Northwestern Mutual and Milwaukee-based real estate firm Van Buren Management have traded two downtown properties to settle an ongoing lawsuit over a parking lot.
In 2021, Milwaukee-based Northwestern Mutual sued an affiliate of Van Buren over control of a parking lot at 795 N. Van Buren St., which the financial services company owned and was leasing to the firm.
The parking lot is adjacent to an historic office building at 790 N. Jackson St., that Van Buren owns and was converting into a hotel. Van Buren began renovating the four-story building in 2020.
Northwestern Mutual sued Van Buren, saying the lease for the parking lot should be terminated because the hotel project didn’t meet its completion deadline. At the time of the lawsuit, Van Buren argued it had met the conditions of the lease and that the project was substantially complete. In 2022, the hotel project received $2.4 million in funding from Pace Equity, a Milwaukee-based firm that provides funding to developers to make their buildings more efficient, but the hotel has not opened.
Northwestern Mutual has now sold the 15,900-square-foot Van Buren Street parking lot to an affiliate of Van Buren Management for $1,280,000, according to state records.
Van Buren did not respond to requests for comment on the transaction or the hotel’s status.
Northwestern Mutual has also acquired a four-story, 80,950-square-foot office building at 732 N. Jackson St., known as the Jackson Building, and its parking structure from another Van Buren affiliate, for $2,195,100.
Both transactions were recorded Tuesday, according to state records.
Circuit Court records show that a settlement of the lawsuit was reached on Jan. 31.
A Northwestern Mutual spokesperson said the company was attracted to the Jackson Street building because the company already owns the office building to the east of it at 727-33 N. Van Buren St., which the company acquired from Van Buren Management in 2013. In addition, Northwestern Mutual’s 7Seventy7 apartment tower is located across the street to the north.
“We will continue to evaluate opportunities (for the Jackson Street building),” the spokesperson said.
The building dates to 1978 and has about 80,000 square feet of space, according to city records.
