Milwaukee building collapse leaves beverage company with $100K of product stuck in connected space
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The City of Milwaukee is attempting to finalize an emergency raze order as soon as possible for the National Warehouse Corp. Building on Bruce and Water Street, which was filed Monday. Several permits toward demolition were granted Tuesday.
A Department of Neighborhood Services (DNS) spokesperson said on Wednesday morning, the last part of the application process is to receive an expedited permit from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) regarding asbestos mitigation.
Once that's filed, the demolition permit can be approved and contractors can immediately begin the tear-down process.
According to DNS, the DNR will not be finalizing the permit Wednesday, but they're expecting a response as early as Thursday.
Crews from HM Schmidt, the demolition contractor hired by the property owner, have been staging the site since Tuesday.
"As we start getting the demolition permit, I think it will be a matter of a few days to just complete the whole demolition," said DNS Commissioner Jezamil Arroyo-Vega.
The city determined that knocking down this building is the safest way to clean it up after its collapse, and to eventually allow tenants back into the office and storage space that's next door to the collapsed building.
Some people were inside the National Warehouse Corporation's furthest east building when the collapse happened around noon Monday.
"It was very loud, obviously, and I jumped out of my office, and when I looked down, the doors were open, I saw daylight where there shouldn't be any," said Noah Swanson, CEO of the local beverage company, local Top Note Tonic. "I knew that part of the facade had fallen in."
He ran outside of the adjoining building just as the dust was settling. Hours later, much more of the structure gave way.
"The amount of collapse here was pretty dramatic," he said.
Swanson stores Top Note, their product, inside the east building for distribution. Now, no one is inside that building until it's deemed safe.
That won't be until after the connected middle building is demolished.
"Unfortunately, we just took in a production run last Thursday and brought 21 pallets up, so we have about a hundred-thousand dollars on the floor right now," Swanson explained.
He is preparing to make and package new product outside of the building for now.
Once he's able to go back inside, Swanson's main concern is the dust and debris contaminating his bottles.
"We just don't know the extent of this demolition, what it's going to do to our space or our product, so we're planning to make new," he explained, noting he's hoping to find out sooner rather than later. "I'm a lot more optimistic than when this first came down. Things are moving along pretty quick."
As of now, the DNS said the adjoining building where Swanson keeps his product is not part of the demolition project.
It's not clear yet what work will need to be done on that building before it can safely reopen.