Twin Disc Moving Headquarters to Milwaukee
Racine company will be led from Third Ward. Plus: Recapping the week's real estate news.
214-228 E. Erie St. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
Milwaukee is poised to gain a new corporate headquarters for a public-traded company in early 2023.
Racine-based Twin Disc will relocate its “corporate team” to an office space in the Historic Third Ward. The company, in a press release issued Friday, said it expects to bring approximately 25 employees to the fourth floor of the building at 214-228 E. Erie St. It stopped short of declaring the new office as its formal “headquarters,” but it will be the office where the company’s C-suite executives are located.
“We continue to find ways to reduce our footprint and provide more value for our shareholders, customers and employees,” said president and CEO John Batten. “We assessed several locations for the new office space and found that downtown Milwaukee better suits this subset of employees.” Batten is the fourth-generation leader of the company.
In March, Twin Disc announced it had an agreement to sell its existing office building and former manufacturing campus, 1323 Racine St., to J. Jeffers & Co. But that agreement, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, fell through in August. Jeffers has redeveloped a number of historic buildings. Batten, in a quarterly earnings call earlier this month, said the company is in discussions with another buyer.
The office announcement builds on a commercial alteration permit that was filed Wednesday. The permit indicates RINKA is designing the company’s 8,109-square-foot office space in the Third Ward. Bukacek Construction is listed as the general contractor.
The 88,910-square-foot building, which is attached to a parking structure facing Chicago Street at its rear, is a four-story structure with a partial fifth floor. It was built in 1891, just before the 1892 Third Ward fire that leveled much of the neighborhood. Founders 3 serves as the listing broker for the building.
Advertising agency Boelter + Lincoln previously leased half of the fourth floor before relocating to a smaller space elsewhere in the neighborhood.
Twin Disc closed trading Friday with a $146.8 million market capitalization. It reported $242.9 million in net sales in its latest fiscal year, an 11.1% increase from the year prior.
The company will want to track down its IT team before making the move. At the time this article was written the company’s website, TwinDisc.com, was offline because its registration had expired.
Weekly Recap
Lake Park Bridge Overhaul Nears Completion
In approximately one month, a key link in Lake Park is planned to reopen.
The Ravine Road Bridge is expected to reopen to pedestrians and bicyclists in mid-to-late October. The footbridge, named for the road it spans, links the northern and southern halves of the mile-long bluff overlooking Lake Michigan.
The project is a complete rehabilitation of the 118-foot-long, 10-foot-wide bridge, which was first built in 1905. What to do about the bridge became a hotly-debated topic after a 2014 inspection triggered its closure because of failing concrete and erosion. It reopened in 2015 after an inspection, only to close again in late 2016 with little explanation and remained in that state until it was demolished.
Options considered by Milwaukee County consultants included rehabbing the failing structure, replacing it with a modern design, building a replica structure or eliminating the bridge entirely. Ultimately a complete rehabilitation was selected, avoiding issues with the fact that the park is both locally and nationally historically protected.
5 Can’t-Miss ‘Doors Open’ Destinations
Doors Open Milwaukee is back for its 12th year this weekend, so it’s time to make that list and check it twice. The free event throws open the doors to dozens of buildings across the city on both Saturday, Sept. 24 and Sunday, Sept. 25.
The event website promotes 115 buildings. And while it may be tempting to try to see them all, we suggest you don’t miss these five.
Milwaukee Rep Plans $75 Million Overhaul
The Milwaukee Repertory Theater is set to overhaul its downtown theater campus as part of a $75 million project.
The organization announced a $10 million, 20-year sponsorship agreement Thursday with Associated Bank that will see the three-theater complex renamed the Associated Bank Theater Center.
“Theater has changed since we moved into our current home in the 1980s — and so has our community. While it has served us well for four decades, our aging and inefficient complex limits the productions we stage, the plays we develop, and the kind of educational impact we create,” said Chad Bauman, executive director of Milwaukee Rep, in a statement. “With a new theater complex, Milwaukee Rep will ensure world-class theater remains in the heart of downtown Milwaukee for decades to come.”
The project includes the complete rebuilding of the Quadracci Powerhouse (720 seats) and Stiemke Studio (205 seats) theaters. The 186-seat Stackner Cabaret, which was overhauled in 2018, will see minor changes. The complex also includes rehearsal spaces, staff offices and production spaces that will be overhauled.
Opportunity Center Releases Designs, Announces $5 Million Gift
Plans to develop a major urban athletic center in Milwaukee continue to advance.
The partners behind The Opportunity Center first announced their plans last year to develop an $80 million, universally-accessible sports complex. The complex is intended to serve people of all ages, abilities, backgrounds and incomes with an indoor track, field and pool.
On Wednesday, partners Frank Cumberbatch and Damian Buchman released new renderings of the proposed facility and announced that current board chair David Cooks will serve as CEO. Bader Philanthropies is providing a $5 million gift to advance the project.
Cooks is a Milwaukee native who played high school basketball before experiencing a spinal aneurysm. He is now confined to a wheelchair as a “T-6 paraplegic.” After earning a finance-focused master’s in business administration from Duke University and serving on basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski‘s staff, Cooks has coached basketball locally, worked in finance, given motivational speeches and authored a motivational book.
DOJ Suing Milwaukee Landlord, Property Manager
The federal government is ramping up its case against a Milwaukee rooming house owner and his property manager.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit alleging that East Side rooming house property owner Sam Leaf, 35, and property manager Dennis Parker, 55, violated the Fair Housing Act in discriminating against a gay male tenant with an intellectual disability in 2019 and 2020.
The tenant was allegedly repeatedly propositioned for sex by Parker, subjected to repeated homophobic remarks from Parker, subjected to retaliation for calling the Milwaukee Police Department about Parker’s behavior and ultimately subjected to eviction actions with Leaf’s involvement. The lawsuit filing says Leaf and his investment firm, Leaf Property Investments, are liable for Parker’s actions because Leaf “knew or should have known of Parker’s discriminatory conduct, had the authority to take preventative and corrective action, and failed to take reasonable preventative or corrective measures.”
The complaint, which relies heavily on text messages between Parker and the complainant, details an escalating series of interactions between the property manager and resident that culminate in the property manager physically attacking the complainant, who then moved out.
How the Calatrava Changed Milwaukee
Last week the Milwaukee Art Museum celebrated the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Calatrava addition to the museum, with Mayor Cavalier Johnson declaring Friday was “Santiago Calatrava Day” in Milwaukee. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley declared that the impact of Calatrava’s distinctive architecture was “beyond words,” while Johnson said it “jump started Milwaukee’s renaissance,” as Urban Milwaukee reported.
Not a negative word was offered about the addition. Calatrava, ever the ebullient salesman, offered praise for Milwaukee leaders and declared that the addition he built “opened… the city to the lake,” a rather exaggerated claim in a city whose lakefront was long protected and celebrated.
From the beginning, when Calatrava was chosen as a finalist in the museum’s design competition for the addition, he was a spellbinding presence, wowing the board members by drawing images on the spot, including one of bird-like wings opening from atop the museum. He won the job, and the excitement over his proposal generated an unprecedented outpouring of private philanthropy in a city with a history of tight-fisted wealthy people. “We are raising an astounding amount of money,” the museum’s then-executive director Chris Goldsmith told me at the time. “It’s astounding how well we are doing.”
A new generation of wealthy people who were more philanthropic had arisen in Milwaukee by the 1990s, and the museum was the first to prove — dramatically — that really big donor-driven projects could be created in the city. Later efforts like the new Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra music hall built on that success.
Council Unanimously Approves East Side Apartments
A proposal to develop a new apartment building and a replacement for a failing parish hall on Milwaukee’s East Side is now cleared to move forward. After facing hours of public hearings and a lawsuit, the Common Council unanimously approved a zoning change Tuesday to enable the development to advance.
Developer Michael DeMichele is working on the project with St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. DeMichele would purchase a grass lot and small parking lot from the church in exchange for replacing a 1940s addition to the 111-year-old church, 2604-2644 N. Hackett Ave. In addition to a fully-accessible parish hall, DeMichele would develop a 55-unit, four-story apartment building. A zoning change was necessary to enable that number of units, but not the height or size of the market-rate building. The church is located a block east of the Downer Avenue commercial corridor.
Church officials say the project would put the church in a better financial position while making the facility accessible for the first time. DeMichele previously said he expects to rent the building not to college students, but to empty nesters and other professionals.
Project opponents, many of whom live in condominiums across the street, have repeatedly raised concerns about the perceived impacts to street parking, traffic property values and the loss of green space. DeMichele has countered that the 69 underground parking spaces are more than sufficient and he expects to have excess spaces to lease out. The church is to replace its small parking lot with leased space in the underutilizing parking structure a block to the south. The opposition group filed, then dropped a lawsuit over the project.
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