Largely vacant Bayside office building to undergo complete renovation

An office building just off I-43 in Bayside is about to undergo a major renovation in an effort to attract tenants to the largely vacant space, according to its owner. Bill La Macchia of Bayside-based La Macchia Holdings LLC said he plans to make roughly $5 million or more in renovations to the building, which is located northwest of West Glencoe Place and North Port Washington Road. He said the building has 50,000 square feet of space on the first and second floors and an additional 12,000 square feet on a lower level. According to village documents, the project includes façade improvements, landscape alterations and an addition of an exterior canopy. The exterior façade improvements include replacing the windows and exterior stone materials. The renovations will give the building a more modern look and update the building systems to better comply with safety recommendations in a COVID-19 era, La Macchia said. The work should start as soon as this week and take roughly seven months to complete, said La Macchia. He said his business has already located to temporary quarters, and will take up approximately 40% of the first floor once renovations are completed. The project received the approval of the Architectural Review Committee in August, said La Macchia.

Save for La Macchia's business, the building has been without any tenants for the last few years. La Macchia founded The Mark Travel Corp. and La Macchia Enterprises. He said his companies have been located in the building and two others nearby since 1981. In 2018, Mark Travel merged with Philadelphia-based Apple Leisure Group. La Macchia said Apple Leisure Group maintained some operations locally, and still occupies the other two buildings. With the building becoming largely empty, "I had the opportunity to take a step back and see how tired it looked," he said. "The whole building and property needed to be uplifted." Milwaukee-based Rinka is the project architect, and Milwaukee-based ADK Design Inc. is the general contractor. La Macchia said he'll be targeting tenants who need at least 5,000 square feet of space, but is willing to show the building to anyone with interest. Dan Wroblewski and Sal Strehlow of Colliers International|Wisconsin are the leasing agents. The building is located directly north of the site once pitched for a controversial mixed-use development, which La Macchia Holdings was part of along with Milwaukee-based Cobalt Partners LLC. The most recent version of the so-called OneNorth project included a 15-story apartment tower (original plans called for a 30-story tower), new North Shore Library space, luxury owner-occupied or rental residential units, and office, retail and restaurant spaces. Those plans were withdrawn just over a year ago. La Macchia said the group is still weighing its options at the site, but needs to perform in-depth research before coming back with new plans. "Before we take any steps forward, we are going to do a great deal of planning and research," he said. "We are not going to run into a situation like we did in the past. The planning and research hasn't begun. I would say we're not even in early stages of what we're going to do there."