2 sites are finalists for state office buildings

Officials: Current location too costly to maintain

Two new state office buildings in Milwaukee — totaling up to $140 million in estimated project costs — will apparently be developed on either downtown’s west side or the city’s near west side neighborhood.

Assurant Insurance’s underused five-story, 370,000-square-foot office building at 501 W. Michigan St. and 2.3 acres of mostly vacant land south of West Wisconsin Avenue and west of North 27th Street have emerged as the finalists for the projects.

That’s according to new information from the Wisconsin Department of Administration.

The department, which oversees state construction projects, is now seeking bids for architectural and engineering services to evaluate those two potential development sites.

The two projects could be developed together within a renovated existing building, on a vacant parcel or on a parcel created by demolishing an existing building, according to the DOA.

Or the projects could be separated, with one building developed downtown and the other at the near west side site.

That new information is within an amendment to the project’s request for proposals posted Wednesday on the department’s website.

The two projects involve a general state office building, housing several agencies, and another building focused on law enforcement.

The multi-story 165,000-square-foot office building is budgeted at $65 million.

It would replace the nine-story office building at 819 N. 6th St., which includes a Division of Motor Vehicles service center.

Other agencies with regional offices at that downtown building include the Department of Workforce Development, the Department of Corrections and the Department of Revenue.

That 54-year-old downtown building is costly to maintain, state officials say,

and would be sold after the new facility was completed.The 150,000-square-foot law enforcement facility would cost an estimated $75 million.

It would house the Department of Justice’s crime laboratory and other state law enforcement agencies.

That building would replace the Milwaukee crime lab, built in 1983 at 1578 S. 11th St., that the DOA says is overcrowded and has outdated building systems and laboratory conditions that don’t meet program needs.

The two finalists for the projects are both in areas that have been redeveloping in recent years.

The Assurant site is six blocks south of the new Fiserv Forum, where the Milwaukee Bucks will begin playing in the upcoming NBA season.

That property also is near other underused and vacant office buildings converted to apartments.

The site at West Wisconsin Avenue and North 27th Street is being assembled by Near West Side Partners Inc., a nonprofit neighborhood development group supported by Marquette University, Harley-Davidson Inc. and other major employers.

It is just south of where developer Rick Wiegand is converting the former Wisconsin Avenue Elementary School, 2708 W. Wisconsin Ave., into the Ambassador Suites extended-stay hotel.