Milwaukee’s Couture development inches forward

By Beth Kevit

The Couture high-rise proposed for the Downtown Transit Center property probably will get a July date with a Milwaukee County committee despite the chairwoman’s opposition.

That meeting could set in motion negotiations on a project development agreement with Milwaukee developer Rick Barrett. The early negotiations could lead to an agreement as soon as September.

If the committee did not discuss the proposal in July, negotiations would have stalled until after the committee’s September meeting at least, because of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors’ August recess.

It marks a change in course from Wednesday, when Supervisor Patricia Jursik said the county’s Economic and Community Development Committee would not take up the proposal at its Monday meeting. The Couture still isn’t on that agenda, but the project is slated for a special meeting at 9 a.m. July 23.

Supervisor John Weishan Jr., a committee member, led the effort to schedule the special meeting. He needed four members of the seven-member committee to bypass Jursik’s approval for a meeting, and he lined up the final member, Supervisor David Bowen, on Friday to join Weishan and supervisors Steve Taylor and Jim Schmitt.

Jursik could not be immediately reached for comment.

Weishan submitted his meeting request Friday to Marina Dmitrijevic, the County Board chairwoman.

“They really don’t have the authority to say no,” Weishan said.

Velia Alvarez, the board’s public information assistant, verified with a member of the chairwoman’s staff Friday afternoon that Weishan’s request had been submitted to Dmitrijevic’s office, but she had yet to act on it.

In a conversation Wednesday, the day County Executive Chris Abele publicly threw his support behind The Couture, Jursik cited a breakdown in communication between the committee and the executive’s office as the reason to delay discussing the proposal. She said the committee had expected Brian Taffora, the county’s economic development director, in June to show the members four responses to the county’s request for interest in the transit center site.

“I was very unhappy,” Jursik said Wednesday, “that the development director for Milwaukee County did not bring us the information.”

Taffora tentatively was scheduled Monday to present to the committee information about RFI responses from Barrett; Ryan Cos. US Inc., Minneapolis; Wangard Partners Inc., Milwaukee; and Irgens Development Partners, Milwaukee. But, according to a July 6 email from Taffora to the committee’s clerk, Janelle Jensen, he already had “personally briefed the majority” of the committee members and would not present the RFIs at the meeting.

Taffora since has submitted a request for a resolution to authorize his office to begin negotiating with Barrett, Alvarez said.

The only way discussion of Barrett’s proposal would not take place at the special meeting, Weishan said, is if six of the seven committee members vote to lay the item over.

Weishan said he expected the committee to vote at the special meeting to recommend the County Board let negotiations start with Barrett. The full board meets July 26.

The next step, Weishan said, would be to consider whatever development agreement Barrett and Taffora reach.

“I would hope that we could have something in September or October that we could then finalize,” Weishan said.

The 44-story, 750,000-square-foot Couture would cost about $125 million. Apartments would fill floors 20 through 44, and 180 hotel rooms would occupy floors eight through 19. The remaining space would include a parking structure, restaurants and retail space.

Schmitt said holding the special meeting would let Barrett’s proposal move forward on “middle ground” between the committee and Abele’s office while respecting Jursik’s Monday agenda.

“We just want to make sure we do have the meeting here,” Schmitt said, “and take some of the pressure off her.”