Construction is progressing on The Couture, the 44-story Downtown lakefront skyscraper first proposed more than nine years ago.
“The Couture’s construction teams have made incredible progress on site, having recently reached the bottom of the hole,” developer Rick Barrett of Barrett Lo Visionary Development said. “We are now in the process of pile driving and will follow that process by erecting a tower crane in early 2022 before beginning vertical construction.”
The earth-shaking and noise-inducing pile driving process certainly is noticeable to anyone living, working or traveling Downtown near the construction site at East Michigan Street and North Lincoln Memorial Drive.
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It has taken eight years and millions of dollars of public assistance to put together the legal and financial underpinnings of The Couture.
Construction on the 44-story building, which will reach 537 feet in height, officially began on May 11. The $188 million project, which is expected to be completed in 2023, will feature 322 apartments as well as retail space and a station for The Hop streetcar and bus rapid transit systems.
Madison-based J.H. Findorff & Son Inc. is the general contractor for the project. Milwaukee firm Rinka is the architect.
The Couture is the latest ambitious project that will add to the Downtown skyline and is only a few blocks from the 32-story spectacular lakefront skyscraper that houses the headquarters of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. The building opened in 2017. The 42-story, 601-foot U.S. Bank building, the city’s tallest structure, also sits nearby.
Barrett Lo Visionary’s other projects include The Moderne, a 30-story apartment building near Fiserv Forum and the Milwaukee Bucks’ Deer District, which stands as the city’s tallest building west of the Milwaukee River.
