Heartland Advisors Inc. will be moving into the BMO Tower in downtown Milwaukee once construction is finished on the 25-story office building.
The Milwaukee investment firm, currently located 789 N. Water St., will be moving its offices across the street to the BMO Tower at 790 N. Water Street. It will be occupying 10,873 square feet of space on the 12th floor of the new tower.
According to a news release, Heartland’s new digs will come with floor-to-ceiling glass, a private outdoor terrace and a view of Milwaukee City Hall.
“Irgens is honored to welcome Milwaukee-based Heartland Advisors to BMO Tower,” Mark Irgens, chief executive officer and manager of Irgens Partners LLC, the project developer, said in the release. “We look forward to delivering a unique workspace opportunity for their team and business to continue to succeed.”
Alyssa Geisler of CBRE represented Heartland and Mike Wanezek of Colliers International-Wisconsin represented Irgens in the lease negotiations.
Will Nasgovitz, CEO of Heartland, told BizTimes his firm will be moving into a smaller office than its current roughly 16,000 square feet of space across the street.
“Our workflow has changed a little bit and we didn’t need as much as we have now,” said Nasgovitz.
For instance, Heartland used to use a large training room in its current offices for quarterly team meetings or client events. Although those type of events still happen, they now use other space for them, he said.
“We’ve been in this building (789 N. Water St.) since it was built,” Nasgovitz said. “It’s exciting to take advantage of a new site that’s just going up across the street. … It’s something new to keep engagement high here at the firm.”
Heartland has been looking for a new office space for about the last year and a half, and took a look at at least 12 places before ultimately deciding on the BMO Tower, Nasgovitz said. All locations the firm considered were either downtown or surrounding neighborhoods, such as the Third Ward. Staying in the downtown area, as opposed to moving to one of the surrounding suburbs, was a high priority based on employee surveys, he added.
In addition to Heartland, other announced tenants for the BMO Tower include law firm Michael Best & Friedrich LLP and BMO Harris Bank. Michael Best will lease 60,000 square feet in the top three floors. BMO Harris will lease 124,000 square feet and occupy the first floor as well as the 11th through 16th floors. BMO will move 700 employees from its existing office building next door and roughly 175 employees at the Milwaukee Center building on East Kilbourn Avenue into the new building.
There is still 160,000 square feet of office space and 12,000 square feet of retail space available for lease at the BMO Tower. The building totals about 380,800 square feet, which includes 360,700 square feet of office space and 20,100 square feet of retail space. Construction of the tower is expected to wrap up in December. Following that, Irgens also plans to redevelop the existing BMO office building at 770 N. Water St.
