Washington Square, the mixed use tower under development by a joint venture of Irgens Development Partners LLC and Van Buren Management Inc. southeast of Mason Street and Jefferson Street in downtown Milwaukee, could be up to 26 stories tall if other anchor tenants in the market of space commit to the project, said Jackie Walsh, executive vice president of Irgens.
Milwaukee law firm Godfrey & Kahn S.C. announced this week that it has signed a lease to be the anchor tenant in the building. Details have not been finalized, but the firm will lease about 90,000 to 100,000 square feet of space in the building, said Nic Wahl, who will become Godfrey & Kahn’s managing partner later this month.
Details for the Washington Square project have not been finalized, but initial estimates indicate the building will be about 22 stories tall with 250,000 square feet of office space, 10,000 to 15,000 square feet of first floor retail space and 800 structured parking spaces.
Irgens and Van Buren Management are ready to move forward with just Godfrey & Kahn committed to the project, even if no other major tenants commit to the project, Walsh said. If that happens, at the very least the Washington Square building will be 20 stories tall with 200,000 square feet of office space, Walsh said.
The Von Briesen & Roper S.C. law firm and Baker Tilly Virchow Krause LLP are also in the market for office space in a new downtown building. If both of them commit to the Washington Square project, the building could be expanded to more than 300,000 square feet of office space and up to 26 stories tall, Walsh said.
“It’s not exceeding 30 (stories) by any means,” she said.
Irgens and Van Buren are also talking to smaller tenants, which Walsh declined to name, that could move to Washington Square.
The developers also plan to include some speculative office space in the project and need to set aside some space for tenants to expand, Walsh said.
The site is located at the highest point in the central business district so the building will appear slightly taller than it actually is, Walsh said.
Godfrey & Kahn currently leases 82,000 square feet of space on 6 floors of the in the Marshall & Ilsley Corp. corporate headquarters building at 780 N. Water St. in downtown Milwaukee.
The firm will occupy three-and-a-half floors in Washington Square. Having space on four floors instead of six will be far more efficient, Wahl said.
“The real driver (for re-locating the firm’s office) is efficiency,” he said. “Our floorplate is 13,000 square feet (in the M&I building). That’s about half the optimal floorplate for a firm like ours.”
The building will be designed around the floorplate needs of Godfrey & Kahn, said Walsh. Each office space floor of the building will have 25,000 square feet of office space.
The deal with Godfrey & Kahn does not include signage, Wahl said.
“We have the flexibility to do that,” he said. “It’s not something that we focus on.”
Irgens and Van Buren could use signage to attract other tenants, such as Baker Tilly, which typically has signs on its office buildings. Von Briesen & Roper, on the other hand, wants to leave its current space at 411 E. Wisconsin Ave. in part because the Quarles & Brady law firm has its sign on that building.
The announcement of Godfrey & Kahn’s plans to move out of the M&I building come less than a month since it was announced that BMO Financial Group plans to acquire Marshall & Ilsley Corp. However, the firm’s relocation plans have nothing to do with the pending acquisition of M&I, Wahl said.
“The recent news regarding M&I is completely unrelated to this,” he said. “We’ve been working on this for a long time.”
