The City Center at 735, the brand name for the combined 735 N. Water St. and 731 N. Water St. buildings in downtown Milwaukee, has attracted several additional tenants during the last four months dramatically increasing its occupancy rate from 55 percent to 75 percent.
Since Dec. 1, the complex has added 13 new tenants that have leased 68,277 square feet of space. The most prominent of those new tenants is Gold’s Gym, which leased 45,630 square feet of space filling most of the 731 N. Water St. building and a portion of the 735 N. Water St. building. Other tenants added by The City Center at 735 since Dec. 1 include:
- Reserve Advisors, 6,113 square feet.
- Meridan Investments, 5,639 square feet.
- PersonVue, 2,114 square feet.
- Consolidated Construction, 1,754 square feet.
- NAMWOLF, 1,505 square feet.
- Lead2Change, 1,344 square feet.
- Poehlman Law, 1,182 square feet.
- Dan Morse, 736 square feet.
- Ben Pipkin, 618 square feet.
- Kinster Law, 582 square feet.
- Drew Palin, 576 square feet.
- Elon Stackhouse, 484 square feet.
The opening of Gold’s Gym in December has helped attract additional interest in The City Center at 735, said Sheldon Oppermann, vice president of Compass Properties, the owner of the complex.
The 735 N. Water St. building was built in 1912. For years many in the city’s business community considered it an old building with little new to offer, Oppermann said.
However, he said Compass Properties has invested about $15 million in the complex since 2008 for Gold’s Gym, decorative cornice restoration, a new roof and other upgrades. Prior to that Compass did a significant upgrade of the lobby at 735 N. Water St., in conjunction with the addition of The PrivateBank.
“Everybody is finally starting to see that it’s not the same old place at all,” Oppermann said. “Now it seems like people are calling interested in checking out the building.”
Compass is in negotiations with two other potential tenants, one that would occupy 12,000 square feet and another than would occupy 10,000 square feet said Oppermann, who declined to new the potential tenants.
Oppermann said Compass Properties has taken The City Center at 735 out of the running for the Harmony Initiative, (the collaboration of the Milwaukee Ballet Company, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Medical College of Wisconsin), which plans to establish a 70,000 to 75,000-square-foot location in downtown Milwaukee, because it does not have enough space to accommodate it.
By next year, when the building turns 100 years old, Oppermann’s goal is for it to be 95 percent occupied and LEED certified. An additional 75,000 square feet of space in the complex must be leased to reach that occupancy goal.
