The Milwaukee Bucks announced today that it will move its corporate office to the Schlitz Park complex, just north of downtown Milwaukee. The team also says it has added 40 employees to its sales staff and executive team in recent months and now has more than 130 employees.
“We’re putting together one of the most talented and hard-working group of professionals in the NBA and now we’re excited to have one of the best offices in sports,” added Peter Feigin, Bucks president. “Milwaukee offered a number of worthwhile locations, but Schlitz Park was the right community for us to expand our footprint downtown and bring our business team together. We’ll be able to further integrate ourselves with more Milwaukee businesses and create the best possible work environment for our employees.”
The Bucks officers are currently located at the Milwaukee Theatre.
The team will move its offices in January to an 18,000-square-foot space on the sixth floor of the Stock-House building at Schlitz Park.
The team’s Schlitz Park office space covers the entire top floor of the Stock-House building, the tallest at Schlitz Park, and overlooks downtown Milwaukee and the Milwaukee River and will allow the Bucks’ staff to work in an open floor concept.
“We are going to use this site to attract the most talented workers in the country,” Feigin said.
Meanwhile, the Bucks are still working with local officials to develop a plan for a new arena. The NBA says Milwaukee needs to have a new arena by 2017 for the team to stay here long term.
Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry said the team hopes to have an announcement about a site for a new arena in 30 to 60 days.
“I know where I would like it to be,” he said. “We still need to get a number of things done. It’s complicated.”
Feigin said the team is considering plans to relocate its practice facility from the Cousins Center in St. Francis to the new arena.
Lasry declined to specific questions related to a potential arena site, including one reported that asked if the Schlitz Park office for the team indicated the preferred arena site was on the north side of downtown.
Lasry also declined to answer when asked if the Bucks ownership submitted the winning bid in the auction sale for the Shops of Grand Avenue. The top bidder in the online auction, held last week, for the mall bid $16.5 million for 298,109 square feet of building space and a 1,748-parking structure. The auction did not include the Boston Store building, which is owned by Wispark LLC.
“I think whoever bought it got a great deal,” Lasry said.
The Bucks ownership is not the group that submitted the winning bid for the Shops of Grand Avenue, but the winning bidder is from out of state, according to sources.
