Have you ever looked at a construction site and said ‘I wonder what’s being built there?’ Maybe you’ve looked at an office tower and thought ‘What is actually in that building?’
Developing Stories - our new monthly series covering commercial real estate in southeastern Wisconsin - is answering those questions and more. Addison Lathers covers real estate for the Milwaukee Business Journal, and she joins Lake Effect’s Sam Woods to discuss top headlines and what she’s expecting in the future.
For the August 2026 edition, Lathers details how downtown Milwaukee office towers are a tale of two markets, what 'mixed-income housing' means, and how a stalled Deer District groundbreaking is forcing tough decisions for office tower tenants.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Lake Effect's Sam Woods: We'll start with an overview of this month's news. What's three headlines from this last month that you've been paying attention to?
Addison Lathers: First on my list is something that I think has been on everybody's radar for literally years, which is the partial conversion of the 310W office building into apartments. If you've been to the 3rd Street Market Hall, it is the giant blue building right across from it. In fact, I think most people call it ‘the big blue.’ Its latest owner, a New York-based company called Time Equities, bought it in 2017 to spruce it up. But fast forward to 2025, and the city announces new incentives to turn old aging office buildings into homes and so now what we're looking at is 220 apartments and a $73 million project getting about $6.4 million of tax incremental financing from the city paid out over the course of many, many years.
The second story is about the Mackie Building — one of Milwaukee's best known historic buildings. Right now, it's facing a sort of a foreclosure lawsuit. Waukesha State Bank says the building's owners, J. Jeffers and Company, owe them $6.2 million and haven't made payments in a few months. That's because Bartolotta Restaurant Group, which operates the building's event venue, the Grain Exchange, hasn't been able to pay its rent due allegedly to a drop in business that's been happening since the pandemic. Foreclosure is never the end of the road, the owner Josh Jeffers has lots of opportunities to pay the debt and get his property back.
The third story is about Wipfli’s decision to relocate its Wauwatosa headquarters to downtown Milwaukee. They're one of Wisconsin's largest accounting firms, and they'll be bringing 169 employees with them to the Huron building. They signed a nearly decade-long lease and they've been planning their move for over 2 years. That's a long time, I think, to be in kind of constant negotiations over what you want to do. But that's likely because a lot of businesses anticipated a new, big, shiny office building coming soon, breaking ground this year in Deer District, and that just didn't happen. Also, they’ll get their name on the building.
Every month in this series we’ll highlight a word or phrase that showed up in your reporting. So what's this month's word and how did it come across your desk?
I've been thinking a lot more about ‘mixed-income housing.’ We saw Milwaukee County start to enter negotiations with a developer to turn the old Medical Examiner's site into housing. It's not just going to be housing for people who can't afford other apartments elsewhere. It's not just going to be apartments for people who work downtown. There's going to be a mix, a very set mix of 60%, 80%, 100% Area Median Income. A lot of people think this is a really great idea because it reduces a feeling of economic segregation, and I think it just makes a building feel more vibrant. As we have more office conversions happening downtown that agreed to add some affordable housing, we're going to see that kind of naturally occur more often.
To close us out, is there anything you're keeping your eye on for next month?
I know we're talking a lot about offices, but we've seen a half dozen or so leases signed as tenants are scrambling to secure their spots and buildings. I mentioned that Deer District office building that didn't break ground – a lot of people were betting on that to break ground. I think we're going to see a lot of bigger deals happening. I'm eyeing some big ones at 411 East, the building where the Wisconsin Athletic Club is, and the Chase Tower. It would be a re-signing of the lease if there's nowhere else to go. So I'll keep your eyes peeled.
