Historic Fortress ready for residents as restoration efforts near completion

The Milwaukee Fortress, one of the city’s most recognizable historic buildings, has nearly completed its unique transformation into a center for apartments and business offices in the Brewer’s Hill neighborhood.

A recent media tour hosted by the Alexander Company highlighted the significant progress of renovation within The Fortress since the previous visit on March 29, when the public was given a first-look inside the iconic brick-masonry structure.
The Madison-based Alexander Company has been rehabilitating the six-story, roughly 193,000 square-foot building in an adaptive reuse project to create a new community along the Milwaukee River.

“This is the largest historic adaptive reuse project in the State of Wisconsin right now, based on cost. Our rehabilitation of the Milwaukee Soldiers Home is second,” said Joe Alexander, President of the Alexander Company. “Of the 132 different apartments in The Fortress, each one has unique historic features. There are 42 different types of layouts, so nothing about this building is cookie cutter.”

The Alexander Company is already showing apartments to lease for a January occupancy. Some of the building’s indoor and outdoor amenities include community spaces, a fitness studio, fenced-in dog run, roof deck, and maker space. The 11,000 square-feet of commercial space on the first floor has yet to land a tenant, and the developer hopes to attract a café or restaurant, or a tech startup.
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