The long-delayed effort to develop the Couture apartment high-rise on downtown Milwaukee's lakefront is again running into problems with completing its financing package.

Developer Rick Barrett announced he will not make Friday's deadline to obtain an important loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Instead, his firm, Barrett Lo Visionary Development LLC, is letting the HUD application extension expire.

Barrett said he plans to resubmit an application once he's assembled enough equity investors to meet HUD's requirements.

But his statement didn't say when that would be.

Nor did it say how short Barrett Lo is on obtaining the equity cash to then obtain the remaining financing through a guaranteed loan.

"We recently engaged an investment bank to assist us in securing the final piece of financing for The Couture," Barrett said in a statement.

"We have had positive conversations with the bank about potential investors. We look forward to working with them to advance this transformational project for Milwaukee’s lakefront," he said.

Barrett declined to provide additional information.

His statement said Barrett Lo plans to resubmit through "HUD’s Direct-to-Firm Program, which provides for a shortened review time frame."

A HUD official couldn't be immediately reached for more information about that program.

Barrett Lo Visionary Development in May was granted a second extension to submit an application for what HUD calls a "firm commitment" to issue a loan guarantee.

It was provided so Barrett Lo can "complete the financing" for the $122 million project, James Cunningham, the department's deputy administrator for the Midwest region, said at that time.

Barrett said then that the extension was needed to "cross the Ts and dot the Is" on completing the financing package.

The agency in late October invited Barrett Lo to submit the application for a firm commitment.

That preliminary decision indicated the Couture had largely cleared an extensive underwriting process that lasted several months.

But that guarantee would cover a loan that covers only part of the development tab. The remaining costs would be covered by the project's equity investors.

The 44-story, 322-unit Couture is to be built overlooking the lakefront at North Lincoln Memorial Drive and East Michigan Street.

The Couture's main financing would be an $80 million private loan guaranteed by HUD, according to a Department of City Development report.

Developers pay fees to obtain those guarantees, which have been used to finance other apartment buildings throughout the country.

Barrett Lo also expected to raise $5 million from the firm and its partners, as well as $20 million from other investors, according to that report.

The $122 million development tab includes $17.5 million in city funds for the Couture's transit concourse and other public improvements. Those city funds would come from property taxes generated by the Couture and the neighboring 833 East office building.

That transit concourse would include a stop for Milwaukee's new streetcar service, The Hop.

The Hop's lakefront loop is to begin operating by the end of 2020 on tracks already built on East Michigan and East Clybourn streets. The Couture's transit concourse would link those tracks.

The transit concourse would solve problems for both Barrett Lo Visionary Development and local officials.

Barrett Lo needed to buy the Couture site, a former county bus facility at 909 E. Michigan St., at a deep discount to help make the project feasible, according to the county's consulting firm, Chicago-based S.B. Friedman & Co.

But, the county was on the hook to pay $6.7 million to the Federal Transit Administration if it didn't sell the property at market value. That's because the agency helped finance the bus facility with a 1988 grant.

So, city Development Commissioner Rocky Marcoux suggested Barrett Lo redesign the Couture to include a transit concourse for the streetcar and buses.

That met the Federal Transit Administration's condition that the county would not have to pay back the federal grant as long as the Couture site's sale proceeds were used for another transit project.

Barrett Lo later bought the 2.2-acre county site for $500,000, and in 2017 demolished the bus facility.

Tom Daykin can be emailed at tdaykin@jrn.com and followed on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.