History For Sale

The huge Pabst Brewing Company site in Milwaukee, with 29 buildings on 21 acres, is up for redevelopment. The structures include the city’s oldest surviving school building, dating to 1858, as well as other Italianate and Gothic Revival buildings from the 1870s and 1880s. But many are in disrepair, with leaking or collapsed roofs, crumbling brickwork, and rusting steel---leaving the developer to estimate that only eight could likely be saved, the rest being too cost prohibitive to restore. Demolishing too many of the historic buildings, however, risks sacrificing the sense of place for Brewtown that makes it worth saving in the first place.