Back in March, we took you inside the former Shops of Grand Avenue mall to show you how work was progressing on converting part of the space into the new 3rd Street Market Hall food hall, which is slated to open by the end of year.
At the same time, work was underway at The Avenue (which is what the building is now called) on the new national headquarters of GRAEF-USA, Inc., a Milwaukee-based engineering, design and planning firm.
Those offices will be up on the third floor, where the old mall food court was located. But don’t expect to recognize it as renovation work will include closing off and adding floor space in what was the three-story atrium at the Grand Avenue.
GRAEF’s space will include a mezzanine with meeting space, as well as an outdoor deck that overlooks Wisconsin Avenue. You may recall that the food court had a similar outdoor space.
Here are some images of how the space looks now...
And here are some renderings showing how it will look when work is complete...
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.
