By Jay Fox

Neutral 1005 N Edison St (Edison) broke ground in June to significant fanfare. The highly anticipated, over 500,000-square-foot building will bring 353 luxury rental apartments to East Town, Milwaukee’s core downtown area. In addition to creating such a multitude of units that range from studio to three-bedroom in a highly competitive rental market, Edison is designed in accordance with Phius Core 2024 standards. At 31 stories tall, Neutral Edison will top Milwaukee’s other mass timber tower, Ascent MKE, making it not only the tallest residential building made of mass timber in Wisconsin, but in the United States.

Neutral, the developer of the project, says that planning began in 2020, not long after the firm was founded. A Certified B Corporation, the Madison-based real estate developer has already completed two projects in the Wisconsin capital that prioritize sustainability and resident well-being. Both projects utilized mass timber, which was as much a design priority as it was an effort to use high-performance materials with low levels of embodied carbon.

“Since its inception in 2020, Neutral has been in the pursuit of leveling up the environmental performance of our projects, focusing on the reduction of both embodied and operational carbon,” says Neutral Chief Product Officer Daniel Glaessl. “Edison is our first project designed to reach Passive House status. It is especially remarkable given the scale of the building. We implemented several innovative products and methods to achieve that performance. We introduced a triple-glazed façade with zero-carbon aluminum. Our ventilation system features energy recovery units. And we implemented a hydrothermal system that is using river water for building cooling.”

In addition to the pursuit of a passive, energy-efficient building envelope, Neutral is implementing a hybrid mass timber structure that could meaningfully reduce the building’s embodied carbon compared to conventional alternatives like concrete and steel. Glaessl notes that panelized mass timber components also allow for more efficient construction on account of their high precision and ability to come on site with all MEP penetrations perfectly in place. There’s also no sacrifice on fire performance. The company has recently completed a first of its kind three-hour fire test of its mass timber assembly and has published its results (available here and here) to support industry researchers and practitioners. 

Despite its reliance on mass timber and its consistent commitment to hitting performance metrics that exceed code, Neutral had yet to build to Passive House standards. They had considered Phius certification for prior projects but ran into design and financial constraints. With Edison, these constraints were minimized, allowing the team to pursue certification under the Phius 2024 Core Standard. Edison is also designed to meet Living Building Challenge 4.1 Core Certification. 

Edison replaces a warehouse owned by Rojahn & Malaney Co., which operated a wholesale floral distribution business on the site for four generations. Prior to that, the riverside property had been used as a timberyard. Timber from the vast northern forests of Wisconsin was floated down the Milwaukee River to the timberyard, where the raw logs of pine, oak, hemlock, maple, and ash were processed to build many of the post-and-beam structures around the Milwaukee area that still stand today. Edison architect HPA took the original timberyard shelves as inspiration in crafting the façade of the new building.

In addition to fitting comfortably within Milwaukee’s history, Edison will also meet the needs of a changing downtown. Within recent years, the stretches of East Town and Westown that hug the river have become less industrial as commercial and residential towers have replaced factories and warehouses. This is perhaps best exemplified by the success of the RiverWalk, a pedestrian path that extends 3.1 miles along both sides of the Milwaukee River. On top of allowing public access to the river, the RiverWalk is a blend of public and private space that connects the path to streets, plazas, and commercial spaces where visitors can shop, eat, or enjoy a beverage.

For Edison, the commercial space on the ground floor that faces the RiverWalk will be occupied by California-based coffee chain Copa Vida. The café will include an organic grocery store and will occupy just over 3,000 square feet of the 7,182 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor. The remaining space will be occupied by a membership workspace. Above, residents will enjoy a host of amenities that include a full-floor health and wellness club that features a state-of-art gym, health clinic, spa, pool, and sauna. On the top floor will be a resident lounge with a chef’s kitchen, community garden, and entertainment deck with private dining rooms. The public spaces and fitness center will not be included within the passive envelope. A parking deck that occupies a portion of some lower floors will also sit outside the envelope.

For developers considering Passive House certification, the Neutral team notes that it’s important to bring in experts early to integrate Passive House design principles into the DNA of the project. “Many design decisions made at the concept and schematic design stages can dramatically influence the financial and energy performance of buildings,” Glaessl advises. 

“By involving the experts from the project inception, developers may be able to continuously find creative solutions that balance environmental and financial objectives,” he says.