Beaumont Place development turns into ‘a cool thing’

The chance to work on a residential redevelopment in Whitefish Bay and do some infill construction in the village all proved to be too much of an opportunity to pass up for Greenfire Management Services.

“It’s a really nice, high-end apartment with a very unique location,” said Paul Hackbarth, project manager at Milwaukee-based Greenfire, which was the construction manager for the Beaumont Place Apartments.

The finished development includes three residential buildings on a former municipal parking lot. The site had 28 feet of sand layered over clay, capturing water close to the surface and preventing it from draining. To combat the risk of mishaps caused by the soil composition, plans for the early stages of construction called for enclosing the site with an underground steel-sheet retention wall, which stretched down to the clay. Crews also installed monitoring wells and drew water out of the enclosed site.

Beaumont Place Apartments has 83 units, each of which has a dedicated, private outdoor space, such as a terrace or balcony. The layouts varied according to elevation and other circumstances.

Several architectural features are meant to help the new buildings blend in with nearby homes, which tend to be built of brick. The features included diapered brick and segmented arches.

“The project brings value to the community,” Hackbarth said.

The development sits behind Whitefish Bay’s shopping district on East Silver Spring Drive. The parking lot it replaced had offered free parking that shoppers frequently used.

One of the project’s biggest design challenges was to ensure the public could keep the parking while providing privacy for residential tenants. Public parking was preserved beneath a second-story terrace, concealing that use from tenants and providing an outdoor common area near a community room.

To provide secure access to residential areas, crews built a tower with stairs. An elevator also goes up to a bridge enclosed in glass, which crosses over the public walkway connecting the public parking to the street. Beneath the residential building, crews also built a private, underground parking structure for tenants.

“It really is kind of a cool thing,” Hackbarth said.

Beyond the challenges posed by the soil composition and the need to preserve public parking, Hackbarth said the harsh winter in late 2012 and early 2013 delayed the start of construction, forcing crews to collaborate later to ensure floors were turned over as quickly as possible without detracting from quality.

The result, he said, is a high-end development in a desirable neighborhood, a project he was proud to oversee.

“The commitment that the subs made to make the job a success was really incredible,” he said.

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