Middleton-based North Central Group Hospitality (NCG) is planning a hotel in Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward.
NCG has submitted a proposal to convert the Third Ward Center building, located at 224 E. Chicago St., into a hotel. The project is scheduled to go before the Historic Third Ward Architectural Review Board (ARB) on Wednesday, according to the board’s newly posted agenda.
The agenda does not include detailed plans, but the proposed development would repurpose the 83,260-square-foot building, originally constructed in 1917 for Monarch Manufacturing Co., according to records from the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Today, the three-story structure includes retail space on the ground level, office space above and 59 covered parking spaces.
The building’s current retail tenant is high-end furniture store Restoration Hardware, though that first-floor space is currently being marketed for lease by commercial real estate firm Colliers. A portion of the second floor is occupied by marketing firm Cramer-Krasselt. The remaining 40,100 square feet of office space is also being marketed for lease by Colliers.
If built, the hotel would become only the second in the Historic Third Ward, joining the 158-room Kimpton Journeyman Hotel, which opened in 2016 just a block away. In 2021, Wimmer Communities proposed a 102-room hotel at 125 N. Water St., but construction has not commenced.
NCG, founded in 1981, completed The Trade hotel in downtown Milwaukee’s Deer District in 2023 and recently received approval to build a 156-room Moxy Hotel also in Deer District. That approval was awarded over opposition from the Milwaukee Area Service and Hospitality Workers Organization (MASH) and some Common Council members.
Representatives from NCG and the Historic Third Ward ARB did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
More articles about the Historic Third Ward:
- A park in the Historic Third Ward is getting a facelift
- See inside the Third Ward’s newest apartment building
- Rehab work could start this year on 141-year-old Third Ward building
- See inside Allspring Global Investments’ new Third Ward office
- Owners of Birch to open riverfront French bistro at new Third Ward tower
