Redevelopment of the 37-story 100 East office tower in downtown Milwaukee took a significant step forward Friday when the Wisconsin Historic Preservation Review Board voted unanimously to nominate the building for state and federal historic status.
The nomination clears the way for 100 East's development team, comprised of Milwaukee-based
Klein Development and restaurateur
John Vassallo, to pursue historic tax credits to help finance their planned conversion of the building from office space to approximately 380 apartments.
The vote comes after the same board in August rejected the 35-year-old building's nomination, saying buildings typically are not nominated for historic status until they are at least 50 years old.
Board members, however, reversed course Friday after the development team bolstered their argument that the building is historically significant despite its age.
The development team and its consultant,
Heritage Consulting Group, highlighted the building as Milwaukee's most iconic example of postmodern architecture. Exterior elements of the building rendering it postmodern are its exaggerated scale, limestone arches, pyramidal roof with cupola, finials, and roof cresting, as well as the maintained lobby and a cupola inspired by City Hall, the team argued.
The nomination also received more than a dozen letters of support from officials such as Alds.
Bob Bauman and
Jose Perez, Department of City Development Commissioner
Lafayette Crump and Milwaukee County Executive
David Crowley, as well as from architects and architecture associations in Milwaukee and Chicago.
"Postmodernist buildings like 100 East are crucial to preserving the architectural diversity and historical narrative of our cities," Bauman wrote in his letter. "This style — often underappreciated — represents a significant period in architectural history that challenged traditional forms and embraced eclecticism and context."
[caption id="attachment_592815" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]
100 East's lobby. Image from City of Milwaukee[/caption]
Further, Heritage Consulting Group cited register guidelines which say the 50-year rule is an arbitrary standard designed to ensure enough time has passed to evaluate a property in its historic context.
"Generally, our understanding of history does not advance a year at a time," they say, "but rather in periods of time which can be logically examined together."
While the nomination is not an award of tax credits, state and national historic tax credits can only be awarded to buildings that have been designated historic. Final national historic status is ultimately up to the National Parks Service and the tax credit process is handled by the Internal Revenue Service.
The Milwaukee Historic Preservation Commission in July approved the National Register nomination.
"Prior owners weren't spending money on it, they weren't doing new leases, new build outs," said
Joe Klein of Klein Development. "It wasn't going into disrepair yet, but that's the path it was going on. ...This building will never be an office building again. There's too much money needed to maintain and to rebuild it as an office building."
"It's a significant dollar amount to cover the cost of redeveloping this into what will become a lively building, as opposed to letting it die a slow death," Klein said.
The 35-story, 435,629-square-foot building was sold in August 2023 for $28.75 million to the developers. They plan to begin converting it to apartments in 2025 after remaining office tenants vacate the building, many of which have already announced new office locations.
