Kilbourn Tower

Standing Tall

Kilbourn Tower joins Milwaukee's skyline

By Jim Cryns

The last thing anyone wants after a long day of work is an equally long search for a parking spot at home.

It might not be an issue for suburban dwellers, but it can be a daily battle for people living in the city. And that was one of the battles the project team for Kilbourn Tower took on when constructing the luxury condominium structure overlooking Milwaukee’s lakefront.

The team dug deep to solve the problem.

“There are definitely some unique features to Kilbourn Tower,” said Chris Norcross, a construction executive with M. A. Mortenson. “The parking structure went under Kilbourn [Avenue], and we had to block off the section of the street for more than six months. We had to go down 70 feet and come back up with four levels of parking.”

Norcross said the process wasn’t necessarily unusual, but it did require a subterranean lease with the city and marked an important step in what would become a prominent Milwaukee project.

“The job itself is very high profile, something that changes the skyline of Milwaukee,” he said.

According to M. A. Mortenson, Kilbourn Tower, at 30 stories, is the tallest residential building in the state. It holds 74 condos, and the parking structure can accommodate 154 cars.

The tower has a classic look with modern elements, Norcross said, and he and his team looked at buildings in Chicago for inspiration.

“The modern design of the building includes a glass exterior that reflects the adjacent buildings,” he said.

Twenty years ago, Milwaukee only had a few buildings as large as Kilbourn Tower, but the landscape changed in recent years. Kilbourn features more than 200,000 square feet of vertical construction on a busy city block.

Norcross said he credits a team effort for taking a good idea and turning it into a great project.


	Project Name: Kilbourn Tower Location: Milwaukee Submitting Company: M. A. Mortenson Company, Brookfield Construction Manager: M. A. Mortenson Company Architects: La Dallman Architects Inc., Milwaukee, design architect; Solomon Cordwell Buenz & Associates Inc., Chicago, production architect Engineers: Chris Stefanos & Associates Inc., Oak Lawn, Ill., structural engineer; WMA Consulting Engineers Ltd., Chicago, mechanical and electrical engineer Owner: Fiduciary Real Estate Development Inc., Milwaukee Project Cost: $48 million Project Size: 215,000 square feet Start Date: July 2003 Completion Date: May 2005

“Early on in meetings, we had to ask ourselves if what we envisioned on paper could, in fact, be built,” he said. “Then we have reviews, cost analysis, and that incorporates a lot of give and take. We didn’t have a lot of problems, and we had a good plan.”

And the plan involved the people who would one day live in the building. During the project, some of the condo owners came in to make aesthetic changes and decisions for their units.

“We had to make sure we met certain milestones,” Norcross said. “We had some unique requests in regard to wall placements and other concerns.”

The completed project stands as one of the latest entries in Milwaukee’s skyline, and, Norcross said, it could stand as a sign of things to come.

“Milwaukee is just starting to catch up to other cities with the condo building boom,” he said.

But no matter how many more condo projects follow in Kilbourn’s footsteps, the project team knows that one standard will apply to all.

“In the Midwest, people have an expectation of a high level of quality with a good value,” Norcross said.