Hub640 owner recruits new broker as office leasing activity picks up downtown
As more requests for tours and office lease proposals emerge this spring, the owner of the former Bon-Ton Stores Inc. headquarters space in downtown Milwaukee recruited a new brokerage firm.
“The return to work, I think, is in full swing; every day you are hearing new organizations and corporations announcing they are bringing their people back,” said Tony Lindsay, principal at North Wells Capital, owner of the West Wisconsin Avenue office building.
Chicago-based North Wells Capital hired Founders 3 Real Estate Services to take over the listing. There is 205,000 square feet of office space available on the second through fifth floors of the building, now called Hub640.
John Davis and Ned Purtell of the Milwaukee brokerage are on the assignment. North Wells had been working with the local office of JLL since acquiring the property in 2017.
Lindsay, like others in the downtown Milwaukee market, is seeing a pickup in activity after a year-long hiatus caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Over the last 60 days we’ve seen a really big increase in tours and RFPs for office space that we’ve been responding to,” he said. “We are trading paper on a couple of deals right now that are not at the finish line, but are getting close.”
Lindsay said tenants are asking about Covid-19 precautions in buildings. Hub640 this month will complete installation of a bipolar ionization system that can remove viruses such as Covid-19 from a building’s air. That addition to heating and ventilation systems has been adopted by several downtown building owners.
“It doesn’t stop Covid, but it definitely is a step in the right direction to preventing airborne transmission of it,” Lindsay said. “They (tenants) really want to know that we, as landlords, are on our game.”
A second-level open-air patio space built onto Hub640’s southern side also is drawing attention from tenants seeking outdoor spaces, Lindsay said.
The Hub640 building historically housed The Bon-Ton Stores corporate offices and a Boston Store before Bon-Ton declared bankruptcy and shut down. North Wells since acquiring the building has done an extensive interior rehab to prepare its spaces for multiple tenants. Upgrades include its new lobby and a second-floor amenity space.
Hub640 thus far has attracted a 23,000-square-foot lease with North Shore Healthcare, which moved its office operations from Glendale to downtown.
New broker Founders 3 in November also took over the office space listing for the neighboring The Avenue redevelopment of the former Shops of Grand Avenue. Those two connected buildings, while both competing for commercial lease with companies, are also working cooperatively, Lindsay said.
Companies touring through Hub640’s office space, for example, are also shown through the construction of The Avenue’s 3rd Street Market Hall food hall, for example. The owners of the properties are in monthly talks, he said.
“They really need our building full to drive activity to their food hall,” Lindsay said. “They walk our building; we walk their building and share ideas of different improvements we can make. We work with them almost as a partner because of our symbiotic relationship.”
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