Journal Square Block is a 2024 recipient of the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Awards, the highest national recognition bestowed upon a preservation project by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Award recipients represent the best of the best in historic preservation, adaptive reuse, and the reimagining of historic buildings for the future.

In downtown Milwaukee, a trio of former newspaper buildings has been reborn as a vibrant, interconnected hub for education, housing, and community. The ambitious redevelopment of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel required overcoming major design and finance challenges to reimagine a landmark deeply embedded in the city’s history. With support from J. Jeffers & Co, Heritage Consulting Group, and architecture firm EUA, the Journal Square Block project successfully transformed a fading industrial complex while preserving the site’s history as a cornerstone of Milwaukee’s public life.

The following Q&A is with Joshua Jeffers, the President and CEO of J. Jeffers & Co. Learn more about the full slate of 2024 awardees here.

The Journal Square Block has been described as an "educational ecosystem" and a key part of the Deer District. How did this concept come about?

One interesting feature of these buildings is that they were purpose-built for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. A lot of the space was used for manufacturing newspapers, these huge printing presses. The other key thing was that, at one point in time, these properties had over 3,000 employees working in this beehive of an environment, around the clock, generating the news and physically manufacturing the primary newspaper of the Milwaukee market. By the time we got in, that staff count had fallen way off, along with the national trend towards a decline in the newsprint industry. In talking to some of the alums of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and building maintenance staff that had been there for decades, they had these incredible stories of what a thriving community—an ecosystem—it had been in the Milwaukee market.

One thing that jumped out is that there is a technical college, Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) in the area. We were aware that MATC had been looking for student housing for many years. Unfortunately, downtown real estate is among the most expensive in the market. So, we got the idea that we could convert one of these buildings to student housing. Thanks to the state of Wisconsin historic tax credit, that allowed us to buy down the basis in the redevelopment enough where we could meet that more affordable rental rate that MATC was looking for.

The more we thought about it, the adjacent Milwaukee Journal building was a great candidate for conversion to market rate multifamily housing. A lot of the units there are a little bit smaller, and that allowed us to keep the monthly rent at a lower threshold. We started to see this nice overlap between MATC student housing and market rate residential right next door. And then what really put it over the top was when we were approached by the Seeds of Health Tenor High School, a private charter school that was looking for classroom space, science labs, a library, and cafeteria.

It started to come together, this concept of how we reimagine these buildings in a way where we're not only redeveloping them for the next hundred plus years, but also how we recreate that important mission critical role that this block played in the Milwaukee community.

What were some of the biggest design challenges you encountered?

One of the biggest challenges was that the floor plate was gigantic. There was really no way to use the whole center core of the building.

A suggestion made to us by Heritage Consulting Group was to core a light well into the center of the building to bring light all the way down to an inner perimeter of apartment units so that the source of light and air would be off that atrium. At first, we didn't think that was possible because this is a historic building with preservation standards that have to be met. You know, coring a hole through the middle of the building didn’t strike us on the surface as something that the Park Service would get behind.

But, in working with our state SHPO, Heritage Consulting Group, and the Park Service, we were able to find a logical way of coring multiple light wells throughout the buildings, in a way that was sensitive to original design intent and architectural integrity. To be able to bring in light and air throughout the rest of the floor plate made this otherwise completely unusable space now attractive, rentable space that we could work with.

Let’s get into the not so fun part. How did you navigate the project’s complex financing, and what were the key factors in securing these funds?

Well, you say not so fun. That's my favorite part—stitching together the many sources of funding. Almost every project we take on has multiple sources, multiple layers of financing, and a lot of strings attached, so to speak. We did utilize federal historic tax credits, state of Wisconsin preservation tax credits, tax incremental financing, or TIFF financing, as well as private equity and construction loans.

The biggest challenge was getting the buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places to be made eligible for use of historic tax credits. Other real estate firms had tried to do this and were not able to. Heritage Consulting Group looked at past applications and found that developers had been seeking historic designation for these buildings based solely on architectural integrity. While these buildings do have some remaining architectural integrity, a lot of it has been removed over the years.

So what made our application different? This, again, was Heritage digging deep into the code and understanding how the nomination process works. We were able to submit an application that was based more around the historic use of these buildings. What did they mean to the Milwaukee community in our market here? We had a really good story to tell because this whole block was where the news for the entire Milwaukee metropolitan area was written and manufactured. It all started and ended here.

How do you envision the Journal Square Block project influencing future preservation or urban development projects, both in Milwaukee and beyond?

We were able to show the market that just because a building was built somewhat more recently, that doesn't mean it's not worth preserving. There is still potential for meeting preservation standards and reusing these buildings—as opposed to demolition.