A vacant lot on Milwaukee's far northwest side that once held a country-western strip club built around a real train caboose is finally headed toward new life. Plans submitted with the city call for an 8,711-square-foot, single-story multi-tenant retail building on the site at 4730 N. 76th St., with a laundromat and a restaurant among the tenants set to move in.
The $530,000 project, according to plans submitted with the city and reported by BizTimes, is the work of developer Omar Ahmad, who is associated with 3300 LLC. Ahmad plans to operate a laundromat in a 4,565-square-foot space within the new building, along with a restaurant in a 1,811-square-foot space, and the remaining square footage is planned for another retail tenant. The building would sit on the east side of 76th Street, south of Hampton Avenue, in Milwaukee's Columbus Park neighborhood, a residential and commercial stretch of the Far Northwest Side, according to Urban Milwaukee.
A Site With A Strange, Troubled History
The property has a colorful and complicated backstory. It formerly housed Tommy's Good Time Saloon, a country-western-themed strip club built around an attached 1970s Milwaukee Road train caboose, which operated until owner Thomas Michels died in 2000, per BizTimes and Urban Milwaukee's earlier reporting. The site then sat vacant for 23 years, plagued by fires and code violations, before crews finally demolished the building and its caboose in February 2023.
An August 2022 fire at the address triggered municipal condemnation proceedings after years of city health and building code complaints, Urban Milwaukee reported at the time. The building had experienced repeated fires and blazes dating back to 2000. City Department of Neighborhood Services records also show an occupancy permit was issued for Right Now Movers at the site in 2018, though subsequent enforcement actions targeted unapproved outdoor vehicle storage on the lot during its long vacancy.
Developer's Growing Footprint On The Block
Ahmad's 3300 LLC acquired the 22,726-square-foot lot for $190,000 in September 2020 from S&L Global Consulting USA, according to Urban Milwaukee's review of property records. The company also owns the adjoining 8,000-square-foot commercial parcel at 4750 N. 76th St., purchased in 2020 for $135,000 from the estate of Sidney and Phyllis Ellis, where a former Taco Bell building is currently leased to TitleMax.
Ahmad is an active Milwaukee real estate investor who operates multiple JJ Fish & Chicken franchise locations around the city, according to Urban Milwaukee's reporting on his other projects. In May 2025, city officials approved selling him four vacant city-owned lots on the 3000 block of N. 35th St. for $4,000 to facilitate a separate $985,000 commercial center anchored by a grocery store and restaurant, showing a pattern of turning underused Milwaukee parcels into neighborhood retail. Campaign finance disclosures also show Ahmad made an $834 contribution to Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson's campaign committee in August 2020.
Milwaukee Architecture Firm Behind The Design
Stack Design Group, a Milwaukee-based architecture firm, is listed as the architect for the retail building project, per BizTimes. The firm has handled a range of local commercial work, including the 2017 expansion of Glorioso's Italian Market on Brady Street and a 2024 restoration plan for the historic Wildenberg Hotel on S. 27th Street, according to FOX6 News and Urban Milwaukee.
For a corner of Columbus Park that spent more than two decades defined by a shuttered strip club, a burned-out building, and unpermitted vehicle storage, the arrival of a laundromat and restaurant would mark a tangible shift toward everyday neighborhood services. No construction start date or opening timeline has been disclosed, and it remains unclear whether the project will require zoning variances or additional municipal approvals before work can begin.
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