Marcus Corp. is considering conceptual plans for a mixed-use project that includes a 20-story office and housing tower, as well as an eight-screen cinema, on a site north of E. Knapp St. and west of N. Water St. Credit: Marcus Corp. and InPlace Design

SHARE This Edison St. parking lot, looking downriver from E. Cherry St., would be part of a site for Marcus Corp.'s possible mixed-use development. The site would include a vacated block of N. Edison St., between E. Knapp and E. Cherry streets, and a vacant lot between N. Edison and N. Water streets. TOM DAYKIN

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Marcus Corp. is considering preliminary conceptual plans for a large mixed-use development that would feature a downtown Marcus Theatres cinema, as well as housing, offices and restaurants.

The project, called Edison Place, would be developed on 2.25 acres overlooking the Milwaukee River, north of E. Knapp St.

Katie Falvey, Marcus Corp. vice president of real estate, declined to provide details about the plans, which could change.

Falvey called the site "extraordinary," with frontage on N. Water St. and potential for a 650-foot RiverWalk segment "in an area of downtown that has obviously matured and still has unlimited, untapped potential."

In a Wednesday statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Falvey said, "A landmark building at this site will create world-class vista terminations from every direction, and beautiful views of the city."

Baltimore-based InPlace Design is working with Marcus on the plans, which can be found at the design firm's website.

The 20-story, 780,000-square-foot development would include commercial space on the ground floor extending to the riverfront.

That street level could feature two restaurants, with 11,000 and 10,400 square feet, a 4,500-square-foot cafe and a health club.

That would be topped by a six-level parking structure on the building's northern portion, and an eight-screen cinema at its southern end, according to the conceptual plans.

The cinema's screens would be divided between two levels, with that portion of the project rising to the equivalent of five stories above the ground.

There would be five floors of offices above the parking structure, topped by eight floors of residential space. The office and residential portions, along with the cinema, would have street-level lobbies.

Edison Place would be set back from N. Water St., with a curved private drive and landscaped green space in front of the building. That area could include a 1,500-square-foot restaurant.

The project also would have a RiverWalk, an eighth-floor terrace on top of the parking structure and one level of underground parking.

The plans don't specify whether the residential space would be apartments or condos. However, demand remains strong for downtown area apartments, which are typically rented by either people in their 20s and early 30s or older "empty nesters."

The conceptual plans also do not provide details on the number of housing units or the amount of proposed office space. One source indicated the offices could total 300,000 square feet, although that would depend on how much space an anchor tenant would lease.

Edison Place would combine the various uses "to create an authentic urban community," according to the narrative at inplace-design.com. InPlace Design is an architectural, planning and design firm primarily focused on the retail industry.

InPlace Design was launched in 2015 by Dustin Watson, who was previously a partner at Baltimore-based Development Design Group Inc.

At DDG, Watson's portfolio included The Corners, a retail and apartment development under construction at I-94 and Barker Road in the Town of Brookfield. Marcus is co-developing The Corners with Chicago-based Bradford Real Estate and London-based IM Properties PLC.

Watson, who also worked on Glendale's Bayshore Town Center mixed-use development, declined to discuss Edison Place.

"The uses are kind of fluctuating a bit," he said. "It's really preliminary."

The project site includes a 1.2-acre parcel at 1301-1357 N. Edison St., which a Marcus affiliate bought in November for $3.1 million.

That property, mainly a parking lot, would be combined with one block of Edison St., between E. Knapp and E. Cherry streets, which would be vacated.

The development site also would use an empty parcel north of E. Knapp St. and west of N. Water St., which Marcus would buy from Milwaukee County. That lot is part of the Park East strip.

The county is evaluating development proposals for the 0.37-acre vacant lot, said Melissa Baldauff, spokeswoman for County Executive Chris Abele. Baldauff didn't respond to a request for additional information, other than saying an update will be provided "when one is available."

City Development Commissioner Rocky Marcoux said he wasn't aware of any specific mixed-use development plans for the Edison St. site.

Other developments under construction near the site include the conversion of the former Laacke & Joys building, 1433 N. Water St., into an office building anchored by Bader Rutter & Associates, and the latest phase of The North End apartment community, just upriver from the Laacke & Joys project.

Meanwhile, developer Jon Hammes continues to work on plans for a possible office project on a 1.5-acre parcel, 210 E. Knapp St. Hammes' investment group last year bought that vacant lot, bordered by E. Knapp, N. Water and N. Market streets, from BMO Harris Bank for $1 million.

Hammes initially planned to develop offices on the Edison Place site.

But that development site would have environmental cleanup and utility relocation costs estimated at $6.5 million to $7.2 million, according to a 2014 county report.

The estimated cleanup costs just for the county-owned lot, which has contaminated soils and buried freeway support piers, are $450,000 to $475,000.

Edison Place's tentative plans to use the county-owned lot primarily as green space, and part of the vacated block of Edison St. as a private drive between Water and Knapp streets, could reduce those cleanup and utility relocation costs.

Marcus Corp., which operates hotels and movie theaters, in 2008 first proposed developing a cinema at the Edison St. site. It would have been combined with other buildings, such as offices and restaurants.

However, that project did not proceed, despite the company's commitment, because of a lack of interest from office tenants. Those plans were dropped in 2014 by a group led by real estate broker Bruce Westling and developer Gary Grunau.

Marcus Theatres President and Chief Executive Officer Rolando Rodriguez told the Journal Sentinel in 2014 that the company still wanted to operate a downtown cinema.

Milwaukee's last downtown theater was the two-screen Grand Cinemas, 214 W. Wisconsin Ave., which Marcus Theatres closed in 1995. The Grand was hurt by several years of declining business, with patrons drawn to the growing number of larger cinemas operated by Marcus and other circuits in suburban locations.

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