From its humble beginnings in 1844 as a small brewery run by German immigrant Jacob Best, the Pabst Brewing Company grew quickly. Captain Frederick Pabst overtook operations in 1889 shortly after he married into the Best family. With a first-place victory in a beer competition at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, Pabst earned the right to call its beer “Blue Ribbon,” even though workers had been tying blue silk ribbons around the bottle necks since 1882. In 1895, Pabst became the first American brewery to produce one million barrels in a single year.

Company growth continued through the 20th century and Pabst turned out a company record 18 million barrels of beer in 1977. Despite this, Budweiser had long stopped considering Pabst serious competition and Pabst became the target of buyout attempts in the 1980s and 1990s. After years of poor leadership, the obsolete Milwaukee plant fell victim to the laws of economics and shut down in December 1996. Eventually, Pabst began to transfer its brewing operations to Miller in 1999 and in 2001, Pabst closed its last brewery in Allentown, Pa.

Jim Haertel entered the story soon after he graduated from Marquette’s Masters of Business Administration program in 1997.

Haertel, who is now president and majority owner of Brew City Redevelopment Group, contacted Pabst throughout the late 1990s and inquired about purchasing property at the site with no success. He credited Marquette with inspiring him to remain persistent and teaching him to follow his passion — real estate.  The fact the property was once owned by Pabst didn’t hurt, he said.

“When you could add beer, it definitely wouldn’t have impeded my passion,” he said.

Finally, on Sept. 11, 2001, Haertel and Pabst came to an agreement. Haertel put a $50,000 payment down on an $11 million piece of property. His “patient, persistent pursuit of the Pabst” finally paid off. The problem of finding the remaining money still existed, he said.

Haertel partnered with two real estate developers to form Juneau Avenue Partners to help pay for the rest of the property purchase. The two real estate developers were WISPARK, a real estate development subsidiary of We Energies, and The Ferchill Group from Cleveland, Haertel said.

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Haertel currently owns one building on the 21-acre site and has contracted Zilber Ltd. as a prime developer. Prime developers renovate buildings and sell them to other developers to either occupy themselves or to lease out to other tenants, said Robert Bauman, alderman of Milwaukee’s 4th District.  Joseph J. Zilber, another Marquette graduate of the College of Business Administration and the Law School, is the company’s chairman. He is also the namesake of Zilber Hall.

The city of Milwaukee invested $23 million in the project to pay for new infrastructure, including new street surfaces on West Juneau Avenue, North 10th Street, North 9th Street and a new roundabout at the intersection of North 8th Street and West Winnebago Street. The Brewery, which owns most of the site’s buildings, will pay the city back through incremental property tax increases in the coming years, said Bauman.

Bauman also said the development of the site is important to Milwaukee.

“We want to redevelop it as an anchor for the northwest side of downtown and as a gateway to the north side,” he said.

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Block 6 – Zilber Park and Building 16

Block six of the redevelopment project includes building 16, which dons the red sign (visible from campus) that says “The Brewery” on one side and “A Joseph Zilber Historic Development” on the other.

It also includes the brewery’s grain silos, which some think should be torn down, said Jim Haertel. The utilitarian structures withstood the immense pressure of tons of hops and barley pushing against their inner walls, making them difficult to destroy. Even so, Haertel said he wants to keep them.

“There’s something about them that just says ‘brewery,'” he said.

Developers from Zilber want to use the top floor of building 16, which would supply patrons with panoramic views of downtown and the lakefront, as a restaurant or an upscale bar that also serves food, Haertel said.

Zilber Park, which sits adjacent to building 16, contains statues of Zilber and his wife Vera. It also features a granite wall fountain that will continue to operate in the winter, creating unique and random ice sculptures on the rock wall.

“No two would ever be alike,” Haertel said.

Cardinal Stritch University College of Education Leadership

Cardinal Stritch University moved its College of Education and Leadership from its main campus in Glendale to the renovated research building at The Brewery in May, where classes are now in session. The building includes classrooms, offices and conference rooms used for large meetings and seminars, said Joanne Williams, vice president of public relations and marketing for Cardinal Stritch.

The Brewery offers a new centralized location for a college that held classes at various scattered locations within the city. This will help create a stronger sense of community.

“We have a commitment to community, whether the community is in Glendale or Milwaukee,” Williams said.

The move was also necessitated by a need for space in Glendale. The old College of Education and Leadership building was converted into a new residence hall to accommodate a record number of undergraduates, Williams said.

In addition to Stritch’s new building, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is considering moving its School of Public Health into the old bottling building, said Stephen Percy, acting dean of UWM’s School of Public Health.

A final decision has not been made, but Percy said the university is “looking at it as a serious option.”

Blue Ribbon Hall

Jim Haertel owns the former Pabst corporate office, which housed the brewery’s gift shop, the Blue Ribbon banquet hall and Captain Frederick Pabst’s historic office. The building will reopen with the gift shop and banquet hall serving their original purposes.

Haertel said 75 percent of the new vintage gift shop’s inventory is items recovered during the renovation process. These items include old stock certificates, advertisements, Pabst glassware and trays, posters and books.

Marquette’s men’s basketball team will be one of the first new customers to use the banquet space in Blue Ribbon Hall, Haertel said. The team will host banquets before and after certain home games and during some away games throughout the upcoming season, he said.

Blue Ribbon Hall will also host a Hunger Task Force benefit on Oct. 4. With a donation of four canned food items or $10, those in attendance will be able to tour the Pabst Mansion with Haertel.

“We’re excited to do something to help feed hungry people,” Haertel said.

Blue Ribbon Lofts

The former Keg House of the brewery, originally built in 1911, has been remodeled into the aptly named Blue Ribbon Lofts.

An important characteristic of the complex is its open, friendly atmosphere, created by second floor balconies over the first-floor common area, according to Gary Gorman on a promotional film tour of the facilities for Joseph Zilber. Gorman is the president and chief executive officer of Gorman & Company, a Madison-based real estate development firm specializing in industrial rehabilitation projects.

“We wanted to create sort of a ‘main street’ feel,” Gorman said.

Part of this feel is the first-floor common area, from which several unique amenities branch, including a fitness center, a small movie theater available for parties, a music recording studio and various art studios concealed by metal garage-type doors.

The sense of community will be enhanced by open houses for the public. The private studios will be available for artists to display and sell their work, Gorman said.