Park East developers: project back on track. (Trammell Crow Residential Inc. and Milwaukee Redevelopment Corp. obtain financing for apartment project)

Park East developers: Project back on track

Despite renewed talk of a downtown baseball stadium, developers of the Park East corridor project were confident last week that they will have their financing packaging in place in time to break ground on the $85.3 million apartment project this summer.

Barry Mandel, divisional partner in the Milwaukee office of Trammell Crow Residential Inc., declined to comment on specific details of the financing package. But he said TCR/MRC Joint Venture, the developer's partnership with Milwaukee Redevelopment Corp., would not ask for another extension on the project this week.

The joint venture is scheduled to provide a status report on the project's financing to the Milwaukee County Board's Economic Development Committee at its May 15 meeting.

"We are pushing toward that end," Mandel said of the County Board's July 31 deadline to begin construction on the project. "We've been received favorably by a number of institutions who put the package together... We're not in the position to announce anything yet, but we may be by next week."

TCR/MRC grabbed the development contract last year after the county dropped the original developer from the project, and had pledged to start construction before the end of the year.

But in January, the new developers asked for a seven-month extension to give the joint venture until the end of …