Company to move to Milwaukee:

Marketing firm relocating to downtown Laacke & Joys site

Brookfield-based Bader Rutter & Associates Inc. will move to Milwaukee’s redeveloped former Laacke & Joys Co. building, the latest area business to relocate to the downtown area.

Brookfield-based Bader Rutter & Associates Inc. will move to Milwaukee’s redeveloped former Laacke & Joys Co. building, the latest in a series of area companies that are relocating to the downtown area.

Bader Rutter, now at Bishop’s Woods office park, plans to move to its new headquarters, 1433 N. Water St., by May 2017, said Greg Nickerson, chief executive officer.

The marketing services firm has 220 employees who will be moving there from Brookfield, Nickerson said Monday. Bader Rutter is leasing 60,000 square feet on three floors of the expanded five-story building, making it the project’s anchor tenant.

The move from the firm’s longtime Brookfield headquarters reflects downtown’s growing vibrancy, Nickerson said. That will help with attracting and retaining employees, and with Bader Rutter’s relationships with its national clientele, he said.

“We’re just very excited about being part of the transformation going on in downtown Milwaukee,” Nickerson said. “We want to be a transformative element for our clients’ marketing programs. . . . We want to be thought of as a destination agency.”

Also, the location “will help us attract the right kind of talent,” which includes both millennials and baby boomers, said Nickerson, who has lived downtown for three years.

Local development firm Wangard & Partners Inc. is buying the former Laacke & Joys building and a neighboring building, 1421 N. Water St., to create offices, two restaurants, a parking structure and a possible future hotel.

Wangard Partners will begin developing the office and restaurants projects this spring.

The proposed 113,830-squarefoot multitenant office building will combine the renovated four-

story southern portion of the former Laacke & Joys building with a new five-story addition. That addition will replace the building’s northern portion, which will be razed.

The 12-story hotel would be done eventually by another developer.

The idea of combining old and new space appealed to Bader Rutter, Nickerson said.

“We’re really thrilled with this idea of a nod to the past,” he said. The riverfront location also is appealing, Nickerson said.

Bader Rutter was formed in downtown Milwaukee in 1974, and moved to Bishop’s Woods in 1979.

Other firms that have moved to the downtown area in the past few years include HSA Bank, Plunkett Raysich Architects and Dohmen Co.