Almost eight months after employees began moving into Rite-Hite’s new corporate headquarters in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood, the final portion of the campus — the north building — is now also complete.
Rite-Hite announced today that 230 employees moved into the north building this week, joining 70 employees who moved into the south building last June. The company is a manufacturer of loading dock equipment, industrial doors, safety barriers, industrial fans and other in-plant products.
“With the completion of the north building, all remaining corporate employees who were working remotely since the (COVID-19) pandemic have a place to return,” said Sara Everts, Rite-Hite’s director of corporate marketing and communications.
The campus, located at 195 S. Rite-Hite Way, sits on 9.5 acres. The four-story north building is connected by a skybridge to the south building and a parking structure. The buildings’ workspaces incorporate natural light and lean on modern office trends like collaboration areas and focus rooms.
The north building also includes a Customer Experience Center. The 8,500-square-foot space was created for customer education and product demonstrations. Rite-Hite expects to bring hundreds of customer groups into the facility, as well as the “live dock” area in the south building. The north building also houses a full-service employee cafeteria.
The two-story south building opened in June 2022, along with the four-level parking structure. Inside it are the engineering and light industrial operations for one of Rite-Hite’s divisions, as well as the southeast Wisconsin office of Arbon Equipment Corp., the sales and service arm of Rite-Hite. The south building also includes a technical training center and a live dock environment for customer visits and additional training space for employees. The 119,000-square-foot south building also includes an employee exercise facility with full locker rooms.
“It has been an intense but fulfilling undertaking for all of us and we are so grateful for the expertise and strong partnership we have with our architect and general contractor,” said Everts. “The entire Rite-Hite organization has followed the project’s progression and we are thrilled to be working at this beautiful campus and to be part of the vibrant neighborhood and city.”
Throughout the building process, Rite-Hite incorporated several environmentally friendly elements. The south building has 900 solar panels on its roof. Designed to help offset the company’s energy costs, the panels are expected to generate about 500,000 annual kWh, which can prevent 391 tons of carbon dioxide emissions entering the atmosphere annually. The building also incorporates fabric ductwork and under-floor air dispersion systems made by Rite-Hite’s DuctSox subsidiary.
Rite-Hite initially began considering moving its headquarters from Brown Deer to Walker’s Point three years ago. Project plans were first unveiled in the spring of 2020.
The company worked with Milwaukee-based Eppstein Uhen Architects and C.D. Smith Construction for the construction of its new headquarters.
