Mostly Vacant Downtown Office Building Sold
But it's unclear what happens next for building once slated for conversion to housing.
The Sentinel Building. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
A downtown office building has a new owner, again.
The Sentinel Building, 225 E. Mason St., is now owned by a Florida-based real estate investment firm. An affiliate of the MAQ Group acquired the property for $1.20 million on Oct. 27.
As of 2021, an investment group led by Adam Gollatz intended to convert the slender 10-story building, just east of N. Water Street into 33 apartments. But those plans didn’t advance and it was transferred back to prior owner Doug Young in lieu of foreclosure in January. Initially relisted for sale for $2 million, it was placed on the auction block in September with a starting bid of $500,000.
Constructed in 1892 and home to the namesake newspaper until 1930, the building was 70% vacant when Gollatz’s Mason Street Ventures LLC acquired it for $2.1 million in February 2021 as part of a land contract.
It is currently 3% leased, according to the auction listing. The figure reflects a single tenant left in the property, as Mason Street Ventures allows the other remaining leases to expire. The auction listing highlighted that it is well suited for redevelopment into 32 to 36 apartments, and a portion of the permitting has already been completed.
The building’s height hides the fact that it’s a small structure by downtown standards. It has 30,848 square feet of space according to city assessment records. A single floor in the 25-story BMO Tower to the north is more than 25,000 square feet.
The Romanesque Revival-style building was designed by architect Walter A. Holbrook. It was part of what was then known as Newspaper Row, a collection of publishers located on E. Mason St. Starting in the 1960s it was known as the Loewi Building, when the similarly-named financial firm occupied every floor and eventually purchased the building.
It changed hands a number of times after Loewi’s ownership and was eventually purchased by Milwaukee-based investor Max Dermond. He sold it to Young’s Sentinel Suites in 2018 for $1.53 million when it was reportedly 50% vacant.
Photos
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