3rd Street Market Hall, the food hall coming to The Avenue in September, just got a key $2 million loan for its financing package

Tom Daykin
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Construction is finishing up on 3rd Street Market Hall, which just got a $2 million loan from the Milwaukee Economic Development Corp.

The food hall coming to downtown Milwaukee's The Avenue mixed-use development has obtained an important piece of its financing package.

3rd Street Market Hall is receiving a $2 million loan from the Milwaukee Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit business lender affiliated with the City of Milwaukee.

That loan will help pay for the buildout of the food hall, which is to open in September at 275 W. Wisconsin Ave.

The MEDC loan, approved Wednesday, makes up about 19% of the project's $10.6 million financing package.

Other funds are coming from the food hall operator, Third Street Market Hall OpCo LLC,  and its key owners, real estate developers Joshua Krsnak and Tony Janowiec and restaurateur Omar Shaikh.

The MEDC loan is "extremely important," Krsnak told the Journal Sentinel.

That's because the loan is covering costs that originally were supposed to be financed by the food hall's local food and beverage vendors, Krsnak said.

Along with the $2 million loan, another $3 million that the vendors were to provide to help build out their stalls and kitchens instead has been covered by 3rd Street Market Hall's owners, he said.

The change occurred after the restaurant industry took a big hit from the COVID-19 pandemic, Krsnak said.

"These guys got decimated," he said.

Indeed, the food hall renovations that started in 2019 were paused for months after the coronavirus pandemic surfaced in Wisconsin in March 2020.

Work is now close to completion.

3rd Street Market Hall is expected to have 128 full-time jobs within two years of opening, according to MEDC.

It will feature a central bar and  about 24 vendors.

That includes six stalls within an incubator featuring vendors on short-term leases, Krsnak said.

"It's like a mini-food hall within a food hall," he said.

Four of those vendors will have opportunities to lease free apartments within The Avenue, Krsnak said.

That chef-in-residency program is another way to help small vendors reduce their expenses, he said.

It also provides a chance for some vendors to move up to more permanent stalls within the food hall, or spaces beyond 3rd Street Market Hall, Krsnak said.

In addition, the food hall will include activities, such as Topgolf golf simulators, shuffleboard, a slot car racing track, video games and snookball — which resembles billiards played with soccer balls.

3rd Street Market Hall is the last portion of The Avenue to open.

That project replaced the former Grand Avenue mall with a mix of uses, including offices featuring companies such as Graef USA Inc. and Good Karma Brands LLC, as well as 54 apartments in the historic Plankinton Arcade.

Tom Daykin can be emailed at tdaykin@jrn.com and followed on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.