Timber Lofts

Timber Lofts blends old with new, melding the renovation of an historically significant, 1891 industrial loft building with the construction of a sleek new four-story addition. Adjacent to downtown, Milwaukee’s Walker Point neighborhood was already filled with timber-frame buildings, so wood was a compelling choice.

The new addition punches into the existing brick building at each floor, creating a continuous interior loop that showcases exposed wood framing in both structures. Luxury apartments in the new building blend high style with an eco-friendly, warm aesthetic featuring exposed glulam columns and beams and CLT ceilings—all highlighted by floor-to-ceiling windows. Timber Lofts was built utilizing Historic Tax Credits, available for the rehabilitation of income-producing buildings that are determined by the National Park Service (NPS) to be ‘certified historic structures,’ which meant that all aspects of the 60-unit project had to be reviewed and approved by the NPS. Timber Lofts was the first building in Milwaukee to be constructed using CLT.

See the business case study for this project. The case study series aims to fill a gap in available information related to the financial performance of U.S. properties constructed with mass timber structural systems in buildings across various product sub-types. Using transparent quantitative data, each of the 10 case studies analyzes how mass timber has created value and provides a qualitative overview of successes, challenges, and lessons learned from the developer/owner perspective.