By Linda Spice – Reporter, Milwaukee Business Journal
Dec 19, 2025
A clubhouse with a sauna, hot tub and cold plunge could join the amenity lineup at an apartment development across from the West Allis Farmers Market.
Those amenities are planned as Milwaukee-based Mandel Group looks toward the start of construction on the next phase of the SoNa Lofts, near South 66th Street and West National Avenue. Mandel is adding 117 apartments, which would join the 110 units that opened in 2023.
Bob Monnat, a senior partner at Mandel, said amenities are key in creating value for residents paying for high-end, market rate apartments.
“Are you charging them more money because you can, or are you giving them something that says, you know, if we do our jobs right, we’ll make it really hard for them to want to leave,” Monnat said.
Monnat wants the SoNa Clubhouse to serve as an opportunity for socializing.
“We’re trying to create that value in creating a lot of amenities and resident events so that they’re not just paying to live in an apartment, they’re actually buying a whole lifestyle,” Monnat said.
Dan Katt, vice president of development for Mandel, said the intent is to break ground on the apartment project by the end of the first quarter or start of the second quarter in 2026, with completion anticipated a year later.
The clubhouse would add to existing amenities at SoNa Lofts such as a fitness and yoga studio, a dog park and dog wash station, a coffee and espresso station, bike storage, a private courtyard, electric vehicle charging stations and a pool.
The pool also is used by residents at another Mandel property, The West Living, across the street from SoNa Lofts on West National Avenue. The firm, though, plans to enhance the amenities there by investing “hundreds of thousands of dollars” into developing a new pool for The West, which Monnat said would be the biggest in West Allis.
The West pool is being designed. A schedule to secure bids will follow in January, with city approvals expected in January or February, Monnat said.
Construction could begin as soon as late March. It could open by Memorial Day, he said.
