Plus: New apartments near Bucks arena and new MU development.

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The Bucks arena has been coming together before the eyes of Milwaukeeans for over a year now. And I’m sure die-hard fans and the team’s billionaire owners are equally salivating at the opportunity to see the deer play in the finished digs for the first time.

But, some, perhaps even luckier, fans will become neighbors of their beloved team sooner than later. The news broke this week that a developer has purchased a parcel directly adjacent to the parking structure for the behemoth entertainment complex with a mind to build 112 high-end units, as reported by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Tom Daykin.

Daykin wrote that this sale signals an “imminent construction start.” The parcel was sold for $830,000 to Park 7 Lofts LLC. That LLC is associated with the development firm Royal Capital LLC, who announced their plans for the development over a year ago. The development is expected to cost $23 million, Daykin reported.

I guess it takes a village to keep an entertainment district alive. And a rather wealthy village at that.

Renderings:

Big Dreams for Old Buca Site

Sean Ryan at the Milwaukee Business Journal reported this week that the site of the former Buca di Beppo on N. Van Buren St. is on sale for a whopping $3.95 million.

But even bigger than the price tag are the ideas coming out of The Boerke Company, which is in charge of marketing the land.

Ryan quotes Kristian Sydow, of Boerke, saying they are looking for developers that will build out the site vertically, and Department of City Development spokesman Jeff Fleming using the words “significant structure” for the site.

Sydow said this could mean a hotel in the former Italian eatery’s big parking lot on the intersection of N. Van Buren St. and E. Juneau Ave., along with apartments or offices next to it.

In other Buca di Beppo news, Lori Fredrich of OnMilwaukee.com reports that the last Buca’s in Wisconsin, the Southridge Mall location, has now closed.

New Federal Program For Milwaukee?

Some Milwaukee Democratic legislators want to use a new federal program to funnel tax incentives into distressed Milwaukee areas in order to facilitate investment, reported Elliot Hughes of the Neighborhood News Service.

For now, they, and all of us in this fine city, must wait. Governor Scott Walker sent his list of nominations, which included 34 census tracts from the city, to the Department of Treasury for approval.

If approved, these areas will become what the federal government calls “opportunity zones.” This will allow potential investors in areas such as housing, education and community development to access tax incentives for their projects.

Markets like downtown have glowed hot with investment and development. But before the city starts to cool down, generating some similar heat in long distressed central city neighborhoods has been a priority for many local politicians. But beyond the political necessity, it’s surely a moral imperative that we do something to help assuage the painful decline of these once thriving, middle-class neighborhoods.

The new federal program could help.

In other news:

Marquette has plans for a new $18.5 million building dedicated to educating future physicians assistants, Corrinne Hess reported for the BizTimes. The 44,000-square- foot facility is expected to be open by the summer of 2019.

Renderings:

And in case you missed it, we featured The Grainery building in Friday Photos.

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