Long-planned Waukesha apartment project still delayed

Listen to this article

By JIM RICCIOLI

USA Today Network

Mandel Group‘s plan for 219 apartment units on Delafield Street in Waukesha has moved plenty of plans and documents but nary a stone as a legal fight continues to delay the housing project.

More than two years after the City of Waukesha first advanced Mandel’s concept plan, the three-block stretch from Madison Street to now-vacant land near Buena Vista Avenue across from City Hall hasn’t changed since an old strip mall building and auto shop was demolished several years earlier.

Now the city has extended a key deadline to allow the approved project to stay alive. Here’s what to know about the project and circumstances:

Delafield Street property was earmarked for redevelopment in 2018

The city cleared the two buildings on the east side of Delafield Street in 2018 after acquiring the land for $550,000, with an eye for a redevelopment effort that could also include the former Waukesha police station and City Hall Annex building. What form that development might take wasn’t really determined until later, as the city consulted on potential uses.

“The city is working with developers on a redevelopment plan to assist in determining the highest best use of the property and to redevelop the property into a tax-generating commercial/mixed use development,” city project engineer Katie Jelacic said in a Sept. 28, 2018, Facebook post focused on the demolition.

Previous senior housing development plans fell through

After the buildings were removed, the speculation began. While housing units were almost always a part of the discussion, for a while some aldermen were pushing for consideration of some of the land for the site of the new Waukesha City Hall. Ultimately, the city opted to build the new municipal building on the existing City Hall grounds.

The emphasis eventually shifted to a mixed-use ideal that would consist largely of housing. The city solicited conceptual designs from potential developers.

One emerged from Horizon Development Group/Luther Group: a four-story, 80-unit senior housing plan with commercial space at street level. But the 2019 concept fell flat.

Then, Minneapolis-based real estate developer Sherman Associates proposed a 107-unit active senior living community, but that too faced setbacks, with the pandemic spurring rising costs and interest rates in 2020 and 2021. That idea also never took root.

Amid other rumors, Mandel Group proposed apartment complex

The planning path to a new proposal took time, and along the way came ideas that worried some residents. Among them were concerns that a hotel might become part of the development.

What emerged instead was the apartment plan by Mandel Group, which was in the process of finishing up a nearby apartment complex along St. Paul Avenue mere blocks from the Delafield Street land. The regional developer proposed two buildings, originally envisioned as 228 units before the plan was altered, for the 5½ acre tract.

Mandel’s plan faces lawsuit from Blair House owner

Despite getting the city’s approval in 2024, Mandel Group’s Delafield Street apartments are still merely a project on paper. The delay in construction is tied to a lawsuit by Bob and Lisa Salb, owners of the historic Blair House, 434 Madison St., overlooking the project area. (The house was built by William Blair, a Waukesha municipal leader and state senator.)

The Salbs, who live in the home built in 1876 and have slowly been converting it into a bed-and-breakfast inn, argued in their lawsuit that the city’s approval of Mandel’s plans was inconsistent with its own ordinances, according to a civil complaint filed in November 2024. They also claimed the development goes against the will of William’s son Henry Blair (Waukesha’s mayor from 1922 to 1926), who also owned and donated the land on which the City Hall Annex later was built, restricting use of the property.

According to online court records, the lawsuit, aimed specifically at the city’s Plan Commission and Common Council decisions, was dismissed in June 2025 by Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Paul Bugenhagen Jr., but appealed several weeks later to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. A decision on that appeal is still pending.

Mandel asks for extension in timeline to begin construction

Under existing city rules, Mandel Group has until Nov. 19 – two years from the city’s final approval – to pull permits marking the beginning of the construction cycle in its project. Because of the lawsuit-related delays, Mandel Group asked the Plan Commission to extend that deadline another two years.

On Feb. 25, the planning panel approved the extension until November 2028.