Developer now plans condos, instead of apartments, on Milwaukee's east side riverfront

A developer is dropping his plan for a high-profile apartment building on Milwaukee's east side riverfront in favor of a condominium project.Wangard Partners Inc. still wants to develop a four-story building at N. Water and E. Brady streets.But, instead of 92 apartments and 4,500 square feet of street-level commercial space, the firm is now proposing to develop 94 condos with no commercial space."We had a number of people approach us about wanting to buy condominiums at this site," said Stewart Wangard, chief executive officer. "And we listened."The firm plans to begin marketing the condos in late spring and has already secured a lender to help finance the development, Wangard said.Construction might begin even without selling some of the condos in advance, he said. The building would take around 15 months to complete.There haven't been any major condo developments in Milwaukee's downtown and east side area for around a decade.A downtown housing boom — mainly involving condos — ran from the late 1990s until around 2008.After the housing market collapse, followed by a global recession, demand for downtown condos largely disappeared for several years.As a result, a lot of downtown and east side condos now being listed for sale "are quite dated" in their types of finishes, floor plans and amenities, Wangard said.Read the full article as recently published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Tom Daykin.More information on this particular development can also be found in another recently published article by Corrinne Hess of the BizTimes.