PABST -- THE PARKING LOT

By Michael Horne

Paul Kalmanovitz, the corporate bottom feeder who purchased the Pabst Brewery in 1985, two years before his death, was said to have always viewed any company he purchased with an eye to turning the place into a parking lot after he was done raiding the shop. After all, the man got his start in the automobile parking business.
Well, it looks like his dream will come partly true for at least six months beginning February 1st, 2006 when the existing surface parking lot on the Pabst site at approximately 800 - 1000 W. Juneau Avenue will be leased to the County of Milwaukee for use by county employees whose automobiles are to be displaced by the pending demolition of the Milwaukee County Courthouse Annex.
Juneau Avenue Partners, an outfit created to advance the failed PabstCity development, will be the county's landlord at the site.
Juneau AveWisconue Partners is a subsidiary of Wispark, which is a subsidiary of Wisconsin Energy Corporation. Wispark president Jerold Franke confirmed the lease in a telephone conversation with milwaukeeworld Friday afternoon. He declined to disclose the amount of rent the firm is charging the county, saying only that "you can get that information out of the courthouse."
Milwaukeeworld has placed a call to Rod McWilliams of the office of County Executive Scott Walker requesting this information, which will be transmitted to you when it is received.
[UPDATE -- Monday, January 30th, 2006 -- Bob Dennik, the director of the Milwaukee County Department of Economic Development responded in an email sent Saturday morning. He says the county will pay Juneau Avenue Partners $6,800 per month for the lot. -- Ed.]


More Interesting News
Barbara Stein opened her Cudahy Condominium (the building, not the city) to several dozen supporters of J. D. Watts, a candidate for Branch 39 of the Milwaukee County Court system Thursday evening, January 26th 2006. Among attendees were such worthies as Judge Kevin E. Martens, Judge Carl Ashley and his positively beautiful children, Todd Montgomery and wife Sue Montgomery, Leonard and Ruth Zubrensky, Jean Kies, Michael Hupy, Leon Todd and others too numerous to mention, including former Alderpeople E. Faye Anderson and Larraine McNamara-McGraw.
The candidate's mother Martie Watts was there, and in good spirits. She's still living up at the family farm in Ozaukee County after the death of her husband George Watts, of local gift shop and political fame.
She dismissed the notion some hold that her house must be brimming with glittering place settings and sparkling crystal. "George always said, leave downtown downtown. I live in a farmhouse, and those things would be out of place." She added that her children would have probably destroyed everything, anyway. Apparently they're still in the habit of wrestling each other when in a rowdy mood.
The hostess could not have been kinder, and welcomed each guest individually. When you're in her house you're family, guests were told, and the family helped themselves to hors d'oeuvres served on psychedelic-colored paper plates and matching napkins. Four varieties of wine were served, as were soft drinks. The large apartment is filled with art and fragile items (no wrestling here). Ms. Stein is a particular devotee of artist David Lenz; she has countless of his paintings, including a well-known one of a farmer and his wife, the creation of which had been exhaustively documented in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story. She even has a scrapbook filled with articles about Lenz.
Watts likes to discuss his candidacy using a baseball analogy. He says he's been "a prosecutor, a guardian ad litem, a businessman. I've been on the field, I've pitched, I've caught, I've played the infield and the outfield, I've batted, I've run the bases and I've sat in the stands." And I want some Cracker Jacks and a beer after all that.