100 East office tower to be converted to 350 apartments
100 East, one of downtown Milwaukee’s biggest office towers, would be converted into around 350 high-end apartments by 2026, according to new revealed plans.
The 35-story, 435,629-square-foot building, 100 E. Wisconsin Ave., is being sold to a group led by Klein Development Inc. and developer and investor John Vassallo.
Their plan is to complete that purchase within a few months, and then relocate office tenants from the half-full tower, Vassallo said.
That would be followed by renovations to create the apartments. That work would likely be completed, with units available for rent, by around summer 2026, he said.
“We’re bullish on people moving to downtown Milwaukee,” he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The Journal Sentinel on Thursday reported Klein Development was planning to buy and convert 100 East. It’s among a series of underused downtown office buildings that will likely be converted to apartments over the next few years.
That trend is fueled by the overall demand for office space softening as employers adjust to the new world of remote work combined with continuing strong demand for apartments.
100 East is the most prominent of Milwaukee’s conversion candidates.
It opened in 1989, and was 88% leased when it was sold in 2016 for $78 million to an affiliate of Santa Monica, California-based Hertz Investment Group.
But 100 East suffered a major blow when the Michael Best & Friedrich law firm, its anchor tenant, announced in 2016 that it would move to the new BMO Tower, which opened in 2020 at 790 N. Water St. That news came just three months after 100 East was sold to Hertz.
It’s now in foreclosure. Removing it from downtown’s office space supply will help shore up that market, which finished 2022 with a 17.1% overall vacancy rate, according to the latest quarterly report from Commercial Association of Realtors-Wisconsin.
Klein Development declined to talk about its plans for 100 East. Vassallo’s role in the project was first reported by the Milwaukee Business Journal.
Meanwhile, Gruber Law Offices LLC, a longtime 100 East tenant, is planning to look for a new location.
“The likely conversion does not come as a surprise to us,” attorney Steven Gruber said in a statement. “Our current lease runs through November of 2024, and we will of course continue to evaluate the market for future options.”
Other tenants include Marcus Corp. and Wells Fargo Bank.