When Bill Regalado – better known to Bay Viewers and Milwaukee musicians as Bill Faust – died in October 2013, the city lost a pretty legendary character, and Bay View lost a long-lived institution – Faust Drum Center, 2204 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.
In the year or so since, talk has turned to the future of the building and site Faust occupied until Regalado's passing. It didn't take long for developers to take notice of the property.
What's on the table now, according to a Facebook post by district Ald. Tony Zielinski, is a five-story, 100,000-square foot building with 72 apartments, about 2,500 square feet of retail and about 75 enclosed parking spaces.
The nearly $10 million project includes, according to Zielinski's post, "four stories of Type VA construction over one story of Type IA construction above grade, and one story of Type IA cast in place concrete construction below grade."
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The apartments range in size from micro (about 400 square feet) to studio to one-bedroom and two-bedroom units. The developer – Dermond Property Investments LLC – is also seeking to acquire a municipal parking lot adjacent to the Faust building.
The saddest part for me is the loss of the two 19th century storefronts – one dated 1892 – that are part of a block-long stretch of KK that retains its old world feel on both sides of the street. In a perfect world, I'd love to see them cleaned up and repurposed rather than replaced.
While I don't oppose modern development in the neighborhood, I'm disappointed it has to happen on a site occupied by structures like these. At the same time, the buildings already looked to be in rough shape when I first bought drums from Regalado in the mid-'80s, so who knows what the intervening 30 years have wrought.
If you want to hear more about Dermond Property Investments’ plan and weigh in on it, Zielinski hosts a town hall meeting on the proposed development on Tuesday, Feb. 17 at 6:30 p.m. at Bay View Post 180, 2860 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
