Video captures building facade collapse at North Ave. and King Drive

The upper facade of a building collapsed late Friday morning at North Ave. and King Drive, showering bricks onto the adjacent sidewalk and destroying a bank of Bublr Bikes outside.

The collapse, which was captured in a dramatic video on a nearby surveillance camera, sent terrified customers of a Subway restaurant rushing outside.

"It sounded like an earthquake," said Amanda McAdory of Milwaukee, who had stopped at the sandwich shop with her husband and his grandfather around 11 a.m.

"The whole building shook," said her husband, Stallone McAdory. "My granddad ran to look out the windows. He could see the bricks falling, and we ran out the back door."

No is believed to have been hurt. But the elder Marshall McAdory, who had been released from a hospital on Thursday, complained of chest pains as he sat on a planter across North Ave. and surveyed the damage.

"I'm really shaken up," said Marshall McAdory, whose pickup truck was damaged by the bricks.

The bricks fell from the parapet wall above the roofline on the north side of the building around 11 a.m.

An initial investigation suggested a vehicle may have struck the building, according to the Milwaukee Police Department, but the cause remains under investigation.

The city's Department of Neighborhood Services said a structural engineer will evaluate the building to determine its structural integrity and that the area around the building would remain barricaded.

In the meantime, the city has filed a condemnation proceeding for the property.

The 133-year-old building, at 2220-2244 N. King Drive, is owned by Curry Goat Entertainment, a limited liability company created in 2017 with Lucile Jules as its registered agent, according to state and city records. And she was in the process of remodeling part of it to house a Caribbean restaurant.

Jules arrived quickly on the scene as police and city workers cordoned off the street north of the building and approached Marshall McAdory to make sure he was OK.

"We are blessed that you are not in the truck," she told him.

Her attorney, Jan Pierce, said it was too early to determine the cause of the collapse.

"It seems like a freak accident," said Pierce. "Our main concern is making sure it is secure."

Jules acquired the building in January from Associated Bank. Pierce said it had been in foreclosure. A New Berlin company, Patera LLC, had pulled permits for interior work. But Pierce said he did not know of any work being done on the exterior where the bricks pulled away from the building.

Stallone McAdory looked at the bricks piled on the sidewalk alongside his grandfather's truck and suggested they were saved from injury, or worse, by a cup of soup.

They had just bought their sandwiches and were preparing to leave the building when he decided to go back for the soup.

"Right when I went back to order, all the bricks started falling down," he said.