Milwaukee’s stalled plyscraper, once billed to be the world’s tallest timber building, could be revived as workforce housing after its developer, Madison-based Neutral, ran out of capital and halted construction last September. That is according to remarks made by Lafayette Crump, Milwaukee’s Development Commissioner, who yesterday told the city’s Zoning, Neighbourhoods and Development Committee that Neutral executives “are exploring everything possible” and have been in discussions with new partners.
Wood Central understands that the pivot would fundamentally reposition the project originally conceived as a record-breaking luxury tower on the banks of the Milwaukee River, targeting households earning up to 100 per cent of the Milwaukee area’s median income rather than the premium renters the original scheme was designed to attract. “We’d certainly love to see something move forward,” Crump told the committee, though Neutral’s CEO Nate Helbach and chief product officer Daniel Glaessl did not respond to media requests.
It comes after Fond du Lac-based general contractor C.D. Smith Construction filed a foreclosure suit in March against Neutral affiliates The Edison SPE and The Edison Project, claiming $11.3 million in unpaid bills before interest, fees, and court costs, characterising the project as effectively abandoned after Neutral “ran out of capital” following cost overruns and terminated loan agreements.
One sign of movement came at the meeting, with Crump telling committee members that Neutral’s recent sale of a Madison apartment development had generated cash sufficient to pay off an overdue construction loan owed to C.D. Smith, a development he said could improve the relationship between the two parties and open a path to a restructured deal. The Edison site at 1005 N. Edison St. also carries $44,333 in delinquent property taxes, prompting committee chair Robert Bauman to raise the possibility of the city filing its own foreclosure action, a scenario Crump and Bauman had flagged as possible when the 50-storey Neutral tower was scrapped in November.
As Wood Central reported when construction commenced in March 2025, the Edison was designed by Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture as a hybrid structure combining 100,000 cubic feet of CLT panels and glulam beams over an eight-storey post-tensioned concrete base, with Neutral projecting a 54 per cent reduction in embodied carbon against equivalent steel-and-concrete construction. Whether that structural ambition survives a program pivot or ownership change remains contingent on Neutral closing the $25 million funding gap, the figure Crump put to the Common Council in October.
