It's been a popular trend on both coasts, and recently the Park East Enterprise Lofts have made live / work apartments an attractive choice for Milwaukee-based entrepreneurs.
The Park East Corridor lofts, built by Madison-based Gorman & Company Inc., consist of 85 one- to three-bedroom apartments with integrated workspaces and common areas that feature conference rooms, a media presentation room, and a computer equipped business center.
LaRhonda Bennett-Lewis and her husband Gary are two residents and business owners who are taking advantage of the opportunity to convert part of their living space into a storefront.
LaRhonda, a fashion designer with a degree in design and merchandising from the International Academy of Design and Technology in Chicago, runs a quaint boutique called Madame ... A Fashion Salon, out of what would have been a portion of her living room. But when you're inside, it doesn't feel as through you're traipsing through someone's personal space - because you're not. A large pink curtain separates her living area from the boutique, which has floor to ceiling shop windows and a door that opens up onto the neighborhood's main thoroughfare, Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive.
"It's pretty easy and I think it's a great idea," she says of her shared live and work space, which she opened to the public at 1407 N. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. June 28. "Most of the time when people come in here, they don't even know that we live here. Every now and then there will be smells from me cooking lunch, but it all airs out."
Madame has all the flair of an independent fashion boutique that could easily fit within Milwaukee's "fashion district," the Third Ward, yet it's refreshing to see young entrepreneurs take advantage of the Park East Enterprise's innovative arrangement.
As her company expands, LaRhonda plans to incorporate her own designs into the store, chic, feminine pieces she describes as "classic and sophisticated."
"I try to stay away from too many trends. You want to do something that's current in fashion but you don't want to give people exactly what everybody else has," she says. "(My designs) are for a woman who is fashion forward and fashion conscious and has her own free-spirited style independent of current trends."
She's carried this ideal throughout her store. Her small but savvy collection of clothing showcases designers from California and New York with names like 172 Grams, Sunner, YASB, Holly Morgan, Gracia Fashion and Mystique.
LaRhonda is originally from Chicago and but her teeth in the industry working and buying for the swanky Heel Chicago, a now-closed luxury shoe salon in the South Loop. She's been enjoying her new Milwaukee home, and is looking forward to doing her part to help grow the city's fashion scene awareness.
"There's a great niche here, it just needs more attention," she says.
One way she's working to achieve this is by hosting Fashion...A Networking Affair on Saturday, Aug. 29, 6-11 p.m.
Located within the Park East Lofts, the event invites industry pros as well as those just starting out to meet, mingle, share ideas, and, of course, shop the store.
"The goal is to bring awareness to fashion here in Milwaukee," she says. "We want business owners to register to get into a directory we're creating, let the consumers speak an out what's important to them regarding fashion -- where would they like to see the direction of fashion go in Milwaukee?"
OnMilwaukee.com staff writer Julie Lawrence grew up in Wauwatosa and has lived her whole life in the Milwaukee area.
As any “word nerd” can attest, you never know when inspiration will strike, so from a very early age Julie has rarely been seen sans pen and little notebook. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee it seemed only natural that she major in journalism. When OnMilwaukee.com offered her an avenue to combine her writing and the city she knows and loves in late 2004, she knew it was meant to be. Around the office, she answers to a plethora of nicknames, including “Lar,” (short for “Larry,” which is short for “Lawrence”) as well as the mysteriously-sourced “Bill Murray.”
