Milwaukee-based Robert W. Baird & Co. Inc. is planning to temporarily expand into the Foxconn-owned office building on Wisconsin Avenue in downtown Milwaukee.
Baird will lease the entire second, third and fourth floors of the seven-story building at 611 E. Wisconsin Ave., according to an occupancy permit filed with the city of Milwaukee.
The move will allow the company to renovate Baird’s space in the U.S. Bank Center, said Leslie Dixon, chief human resources officer.
Employees will move back in early 2020.
Baird signed a 15-year lease renewal at the U.S. Bank Center in 2013. The company occupies 14 floors of the building, making it the largest tenant in the 42-story tower.
In 2016, Baird, an employee-owned international financial services firm, began a massive renovation project at the U.S. Bank Center, with plans to lease another floor. At the time the company had 1,200 to 1,300 employees in Milwaukee.
“We recently looked at our headcount and realized we still need to grow our space,” Dixon said at the time.
Foxconn Technology Group purchased the 132,000-square-foot building at 611 E. Wisconsin Ave., and its parking lot, from Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. in February. The building is the North American headquarters for Foxconn.
Foxconn has employees working out of the downtown building; however, they have declined to provide a specific number of employees.
Foxconn executives could not be reached for comment Thursday.
