Every week on Urban Spelunking , Radio Milwaukee’s Nate Imig and OnMilwaukee’s Bobby Tanzilo dig into the buildings and architectural features that help retain the city’s sense of history while it builds for the future.
For the next two weeks, we’ve got updates on buildings we’ve “spelunked” in the past. Next week, we’ll check in at the Milwaukee Athletic Club, but first up is the former Journal Sentinel building at 4th and State in downtown Milwaukee.
We first talked about the historic, 1924 complex in 2019, when news broke about the Journal Sentinel’s departure. Since then, the newspaper has relocated to smaller offices in downtown Milwaukee, leaving behind the sprawling campus.
The building — which is actually three connected buildings — has gone through three phases of redevelopment, starting with a conversion to student housing and the addition of a charter high school. The most recent and final phase just wrapped up earlier this year, complete with 141 new apartments now open for leasing, renamed as Journal Commons.
Bobby visited the space for the update, and the tour was bittersweet for him. He worked at the Milwaukee Sentinel earlier in his career and spent time inside the complex, but he could barely recognize the space after the renovation. Go inside, and learn more about the project and its developer in the full podcast below. Then read more at OnMilwaukee.
