The Couture, with an estimated $120 million price tag, would overlook Lake Michigan and feature apartments and a hotel. The proposed tower, which has the backing of County Executive Chris Abele, would replace the Downtown Transit Center. Credit: Barrett Visionary and Rinka Chung Architecture Inc.

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A 44-story tower overlooking Lake Michigan that features high-end apartments and a hotel would replace the underused Downtown Transit Center under a proposal being recommended by County Executive Chris Abele.

The building, known as The Couture, would be developed by Rick Barrett, who's completing the 30-story Moderne apartment high-rise on downtown Milwaukee's west side.

Abele wants the County Board to approve negotiations for Milwaukee County to sell the transit center site, 909 E. Michigan St., to Barrett. The Couture, with an estimated $120 million price tag, would generate property tax revenue, as well as hundreds of construction and hotel jobs, Abele said Tuesday.

It also would be a signature building on the highly visible lakefront site.

"The design is fantastic," Abele said. The project's design is by Rinka Chung Architecture Inc., which also designed the Moderne.

The County Board's Committee on Economic and Community Development meets Monday, and Abele hopes to obtain its endorsement for beginning the negotiations. The other developers that submitted plans for the 2.2-acre site are Wangard Partners Inc., led by Stewart Wangard, and Irgens Development Partners, led by Mark Irgens, both based in Wauwatosa, and Minneapolis-based Ryan Cos.

The other proposals involve office buildings in combination with other uses, said Abele and county Economic Development Director Brian Taffora. Barrett's proposal was the only one that didn't include offices, which means The Couture wouldn't compete with other downtown office towers, they said.

"You move a tenant one block from one office tower to another, I'm not sure that benefits Milwaukee County," Taffora said.

Also, with apartments, The Couture would create both daytime and nighttime uses for the site, which helps draw other development, Taffora said. And Barrett has proved his ability to finance and develop a high-rise with this fall's completion of the Moderne, Abele said.

The Couture, a French word that connotes high fashion, would have a 180-room hotel, 179 apartments and 775 parking spaces. Unlike the other proposals, which would have used the county-owned O'Donnell Park for part of their parking needs, The Couture would have all of its parking spaces within the development, Taffora said.

One likely financing source for The Couture would be the AFL-CIO's Housing Investment Trust. That union-led group provided a $41.4 million loan, backed by a federal guarantee, for Barrett's $55 million Moderne, with 203 apartments and 14 condos at W. Juneau Ave. and N. Old World Third St.

At the development committee's June 18 meeting, Lyle Balistreri, president of Milwaukee Building and Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO, said his group supported Barrett's high-rise. Details of the project were then under wraps.

The Moderne also received $9.3 million in city loans, but no such assistance is expected for The Couture, said Jeff Fleming, spokesman for the Department of City Development.

However, the city might pay for street work and public pedestrian bridges tied to the building, Fleming said. He said city officials who've been briefed about The Couture have had a positive reaction to the proposed development.

If the County Board approves negotiations at its July 26 meeting, it would take 10 to 16 months to refine the plans and prepare the site for development, including demolishing the transit center and shifting those operations to the Amtrak/ Intermodal Station, 433 W. St. Paul Ave. It would take around another 28 months to build the tower, which means the project wouldn't be completed until at least the fall of 2015.

The Couture would have retail space on its first two floors, with pedestrian bridge connections over Michigan St., Lincoln Memorial Drive and Clybourn St. A small stretch of Clybourn St. could eventually be converted into a boulevard under the county's long-range lakefront development plan.

Those walkways would tie The Couture to Discovery World, O'Donnell Park and possible future development south of Clybourn St. That development would occur on land made available by reconfiguring ramps for Hoan Bridge and I-794, which are to undergo a three-year reconstruction starting in late 2013.

Those links help strengthen the likelihood that The Couture would draw other developments to the lakefront area, said Supervisors John Weishan and Steve Taylor, both development committee members.

"It will be a domino effect," Taylor said.

The building's parking structure would cover floors two through six, and extend west from the main tower. The hotel, which doesn't yet have a prospective operator, would be on the seventh through 20th floors, and the apartments would be on the remaining upper floors.

The Couture's height would be 507 feet, making it one of the state's tallest buildings. The nearby U.S. Bank Center office tower, 777 E. Wisconsin Ave., is the tallest at 601 feet. If it's built, The Couture would be one of at least two major developments built in the lakefront area near O'Donnell Park.

Irgens Development Partners in June said it hopes to develop an 18-story, 350,000-square-foot office building at 833 E. Michigan St., just west of The Couture's proposed six-story parking structure. The Irgens site is now a low-rise parking garage, just east of U.S. Bank Center's main parking structure.

The proposed office building would include a sky bridge across Michigan St. to the U.S. Bank Center; an outdoor terrace overlooking the lake, a fitness center, a street-level restaurant and on-site parking. Its anchor tenant would be the Godfrey & Kahn law firm, now at the Marshall & Ilsley/BMO Harris Bank building, 780 N. Water St.

Irgens is seeking additional tenants so it can obtain financing from U.S. Bank to develop the office building, known as 833 East Michigan.

Any transit center development isn't expected to have major effects on 833 East Michigan's lakefront views because of how the office building is designed, and because of a bend in the street at that location, Irgens has said.

The county's lakefront development plan, which the board approved last year, recommends selling the transit center site for new construction.

The plan also calls for a terraced walkway that gradually slopes down from the Milwaukee Art Museum footbridge to Michigan St., with additional footbridges across that street and Lincoln Memorial Drive.