Wisconsin's Weekend Morning News
WWMN Interview: Rich Kirchen from the Milwaukee Business Journal Talks the Expensive New Downtown Apartments and Tech in Wisconsin 7-7-24
We've got Rich Kirch in here from the Milwaukee Business Journal and did you have a nice fourth? Uh, yeah, it was great Did you do anything special caught part of the neighborhood uh, uh, uh, fourth of july parade which was fun And uh caught part of the fireworks had a little family time around lunch. She has some relatives from out of town So that was great. Oh good for you. Well, there was a big story that broke on Wednesday about mark money retiring as the chancellor at uwm were you surprised? Uh, you know, I have to be honest and say it was not on my radar that being said Um, mark had been the chancellor for 11 years, which uh turns out that makes him the second longest tenured Uh chancellor at uwm Uh, mark j martin clatchy Uh, who was the original chancellor way back when um in the sixties and early seventies Way was the longest ten years. So, uh, yeah, he he's cut a fairly high profile in the milwaukee area He he definitely reached out a lot to the business community and to uh potential funders of of Projects and and the the universities endowment I go to uwm basketball games as an alum men's basketball games and he would be there so uh, yeah, he was uh Yeah, obviously he dealt with controversy over the years Uh most recently with some of the the protests on the on the warren gaza um uwm has had its issues getting the kind of funding it would like to for projects and and and just in in general from the uwm board of regents Uh, but uh, they've uh built a couple or three large buildings There are new buildings on the campus during his tenure. So it's been a pretty uh, positive Period, I would say any idea who's going to replace him. I have no idea He he uh was someone who came up through the ranks at the university. He's been there for a long time as a business professor So, uh, certainly that'd be one place they would look But I I don't know enough about the the university Structure or politics as to whether they would look internally. I'm sure they they would invite candidates from around the country With the with the death of uh mike level. I mean, this is changing the landscape of of our two biggest universities right here in the city right and and mike Had been the chancellor at uwm before uh, mark mone's so Yeah, those two guys have been leading the two largest universities in the metro milwaukee area and uh And and they they do uh, they play an important role in the local economy and and obviously in educating our Future workforce. So, uh, those are going to be some uh, yeah big shoes to fill in both cases Well speaking about the economy here in wisconsin. Tell us about this biotech 49 million dollar federal grant Yes, so this it's part of the chips act the federal chips act that uh Congress and and uh president biden approved Sometime back and uh, yeah, probably not a lot of people even know that there is a biotech health hub in is primarily milwaukee and madison and It's uh aims to uh develop new technologies In the in the health care space including what they call personalized health care Uh, they're their personalized medicine uw madison is involved matc Uh in milwaukee area ge health care racuel automation exact sciences and madison Uh, the milwaukee seven. So it's a pretty high powered group and uh, they want to leverage Uh, some of the existing health care technology and uh, research for products to uh, uh, commercialize that research and and get some new products come in here out of wisconsin. They're predicting Uh, significant economic impact and uh, I think in the neighborhood of 11 000 new jobs over 10 years Now of course that remains to be seen but you do have some pretty prominent companies involved here Well, a lot of those people were going to be looking for a place to live and so a lot of eyes are on the couture As you were able to talk to the developer and find out who's leasing those high and units Yeah, you can't hardly miss it, especially if you want to summer fest uh in recent weeks It's right there on the lake front has been planned for a long long time and uh, finally Does have uh some tenants uh 10 occupied right now 23 least surprising to me the top Four or five floors are all but one of the units are leased out and those are the penthouse units And those are running for how much 8 000 to 10 000 a month? That's high rent for milwaukee Uh very high rent for milwaukee Who's in those units? Well their target uh demographics are young professionals now they have some some less expensive units for that Um, as small as 576 square feet for 2 000 a month, which again very high for milwaukee Can't put a king size bed in there. I don't like two bedroom two bedroom units go for uh 4 000 Of 5 000 a month. They're also looking at empty nesters couples with two incomes and no kids so it's Yeah, obviously people who can afford this kind of thing Uh and and again there is if you do if you are interested libby in that one unit that's left in the penthouse area 1700 square feet 8100 a month Wall well of course 8100 you know, yeah, okay check your your uh penny jar I better check my check book is what I better check listen if you're looking downtown though There is a new vinyl record listening cafe. I kind of like this idea Yeah, it's it's not open yet. It's opening. I believe in october It's called the deep groove, which I guess read great name to the grooves in a record I love that uh and it's going to be on brady street 1200 east brady the former brady street futons and um, yeah, they're going to have Food and beverages both alcoholic and non, you know coffee type beverages um And They're saying a pretty amazing collection of music records that they'll be playing jazz blues country heavy metal rock pop 70s 80s so Uh, now of course for forever you've been able to go to a bar or a restaurant and there's music playing Yeah, but it's all that digital stuff when they subscribe to services true This puts a human element in it It does and you know, I'm not entirely sure if you can go in there and request something You know, if you want to hear tommy james and the chandeles Uh or anything else billi idler land or whatever. Yeah, so uh and it it seems to be a trend here There's a place called the wiggle room on uh kina connect in bay view Which is a record centric bar that uh wiggle room. I haven't heard of that one Yeah, 2900 south kk if you want to check it out and then even uh discourse coffee Which has a location in walkers points at the radio milwaukee building Uh is featuring vinyl albums also that have grooves in them I love it. I love that that's coming back. All right. Uh speed of coming back. You've got a report on passengers From that chicago to milwaukee to uh, minneapolis's amtrac and a lot of people are writing it Right. Well for for a very long time We've had the empire builder between milwaukee and the twin cities and we've had the high a watha between milwaukee and chicago This goes that whole route and it's called the uh borealis And uh, they they only had 11 days. We've got numbers from the first 11 days of operation in may and they said there were about 6,600 riders during that time Which is which is a good number considering it's it's just running a couple times a day and it's you know one amtrac train set Well, finally there's a new rental car that's coming out of Mitchell international. We see it at a lot of other airports, but first time here in milwaukee Yeah, it's uh, they're from uh, it's a company from germany that Is called six s ixt and it's the 10th rental car company operating out of michel and Uh Just started this month. Uh, so Another option there at the airport they're at the uh rental car Center on how will avenue we look forward to it rich kurchin from the milwaukee business journal. Thanks for joining us today Thanks for coming in great to be here