Have you ever wondered if you could take an idea, a goal, a passion for something requiring money beyond your means and a scale of vision beyond anything you've done before, and kick-start it into reality?

This story is proof that you can ... and what you have to go through sometimes to make it happen.

For a number of years, Jim Haertel, a Milwaukee-based financial and real estate consultant and UWM and Marquette grad, wanted to combine his passions for beer, history and real estate into one coherent creation.

"Originally I was pursuing the idea of opening a brew pub and beer museum in the Gipfel Union Brewery," Haertel said. The building, surrounded by chain link fence on 4th and Juneau Avenue with the Bradley Center serving as a backdrop, is one of the oldest surviving buildings in Milwaukee and the oldest former Brewery building still standing. He stood outside it and contemplated in the spring 1999.

"Then, I gazed up the hill and saw that huge Pabst sign staring back at me. I realized that massive Pabst Brewery complex was empty, the Park East Freeway was coming down, and all the land around that area was ripe for new development. I knew I had to go check it out."

Haertel recalls driving up Juneau Avenue, spotting the old corporate headquarters of Pabst -- several beautiful brick and stone structures at 901-917 W. Juneau Ave. -- and thinking would make an even better brew pub and beer museum than the Gipfel building. Haertel struggled to inquire about the buildings.

Phone call after phone call and letter after letter led nowhere; only contacting the webmaster that handled Pabst's Web site bore fruit and Haertel finally found someone in charge: the then-VP of Pabst Brewing Company, Bernie Orsi.

"Initially, we were told the buildings were not for sale. But we took the approach that everything is for sale at the right price," Haertel said.

During the 1990s, Pabst morphed from a major Milwaukee-based brewer to a marketing company that primarily promoted a portfolio of beer brands, contracting the actual brewing to other companies. Pabst was owned by S&P, a California-based charitable trust whose managers preferred holding and maintaining the Pabst property in Milwaukee versus selling it.