Oregon, Wis.-based Gorman & Company Inc., which this week held a groundbreaking ceremony for a hotel development at the former Pabst brewery in downtown Milwaukee, is moving forward with plans to build an office building in the complex, said company president Gary Gorman.
The four-story, 60,000-square-foot office building, which will be called the Professional Center, will be constructed just west of the former Brew House and Mill House buildings at 1203 N. 10th St., which Gorman is converting into the 90-room Brewhouse Inn & Suites hotel.
The office building will be marketed to small startup firms, particularly law firms and accounting firms, that want to be located near the Milwaukee County Courthouse, Gorman said. Space in the building will be flexible and the building will provide a support staff for the tenants.
“People coming out of college will find that there are not a lot of job opportunities and a lot of them will try to start their own firms,” Gorman said.
Gorman said he has received a commitment from 22 foreign investors to provide $11 million in financing for the project through the federal government’s EB-5 program, which provides a process for foreign investors and their families to get green cards if they make investments that create jobs in the United States. Gorman also used EB-5 investors to finance $15 million of the $19 million Brewhouse Inn & Suites.
The EB-5 approval process by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in lengthy, Gorman said. The company started to seek approval of the EB-5 investors for the office building project about 6 months ago.
“Hopefully we get the bulk of them approved by mid-2012,” he said.
Construction for the office building could begin in late 2012 or early 2013, Gorman said.
