Omaha Home: renovation feature Story by Judy Horan • Photos by Sarah Tracey, creative director, Urban Village Development
Bringing Midtown Art Deco Back
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Futuristic Vision Transforms Park Ave. Apartments
n the early 1900s, Midtown Omaha had its own upscale Park Avenue, a high-rent
district for executives who could catch a streetcar outside their front door to jobs in Downtown Omaha. Today those apartment buildings, the first ever built in Omaha, are showing their age. Interiors are crumbling. But two Omaha men have come to their rescue. Jerry Reimer and Scott Semrad, founders of Urban Village Development, are renovating eight buildings along Park Avenue between Mason Street and St. Mary’s Avenue into modern apartments. Outside, the buildings look circa 1900s. Inside are new hardwood floors, modern appliances, walk-in closets and cable TV-Internet hookups for the young professionals expected to H20
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occupy the apartments. Three of the eight apartment buildings being renovated are Art Deco style. Art Deco is a design style popular in the 1920s and 1930s. One of those Art Deco buildings opened in November. The other buildings are scheduled to open later this year. Reimer said they have budgeted 125,000 man hours of labor to renovate the buildings. The eight Park Avenue buildings are a continuation of the Urban Village Development www.OmahaPublications.com