1885 building to be bar
Site is near Bradley Center
One of downtown Milwaukee’s remaining 19th-century wooden structures will be turned into a modern bar that’s just steps from the BMO Harris Bradley Center, and a couple of blocks from what will be the new Bucks arena.
Aldo Tase, a partner in Athina Properties, bought the two-story, gabled building at 324-326 W. State St. in December 2015 with his two business partners and plans to turn it into a bar with indoor-outdoor features.
“When we first saw it, we saw tremendous potential. We saw it at a time that there were rumors of the Bucks possibly leaving Milwaukee,” Tase said by email. “Even with that considered, we still saw amazing potential there.”
Tase said a number of parties have shown interest in operating a bar there.
In spite of its location, it won’t necessarily be a sports bar, he said. “We are not limiting ourselves to what that space can be,” he said, adding that constructing a kitchen was a possibility.
Renderings by the Tredo Group architects of Milwaukee show a first and second floor open to the outdoors and a large beer garden with fire pit, communal tables and other seating in the fairly large backyard of the property.
The vacant 1885 building, which for years housed Accurate Key & Lock, itself is only 1,976 square feet, according to city assessment records, but records show the entire property is 2,500 square feet, leaving plenty of room in back for outdoor seating.
Alex Van Osten, the project manager for the Tredo Group, called the design “a reimagining of Milwaukee’s historic outdoor beer-garden past.”
“Current design trends are all about opening buildings to the activity of the street,” Van Osten said in an email, “and this is really important in this location, being so close to the arena, but also just being located in Wisconsin, where people want to be outside for three seasons of the year.”
Tase said the goal is to begin construction in three or four months.