Interest rates, construction costs bury downtown hotel plan in Milwaukee

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By TOM DAYKIN

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

A hotel planned for downtown Milwaukee‘s west side is no longer happening, according to the owner of the proposed project site.

Construction was to start by June 2025 on a seven-story, 160-room Tempo by Hilton, 308 W. Kilbourn Ave.

That site is a parking lot at the Journal Commons mixed-use development.

But the project is dead, according to Joshua Jeffers, founder and CEO of J. Jeffers & Co. That firm developed Journal Commons, and its affiliate owns the parking lot where the hotel was to be built.

“Interest rates increased too much and construction costs also went up too much,” Jeffers told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Usual suspects.”

The hotel was proposed by HKS Holdings LLC. Its principals couldn’t be reached for comment.

Plans for the hotel surfaced in 2021. The Historic Preservation Commission in 2023 approved the proposal.

Commission review was needed because the Journal Sentinel’s former printing plant and offices, which were redeveloped as Journal Commons, are designated as historic by the city.

The commission in January 2025 approved a revised design for the Tempo by Hilton. That design change replaced the hotel’s indoor parking structure with off-site parking — cutting construction costs.

Meanwhile, construction is to begin this summer on two other downtown west side hotels: a 156-room AC Hotel by Marriott, 430 W. State St., near Fiserv Forum and the new Landmark Credit Union Live, and a 60-room TRYP Hotel by Wyndham to be developed at 419 W. Vliet St., about two blocks north of Deer District.