A young man’s fancy is turning to signs of construction life

Published: March 4, 2010
Tags: blog, economy, high-speed rail, Hot Topics, Ingeteam, Innovation Park, Pabst Farms, Rail, Ryan, Talgo, Tower Automotive

By Sean Ryan

staff writer

Signs of life for the state’s construction industry are popping up everywhere as we head into spring.

Train spotting

Published: March 2, 2010
Tags: high-speed rail, Rail, Talgo, Tower Automotive

Milwaukee, Madison in running for Talgo’s rail maintenance building (VIDEO)

Published: March 2, 2010
Tags: Amtrak, Antonio Perez, Doyle, high-speed rail, Madison, manufacturing, Marcoux, Milwaukee, Rail, Talgo, Tower Automotive, train, Trowbridge, Wisconsin Department of Transportation, WisDOT
Comments: 1

By Sean Ryan
Milwaukee won the competition for Talgo’s Wisconsin manufacturing plant, but the company still is considering Milwaukee and Madison for a train maintenance building.
The $810 million federal grant to build a Madison-to-Milwaukee high-speed rail line includes $41.7 million for a building to maintain the trains once they are in service.
Talgo, which would do the [...]

Milwaukee gets grant for Tower Auto cleanup

The state on Friday awarded an $800,000 grant to the city of Milwaukee’s plan to clean contamination from the former A.O. Smith and Tower Automotive site.
The grant is from a Wisconsin Department of Commerce program that targets blighted properties.
The Redevelopment Authority of the City of Milwaukee completed the purchase of the 84-acre property in December. [...]

Tower project prompts spending debate

Published: August 31, 2009
Tags: Add new tag, Milwaukee, redevelopment, TIF, Tower Automotive
Comments: 2

Sean Ryan
sean.ryan@dailyreporter.com

The debate over Milwaukee’s Tower Automotive redevelopment is casting the project as both a neighborhood’s salvation and a risk better left untaken.
Sherman Jackson has lived in the neighborhood around the site since 1949, and he said he watched as the property declined after Tower and A.O. Smith closed their doors. The more than 100-acre [...]

TIFs carry varied risks for Milwaukee

Published: August 28, 2009
Tags: Inc., Menomonee Valley, Mike Daun, tax-incremental financing district, TIF, Tower Automotive, Wisconsin Gas Light Co., Zimmerman Architectural Studios

Sean Ryan
sean.ryan@dailyreporter.com
Milwaukee would get a guarantee from a developer to protect the city’s investment in a $2 million Menomonee Valley tax-incremental financing district, but not on the much larger Tower Automotive project.
The risk of things going bad on the proposed $15.6 million TIF district (PDF) for the former Tower Automotive site is even greater, and [...]

City inches closer to Tower redevelopment

Published: July 14, 2009
Tags: Milwaukee, redevelopment, Tower Automotive

Sean Ryan
sean.ryan@dailyreporter.com
When he was a child, Todd Spewer said, he fell asleep to the clinking of the metal stamps at the Tower Automotive site.
Spewer, born and raised near the Tower property on Capitol Drive in Milwaukee, said he remembers the celebrations when adults in the neighborhood landed a job at Tower. And he said he [...]

Milwaukee and Tower owners strike a deal

Published: July 8, 2009
Tags: Milwaukee, Milwaukee Industrial Trade Center, Tower Automotive

Sean Ryan
sean.ryan@dailyreporter.com
After wrangling with the owners of the Tower Automotive property for more than a year, the city of Milwaukee on Wednesday announced plans to buy the site for $3.5 million.
Milwaukee has been negotiating with Milwaukee Industrial Trade Center, the owner of the 84-acre site at 3533 N. 27th St., since at least 2007. The [...]

Uncertainty undermines Tower Auto property

Published: May 20, 2009
Tags: Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, Milwaukee, Milwaukee Industrial Trade Center LLC, Northwest Side Community Development Corp., Tower Automotive

Sean Ryan
sean.ryan@dailyreporter.com
Unresolved land-sale negotiations between Milwaukee and the Tower Automotive property owner are scaring away businesses and stymieing site redevelopment.
The property could become Milwaukee’s inner-city signature development — akin to Miller Park or the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Calatrava addition — said Howard Snyder, executive director of the Northwest Side Community Development Corp. But, as [...]