Silver Spring Drive Construction in Whitefish Bay: Three Projects

Walk the two blocks of East and West Silver Spring Drive this month and you will pass three different stages of construction without crossing a single project boundary. At one end, the replacement grocery store is taking shape behind a chain-link fence. At the other end, a 75-year-old movie theater has already reopened as something else entirely, its marquee lit most nights of the week. And tucked between them, a two-story apartment building is still standing exactly as it has for decades, its future decided only on paper filed with the village this spring.

None of these three projects answers to the other. Different owners, different financing, different clocks. But they are converging on the same six-hundred-foot stretch of road in the same calendar year, and that is worth understanding if you live anywhere near Silver Spring Drive right now, because it explains both the detour signs you are driving around this week and the two very different kinds of storefronts you will be walking past by next fall.

What's Actually Torn Up Right Now

The Sendik's that anchored this end of the district for 77 years closed for good on Sunday, August 23, 2026. That means the village's only grocery store has now been dark for more than three weeks, with the replacement still described by the village's own project page only as slated to open in "late summer" of this year, a window that is closing fast.

The new store is going up on the northwest corner of North Lake Drive and East Silver Spring Drive, on the footprint of a former office building that was razed last November. It will be a two-story building with a larger shopping floor, a bistro bar, and gathering spaces, a deliberate departure from the tight, familiar aisles regulars have navigated for decades. Once it opens, the current store will come down too, making room for a new on-site parking lot.

While that work continues, the village has posted a running list of what to expect if you're driving or walking through the district:

• Traffic on Silver Spring Drive has shifted north but still runs two lanes in each direction
• No parking on Silver Spring Drive between Consaul Place and Lake Drive through the end of September
• Diversey Boulevard and Hollywood Avenue are fully closed between Silver Spring Drive and the alley through the end of September
• Temporary crosswalks are marked around the site, and pedestrians heading to Silver Spring Drive from Diversey or Hollywood are directed to use Marlborough Drive and Berkley Boulevard instead

None of this is cosmetic. Whitefish Bay negotiated hard for what comes after the fencing gets pulled down: $925,000 in pedestrian and safety upgrades including new medians, bump-outs, and lighting at key intersections, another $2.2 million toward sidewalks, curbs, landscaping, and a new traffic signal at Consaul and Silver Spring, and the replacement of 850 feet of water main that has been in the ground since before most of the houses around it were built. Sendik's is fronting $1.1 million of the public improvement costs, with the village reimbursing roughly $660,000 of that and issuing a bond to cover another $2.1 million, paid back through tax incremental financing rather than the general tax rate.

For a village of this size, that is not a minor streetscape refresh. It is the largest public works package this stretch of road has seen in a generation, taking place alongside the private grocery chain's construction.

The Domino That Already Fell

Walk two blocks west and you'll find the part of this story that is finished, not in progress. The building at 334 East Silver Spring Drive housed the Fox Bay Theater, which closed in 1992; it later reopened briefly as the Fox Bay Cinema Grill and shut for good in 2020. Last December, after a $7.5 million renovation, it reopened again as The Argo, a 700-capacity live music venue with a full restaurant and lounge and a second-floor event space called the Marquis Ballroom.

The Argo's soft opening was December 5, 2025, with a full slate of more than 40 shows already booked into 2026 before the doors even opened. That includes a rotating swing jazz residency, national touring acts, and a private-event calendar that quickly filled with weddings and bar mitzvahs in the Marquis Ballroom. Local chef Dan Jacobs, known for DanDan and EsterEv, designed the restaurant menu. The project was split roughly evenly between The Argo's ownership group and the building's owner, New Land Enterprises, with about $1 million in tax incremental financing support layered on top.

The Argo's team was explicit from the start that they saw the venue as more than a standalone business. Adam Powers, the venue's CEO, said the goal was to add to what's happening on the street and help amplify the community, and that Whitefish Bay is a great place to live and also a great place to spend a night or day out, adding that he hoped more new businesses would follow.

That is a stated hope, not a guarantee. But about five months after The Argo opened its doors, a second and unrelated developer filed plans for a building two blocks away.

The One That Hasn't Broken Ground Yet

In May 2026, Bayside Management LLC submitted plans to the village's Architectural Review Commission for a three-story, 55,800-square-foot building at 131 West Silver Spring Drive, on the southeast corner of West Silver Spring Drive and North Lydell Avenue. The site currently holds a two-story apartment complex. Under the proposal, that building would come down and be replaced with 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, including a 3,500-square-foot branch for Bank of America, plus 16 market-rate apartments across the second and third floors. Plans call for 27 lower-level residential parking spots, a shared terrace with a grilling station and firepit, and private patios for individual units. The architectural work is being handled by Stephen Perry Smith Architects, a Milwaukee firm.

This project has not been approved and no construction date has been set. It is a filing, not a groundbreaking. But it is worth naming because it is the first concrete evidence, beyond hopeful public statements, that private capital is willing to bet on this particular block of Silver Spring Drive at the exact moment the village is spending millions to make walking it safer and the grocery store anchor is being rebuilt from the ground up.

Three Clocks, One Block

Here is the part that is easy to miss if you only notice one project at a time: the grocery store rebuild was negotiated and approved through a public process that started well before The Argo ever opened its doors. The Argo's renovation ran on its own privately funded timeline, roughly a year from start to opening night. And the Bayside Management filing came together months later. Together, the three projects are reshaping this business district on separate timelines.

What that means for anyone living nearby is straightforward. The detours and the empty grocery shelves are temporary, and the village's own tracker suggests most of the disruptive work wraps by the end of this month, with the new Sendik's expected to open before the year is out. The Argo, by contrast, is not a temporary disruption. It is a permanent shift in what Friday and Saturday nights on Silver Spring Drive sound like, with a calendar that has stayed full through most of 2026 and a team projecting roughly 200 events a year once it settles into a rhythm. And the apartment and bank building at the west end, if it moves forward, would be the first new housing added to the commercial strip in years, a small but real change to who is walking those sidewalks on an ordinary Tuesday.

The result is a stretch of road whose next chapter will be shaped by all three investments.

If you want a straightforward, no-pressure conversation about what's changing in Whitefish Bay or anywhere else on the North Shore, I'm always happy to talk through it over coffee. Reach out to Isaac Beckley any time. Let's Connect.