BMO Harris plan unveiled
New 25-story glass tower will replace office on N. Water St.
BMO Harris Bank released renderings of its planned Milwaukee office tower Wednesday afternoon, showing a glass skyscraper slightly taller than the bank’s current 21-story main downtown office.
Details about the new tower, to be built where the current building’s parking garage now stands, will be released in a news conference Thursday morning, the company said.
The new building will replace the office tower at 770 N. Water St. that opened in 1968 as the national headquarters of Marshall & Ilsley Corp.
A source familiar with the project said the new building will have 25 stories and span 335 feet high.
More on the fate of the existing BMO Harris Bank building is expected to be learned Thursday. This spring, the BMO Harris Bank building lost a key tenant when the law firm Godfrey & Kahn moved out and took over the top three floors of the new 833 East office building in downtown Milwaukee.
Toronto’s BMO Financial Group purchased M&I in 2011. Its subsidiary, BMO Harris Bank, is based in Chicago.
M&I was the largest bank based in Wisconsin at the time of its acquisition by BMO, but the Milwaukee financial institution had been struggling with losses on loans coming out of the Great Recession.
With assets of about $107 billion, BMO Harris bank is one of the 25 largest banks operating in the U.S.