I think the overall intent is to address it. It's just temporarily stabilizing it for now and then proceeding in the future.

We're currently looking to get either an historic structures report or a historic properties master plan so that we can more strategically go about restoring the entire building and not just this cosmetic stuff. The urgency being in this is that it's also my my desk, which is gonna slide off into the parking lot if this falls, because I sit over there. But it's a gorgeous, lovely building, and it's alive. It's not a museum, and so we need to make it continue another 143 years, at least.

Yeah, and this is the annex structure, so it wasn't part of the original construction, but it was built very soon after.

It's the new addition from 1902.

So you see 13-foot ceiling height. Is that... If the facade is separated, is just two straps enough?

It's a very it's so it's very narrow it is connected to the main building at that at that original north wall of the main building and I forget the exact width of the annex structure, but it's it's very narrow the Exterior wall on the north side is engaged with the West facade So we're just strapping that and holding it back between those two Points of restraint at the corners And we're coming back eight feet in just to engage the floor diaphragm because we want that floor diaphragm to work and bring those loads back to the north and the, both north walls, the north wall of the original building and the north wall of the annex structure. Are there rods welded to the channel? No, they do not need to be. They can be bolted. So I guess that would put a nut on the exterior face of the channel.

In a decorative nut, it could be. It very well could be. I've seen that in buildings. Like a star-shaped. Exactly, yeah. Type washer, basically.

Several of those are actually part of the original structure on the north face of the building, so finding something to match that would be very doable.

Our fundraiser is live if you'd like to contribute to the decorative nut.

Yes. All right. Anybody else have questions?

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I do have a question. Go ahead. Jeff Bean, you're showing this kind of work to stabilize what seems to be like the roof and the second floor. Would there be any need to do this channeling work at the first floor? No? I mean, isn't the whole brick facade displacing or no?

We've investigated at the roof level and the second floor level of separation. That's where most of the deformation occurs and is peeling away. It's actually two halves, right? There's a window down the center of the building on that facade. There's one half... to the north and a half to the south that are essentially kinked at that window location, at the second floor and at the roof, but not at the lower level. There is a, yeah, you can see the, if you go back to the image, Tim, The first floor level is about three feet above the sidewalk elevation. And there's a different type of wall construction there with granite, sorry, not granite, stone blocks at the base course. So different wall construction than up above, yeah.

Okay, that sounds fine. I'm just, you know,

Asking that question mm-hmm sounds good looks like a proper repair Historically when these were being built how was the brick facade attached to the siding? The wood siding behind it typically what would be the method of attachment?

So this is a solid brick bearing wall. So there's no wood in the wall system itself. It's solid brick with a joist that would be right up against the inside face of that and there should be, oftentimes there's only one, maybe two or three metal connectors clamping that facade to that joist. We didn't observe any at this location.

So this really isn't traditional balloon construction It's ballooned in the sense that it's a bearing wall that's continuously built.

It's not interrupted by the floor system on the the west elevation Yeah, so no wood no wood wall framing Okay any other questions

The demolition of Bradley's, have you confirmed that, that that was a cause of some of this damage, or is that your assertion? I doubt it.

Windows were blown out during the demolition, and that was, but they weren't, I wasn't there at the time, and so the adequate monitoring, which they did say during the construction of the new site, wasn't done in the same way. There weren't multiple points of monitoring. All of this is stewarded by these two gentlemen to my left. this is also the first full-time facilities manager we've had in my lifetime and i'm almost 60. so the stewardship wasn't necessarily there so i can only provide anecdotal evidence and quotes from other people saying yes but i think compounding with the the um the deep tunnel project which is also chronicled as having caused damage to the annex because that's on a different footing than the rest of the building being that that's 1882 and that's 1903 um all exacerbated the problem That and all the dust across the office after they imploded the Bradley Center.

All right. Do we have a motion on this one? So moved. All right. And the motion is to approve with staff conditions. Nick, we can't hear you too well.

Sorry.

Okay, there you go. Were you saying something to us, Nick? No, all good. All right. Okay, so we've got a motion. Do I have a second? Second. All right. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. There we go. Thank you.

Thank you, friends.

Awesome. All right. We will now take up items seven through 27 as staff approved certificates of appropriateness. Do I have a motion to approve?

So moved.

All right. Second. Second. All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

All right. Let's go to item 28 review and approval of the minutes from the last meeting on July 6th, 2026. All commissioners have seen and reviewed the minutes. Um, do we have a motion for approving?

So moved.

All right. Do I have a second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. All right. Aye. Updates and announcements.

I'm just going to keep putting this.

All right, October 14th through the 18th, right? 16th. 16th, sorry. Local History and Historic Preservation Conference, downtown Milwaukee here. Put it on our calendars. We'll put it on our calendars. All right, any other updates or announcements? Any commissioners have any updates or announcements? It doesn't feel right to close this early, but maybe. All right. Do we have a motion to adjourn then?

So moved.

All right, second? Second. All right, all in favor? Aye.