Oct. 09–A 94-room extended stay Homewood Suites by Hilton hotel is being planned for the northeast corner of North Water and East Clybourn streets in a historic downtown Milwaukee building that is the home of Joey Buona's Restaurant, city records show.

According to documents filed with the city Redevelopment Authority, Kenosha-based Bear Development would develop the existing property known as the Button Block Building at 500 N. Water St. The project is valued at $17 million.

The Redevelopment Authority is scheduled to meet Thursday to consider amending a tax incremental district to allow for $1.96 million in public improvements, including streetscaping, traffic signal upgrades, lighting improvements and "bike amenities" as part of the project.

The plan would eventually need to be approved by the Milwaukee Common Council.

Homewood Suites is part of Hilton Worldwide. The company has about 370 Homewood Suites sites across the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The seven-story Romanesque Revival style Button Block building was sold in March 2014 to Bear Development. The upper five floors of the building are vacant.

The building dates to 1892 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building has been home to a furniture company and nightclubs, including the Mad Hatter and the Park Avenue disco.

Calls to Bear Development were not returned Friday.

Joey Buona's operates on the first and second floors. A spokesman for the restaurant said Friday he was not aware of the plans for a new hotel at the site.

Joey Buona's is part of Buona Restaurants and Catering based in suburban Chicago. The company, owned by the Buonavolanto Family, also operates Brett Favre's Steakhouse in Green Bay. A call to the company's corporate headquarters was not returned.

Milwaukee Alderman Robert Bauman, whose district includes the proposed hotel site, said the plan is part of an overall development revival in downtown Milwaukee.

"Downtown is on a roll," Bauman said. "I have not seen this much activity perhaps in my 37 years in Milwaukee, at least in the immediate downtown area."

Bauman said the plans for the Homewood Suites include a major renovation of the building's exterior and will incorporate a vacant piece of land to the north where a building was torn down several years ago.

"They are going to put up a very nice sort of facade along the Water Street block face to kind of make up for that missing tooth effect of that missing building," he said. "I think this is a really, really positive project."

As for construction downtown, Bauman said he was taking a tour of a completed building this week and was talking with the developer.

"He apologized for the fact that the second elevator wasn't completed," Bauman said. "He said there is so much construction work going on, they don't have enough technicians to install elevators."