You see, while we're in Germany, we are not to have any homework; just attend lectures and tour awesome places, like Volkswagen. When we return to the states, we have five weeks to start, compile, and market our design project. That is where my UWM grade for doing this Germany trip will come from.
It is this:
Developers dare to be different
BY STEVEN SNYDER
For real estate developers Gaurie and Jeff Rodman, no two projects have been the same. And so it is with their latest venture, Josey Heights Condos and Homes in downtown Milwaukee, which they hope will be their most daring endeavor yet.
In her earlier ventures, Gaurie Rodman said, she has always sought out new challenges. She has worked with modern themes in downtown Milwaukee, historic renovations near Brewers Hill and moderate to low-income affordable housing in Madison.
But with Josey Heights, she has embraced a challenge unlike anything she has confronted before: Building an entire neighborhood that will integrate itself into the current community.
“We didn’t want Josey Heights to be a community unto itself,” Rodman said. “We wanted it to be integral to the neighborhood and the architecture that was already in the area.”
With that goal in mind, she has laid out a most ambitious plan. The project, being built in the Lindsay Heights neighborhood near downtown Milwaukee, is bordered by 12th, 14th, Brown and Lloyd streets. It’s also across the street from the Lloyd Street Global Education School and only blocks away from both Carver and Johnson parks. In this space, Rodman said, 53 homes will be built, tentatively divided between 16 townhomes and 37 single-family homes. Rodman said there are currently two townhome models, each 2,200 square feet, that buyers can choose between, as well as four single-family models that vary from three bed/two bath to four bed/three bath designs and span 1,800 to 2,300 square feet, not including full basements and two-car garages.
According to Rodman, the homes are market-priced housing and start in the range of $220,000. While interested buyers will have a number of models to choose from, the concept behind the community is equally sophisticated.
“The neighborhood is made with the concepts of new urbanism,” Rodman said. “It’s a green neighborhood, which means we’re creating streets and different types of public space. For those who live and work in the city of Milwaukee, it’s close to all the transportation arteries. You can even bike into downtown,” she said.
Rodman also proudly notes that the community is using a state-of-the-art drainage technology that will help Josey Heights sustain itself without connecting to the city’s water system. “We’re not hooking up to the storm sewer,” Rodman said, describing a new system, known as Bioswales, that uses both porous paved streets and rain gardens to convert runoff into a source of water for the area’s green spaces.
Unlike her previous ventures, Rodman said this development allows her to plan and organize a complete neighborhood.
She said the project’s construction will involve not only landscaping and the building of homes but also the creation of an internal street, named Josey Place, an alley that will facilitate some of the site’s garages, and a roundabout. Rodman, who has been in the real estate business for 10 years, is a faculty member at the Milwaukee School of Engineering and attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for her master’s degree in architecture and urban planning, She said a project like Josey Heights does not come along every day. “This is the first and last lot of this size to go in,” Rodman said, noting she had to submit a proposal to the city and win the bid.
Apparently the area "had been battered by neglect and crime," and by looking at where it is located on the map, it is in prime-time west side Milwaukee. Eeep. That's where all the monsters live. (Therefore I think it awfully funny and dead-ended that these developers have Cinderella dreams of making Josey Heights the new must-be place of Milwaukee.)
Nevertheless, I do what I am told. Our design group has been contracted to work with the construction foreman, to show him how to make this place as renewable-energy friendly as possible. We are supposed to take his blueprints and landscape architecture, and implement as many different systems we'll learn about in Germany, as possible, to set this place up as environmental.
I am intrigued to see how this will all go! Balmer is the one who established the partnership for us, with the construction and designing crew. He said that this project is getting national attention (??? I don't see it on CNN?), and it is a groundbreaker for the entire homebuilding and commerical-building industry. It is a great opportunity to garner some prestige for UWM. Up yours, once again, Madison!
The five of us on the student team and going to Germany, are:
Dan Lauber - Electrical engineer/computer science major
Jeni Hill - Civil engineering major
Sara Driver - Civil engineering major
Ashley Ullmer - Industrial/Manufacturing engineering major
Ryan Pearson - Business administration/marketing major
We have a classy, wide spectrum of backgrounds coming into this. Dan can help show how to wire things or use nifty stuff like photoelectric paint, to create low-wattage energy for the house. Jeni and Sara can figure out different excavations to use solar energy or maybe some sort of funky windmill. I'll be there to test the quality and effectiveness of the methods, to the scale of the townhouses, to see if anything needs to be stepped up or hooked into one another. And Ryan will be there to make it all look pretty and sell it to the hungry public.
Woo! The five weeks after we return are going to be a WHIRLWIND! But I am excited; I did these kinds of projects all the time in high school with Gutschow's classes, so I know how to swing some sluggers with this line of work.
Note: Article pulled from JS Online's Ad Finder and image pulled from JS Online.
1 comment:
Can I just say, I love how proficient you are, you even sighted the article, you are too cute!! - amber
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