One of Milwaukee ’s newest businesses has taken one of the city’s oldest buildings, the Milwaukee River Flushing Station, and created a coffee shop. The Flushing Station, built in 1888 and home to a water pump that was once the largest in the world, is now occupied by the Alterra Coffee House on the Lakefront which opened in September 2002.

The product of a partnership between Alterra Coffee Roasters and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD), the coffee shop offers gourmet coffee, pastries, and meals in a building that has already won preservation awards from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and from the Milwaukee Historic Preservation Commission.

The design includes an “education center” with displays on storm water runoff and pollution, as well as a model of the deep tunnel system administered by the MMSD. The delightful combination of a modern coffee shop with a century-plus old building shows the commercial adaptation of a historic building at its best.