Milwaukee Buzz: April 2003

April showers bring April buzz and hopefully, May flowers. Here's our monthly look at stuff happening or rumored to be happening in and around Milwaukee.

TAKE THE MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO THE '70s
Classic '70s and '80s rockers Styx, REO Speedwagon and Journey are slated to rock the US Cellular Arena, Sun., June 15. Step back in time and rock to all the old QFM faves!

CALDERONE TO LO DUCA
Sunset Investors purchased the Lo Duca Building, 400 N. Broadway, and is in the process of converting it to commercial and residential use. The Calderone Club will open its third-area location in the first floor.

FIRST STREET TO PUMP
You'll enjoy river views and more from the to-open-in-early summer Pump House Grill, 2011 S. First St. Details as we get them.

FLY BAR
YPM (Young Professionals of Milwaukee) will be the first group to sample a new club on National Ave., called Fly Bar. It will be open in early May, with the YPM gig set for May 8. Fly Bar is a creation of the owners of Centanni and is sure to be a welcome addition to greater downtown's night life. Drive by and check out the big fly on the outside of the building.

CATTAIL ALE
Lakefront Brewery has released a new brew, Cattail Ale, a Wisconsin style mild ale, the first to join the ranks of its year-round beers in six years. "The Cattail Ale is a special formula we've been working on for a while to reflect a style of ale indigenous to Wisconsin," says Russ Klisch, president of Lakefront Brewery. "We recognize the demand for a handcrafted mild ale in our lineup to appeal to wider audiences. As such, we're expanding into a new market and do not anticipate cannibalization of our existing products."

MILWAUKEE MOVIE BUZZ
"Mr. 3,000" starring Bernie Mac and produced by Touchstone Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment is scheduled to film at Miller Park and at other locations in Milwaukee during July and August. Director Charles Stone III, Executive Producer Timothy Bourne and Production Designer Maher Ahmad along with several other principals for the production spent three days with the GMCVB's Milwaukee Film Office in early March to scout Milwaukee as a possible area for location filming. The film will feature Bernie Mac as a fictitious Milwaukee Brewers player who retires with exactly 3,000 hits only to come out of retirement several years later when a statistical error reveals he had only 2,997 hits. Unlike the film "Major League," filmed in County Stadium but reflected as Cleveland in the film, the storyline for "Mr. 3,000" will be based in Milwaukee and feature the Milwaukee Brewers as the star's team.

HOW 'BOUT SOME MILWAUKEE MOVIE HISTORY
What other movies have filmed in Milwaukee? Milwaukee has been a host to a number of flicks including "Major League" (1989), "Coven" (1999), "American Movie" (1999), "Chump Change" (1999), "The Last Great Ride" (1999), "Britney Baby: One More Time" (2000), "Lady in the Box" (2000), "Red Betsy" (2001), "Novocaine" (actually in Cedarburg, 2001) and "Milwaukee Minnesota" (2002). On-location filmmaking throughout the rest of Wisconsin continues to have a great economic and tourist impact with recent films made in the state including "I Love Trouble" (1993), "Chain Reaction" (1996), "Sliding Home" (1996), "The Deep End of the Ocean" (1997), "A Simple Plan" (1998), "Dexter Dickie" (1999), "The Straight Story" (2000), "Reeseville" (2002) and "Normal" (2002). In addition, dozens of other smaller and low budget independent films by have been made by Wisconsin's own throughout the years, as exemplified each spring through the ever-increasing amount of submissions to the Annual Wisconsin Film Festival. Milwaukee intends to host the first Milwaukee International Film Festival beginning this November 6-16 at various Milwaukee theaters. The movie "Lady In the Box" was the first full-length 35mm feature film to shoot here entirely by Milwaukee's own Doomed Productions, which just premiered their second, entirely Wisconsin-made Film "Reeseville" at the 2003 Cinequest Film Festival. The film "Red Betsy" premiered at the 2003 Wisconsin Film Festival and featured scenes from Milwaukee including the Downer Theatre and Downer Avenue.

PASSPORTE
Passporte is the new restaurant from Richard Kaiser, owner of Nanakusa. Set to open in late May in the Jefferson Street complex in the Historic Third Ward, the eatery will feature international cuisine.

APPLE OF DOWNTOWN'S EYE?
The new Applebee's at The Shops of Grand Avenue is set to open the week of April 21. Look for a cool display featuring some of OMC's finest and most popular lists and articles.

FROM MOVIES TO SUBS
The former Blockbuster on the corner of Martin Luther King Drive and North Avenue is becoming a Subway.

COVER MODEL MAM
The Milwaukee Art Museum is featured on the cover of the May 2003 edition of Architectural Digest.

HALL OF FAME FOR STORMIN' GORMAN
Former Brewers star Gorman Thomas will be among a class of four to be inducted into The Wisconsin Sports Hall of Fame June 12 in downtown Milwaukee.

GRUNAU BUZZ
On Mon., April 14, a story headlined "Postwar bounce?" ran in the Christian Science Monitor and included comments from Milwaukee developer Gary Grunau. Grunau's former company, Grunau Project Development, recently merged with the sixth largest construction company in the country, Gilbane Building Company. The new company is called GPDIGilbane and is now the 10th regional office for Gilbane. Grunau will continue to lead the company.

SEAFOOD TO BRADY STREET
Vinifera at the Paessaggio, 1716 N. Arlington Pl., has closed and is rumored to be in the middle of a transformation into a new seafood restaurant.

BAY VIEW BUZZ
Although Warp Drive has closed its Bay View storefront to concentrate on its Web business, a new guitar shop -- Top Shelf -- is preparing to open a few blocks north on KK. word is also that Cafe Lulu is expanding into the former bookshop to the north, although there's been no sign of construction yet. Even as Burger King has disappeared on KK, there's still talk of a new retail development on the empty lot across the street.

FIRST DAY OF SUMMER, LAST DAY OF BOULEVARD INN
The sale of the Boulevard Inn is nearly complete, and the final day of the beautiful Boulevard Inn is set for June 21. Bartolotta Restaurant Group is the new owner.

IZUMI'S IS MOVING
Izumi's is moving to a new space next to its current Prospect Avenue location.

SON OF MODERN JAZZ
Summer Sizzle, August 1-2 in the Third Ward, will feature T.S. Monk, son of the late Thelonius Monk. The festival grows every year and is now the premier jazz festival in Milwaukee.

KERN CENTER BEGINS
Celebrating its centennial this year, MSOE is seizing the opportunity to contemplate its growth over 100 years. One signpost of the university's ongoing progress is the construction of 210,000-sq. ft. he Kern Center, a privately funded, $31 million recreation, athletic, health and wellness facility. It is the first such facility for MSOE, which competes in NCAA Division III athletics. The official groundbreaking ceremony for The Kern Center took place on April 11. MSOE officials expect to occupy the center by fall 2004.

EAST SIDE PALMS
You just might see palm trees this summer at various East Side watering holes. Stay tuned.

MILWAUKEE FLOODS BOURBON STREET
Milwaukee and Marquette were more than well represented during Final Four weekend in the Big Easy. Despite the Marquette loss, thousands of loyal fans flooded Bourbon Street and made Milwaukee proud.

AMENT'S BACK?
Former County Executive Tom Ament was among the masses buying Final Four merchandise at Marquette's Book Store during Final Four week.

GOLF BUZZ
It looks as though CCW (County Club of Wisconsin) will be officially sold on in early May. The new group coming in to own this top-notch course is headed by Peter Romano and folks from Scenic View G.C.

12 WINS
WISN-TV, has received the George Foster Peabody Award for its news series "Sounding the Alarm." Among the highest and most prestigious of broadcasting honors, the international Peabody Awards recognize the most distinguished achievements and meritorious service in television, radio and news media. "Sounding the Alarm" was an eight-month news investigation conducted by WISN-TV Consumer Reporter Kent Wainscott and News Anchor/Reporter Tammy Elliott. The 2002 winners will be honored at the 62nd George Foster Peabody Awards, hosted by Barbara Walters, on May 19, in New York, and will be broadcast for the first time on the A&E Network in June. We were just happy that the good-natured anchors at the station enjoyed OMC's April Fool's edition this year.

GMCVB IS A GENUINE WINNER TOO!
The Greater Milwaukee Convention and Visitors Bureau (GMCVB) has been chosen to receive the 1st Annual Hispanic Meetings & Travel magazine Image Award for convention and visitors bureaus in the North. The Image Awards were designed by the magazine to recognize meetings and travel organizations for their innovative and compelling destination marketing to the Hispanic meetings and tourism market.

WINDOWS ARE TALKING HISTORY
As work continues on the new Linens 'N Things and T.J. Maxx at The Shops of Grand Avenue, five new vinyl window coverings have emerged. They stretch over 92 windows on the Plankinton Building and depict historical scenes and tell the story of how the building at 2nd and Plankinton was conceived and built.

SPEAKING OF SECOND AND PLANKINTON
St. Francis Bank is out of the space directly across from the Plankinton Building. A new restaurant may emerge there. We hear an Irish pub or seafood restaurant may be on the plate. Building owners are also talking to other potential tenants.

DOW JONES, JR?
Southeastern Wisconsin business owners and managers have a new resource for gauging the health of the region's economy -- the BizTimes Stock Index created by North Shore Bank for Small Business Times. Theindex is available at the paper's Web site www.biztimes.com and at the bank's site, www.northshorebank.com. The regionally focused, weighted index is based on the prices of publicly traded stocks of nationally listed companies headquartered in southeastern Wisconsin. The index tracks the cumulative stock values of companies based in the newspaper's readership market, which includes Milwaukee, Waukesha, Walworth, Racine, Kenosha, Ozaukee, Washington and Sheboygan counties. The stock index is updated daily by North Shore Bank.