Historic Focus
As parts of the Pabst complex were revitalized, the old church in the southwest corner of The Brewery district came into focus for reuse. The building’s owner, Blue Ribbon Management LLC, and tenant, Pabst Brewing Co., approached Engberg Anderson Architects, a local design firm with a solid track record for historic-preservation projects and historic tax credit work.
“We began design work in the spring of 2015. The property is in a locally designated neighborhood, so this project had to go through a city review with the Milwaukee Historic Preservation Commission [HPC] to obtain a Certificate of Appropriateness,” recalls Mark Ernst, partner with Engberg Anderson Architects. “The intent of the project was to retain and restore as much of the original historic fabric as possible and still provide a code-compliant, commercial venue above a small batch brewery on the first floor.”
Part of the reason for bringing in a design firm with a historic-preservation background was because it was very important to walk a balance between bringing a modern energy to the building while still maintaining a deep respect for its past.
“Much of the design was controlled by the historic-preservation process,” says Jason Raiten, architect with Engberg Anderson Architects. “We needed to be sensitive to the historic building fabric to satisfy the State Historic Preservation Office [SHPO] and the National Park Service, the governing bodies for the HPC. Designing and constructing to these standards were the frontline issues for the project.”
Great attention needed to be paid to every detail to give the renovation a warm, historic feeling. “The roofing was replaced with traditional wood shingles. Interior floors were retained and restored,” Raiten continues. “All plaster walls were repaired or replaced with matching smooth painted surface. The board and batten ceiling in the ground-floor space was carefully removed and returned after the mechanical equipment was installed.”
“After discovering the balance of the building above the ground floor was a masonry veneer building, we had to find a way to stabilize the masonry without installing ties from the exterior side of the envelope,” Ernst explains. “This was solved by installing masonry ties from the back side and clipping them to the structure.”
Old and New
To the eye, the appearance of much of the building remains historic, even if modern materials and techniques were used behind the scenes to achieve the look. “We had to maintain all the original wood windows and reinstall replicas in some openings where they had been removed,” Ernst continues. “There was quite a bit of water and fire damage to the structure that the structural engineer had to mitigate with designed repairs. The exterior masonry had to be meticulously cleaned with methods approved by the SHPO representative.”
A 1,000-square-foot addition provided the space to meet current needs while still echoing the historic nature of the building. It now houses a modern kitchen, ADA bathrooms and more.
“The original architecture inspired the southern addition,” Raiten says. “The addition needed to be functional and cohesive in materials and design without detracting from the original church. An elevator was installed providing accessibility and ease of use to the tap-room kitchen. To provide a clear delineation between old and new, a sliver of glass was used between the original building and new addition.”