The historic Baensch Food Products building at 1025 E. Locust St. in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood has sold for $625,000 to an affiliate of a Milwaukee real estate development firm.
The building, which was only on the market for about three weeks, was purchased by a limited liability company affiliated with Joseph Property Development. The company owns numerous offices and apartment buildings in Milwaukee, including some that it built new and others that are historic buildings that the firm redeveloped.
Baensch, a herring producer which had called the 9,650-square-foot brick warehouse home since 1946, put the building up for sale in mid-June.
Although home to Baensch Food Products Co. production for decades, company owner Kim Wall said most of its production was moved offsite in 2002 – first to a plant in Nova Scotia and then to Minnesota in August of last year.
Today, the company’s only employee is Wall. Prior to August’s move the company had been only doing about 25% of its production at its Riverwest headquarters, in part due to the complexities of herring production, which is subject to a variety of Federal Department of Agriculture (FDA) processing requirements.
Situated in the heart of Riverwest, the site where the Baensch building is located was originally purchased by Irish immigrant Garrett Fitzgerald who was the Milwaukee County sheriff and county treasurer in 1851. The property was then sold to Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company in 1891 who sold it to Cudahy Brothers Company in 1914, and finally to Baench Food Products Company in 1946, according to a press release.
It is not yet clear what Joseph Property Development plans to do with the structure. Attempts to reach someone with the company on Wednesday morning were not immediately successful.
