A $120 million mixed-use complex is slated for construction on a city block in downtown Milwaukee. This large-scale project covers land once occupied by the elevated Park-East Freeway, which was demolished in 2003 in favor of a downtown redevelopment scheme. The new complex will incorporate a group of existing19th-century structures that had escaped being razed for the original freeway; in the ’60s, these buildings were combined into one complex for artists’ studio spaces and dubbed the Sidney Hih Building.
The new Sidney Hih is designed by young local firm Johnsen Schmaling Architects, and includes a 21-story tower on the northwest corner of the block. It will house a luxury hotel, condos, and apartments, while the reconfigured building will contain office space and community center. Retail space will ring the project along street level, and the Gipfel Brewery, Milwaukee’s oldest surviving brewery structure, will be moved from an adjacent lot and transformed into a pub as part of the development. The complex will be punctuated by three roof gardens, and a vertical garden on one elevation of a parking structure. The architects aim for the next-generation Sidney Hih to be the largest LEED-certified building in Wisconsin.
The Park-East Freeway was designed in the 1950s as part of a beltway to encircle downtown Milwaukee. In the 1960’s anti-freeway protests halted the plan and the half-completed structure dead-ended east of the Milwaukee River. When the Sidney Hih was redeveloped into studios and a concert venue, the building was covered in a calico color scheme brightly visible to commuters on the freeway. While the pattern has been painted over, the new tower facade features a pattern play of slate and glass as a quiet tribute to its eccentric older sibling.
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