See Inside New Third Ward Tower

333 Water. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

Milwaukee’s newest luxury high-rise is ready to welcome its first residents on Saturday.

Apartments on floors two through nine will open at 333 Water, a 31-story apartment tower at the intersection of N. Water Street and E. St. Paul Avenue.

The $165 million, 333-unit building is to be completed later this summer. The remaining floors will open phases in late July and late August. The first 67 apartments will be

The Chicago office of Hines Acquisitions, one of the largest real estate developers in the world, is selling what’s outside the building almost as much as what’s inside.

That starts with the Milwaukee Public Market, kitty corner from the new building, and the adjoining Milwaukee RiverWalk and extends to the surrounding Historic Third Ward and fast access to the Milwaukee Intermodal Station and rest of Downtown on foot, bus or The Hop.

The outdoors extends to the building itself.

There is a large outdoor deck on the ninth floor that includes a pool, putting green, grills and fire pits and a variety of seating areas. It’s directly off of a club room and coworking space, which includes a number of subdivided spaces for groups of all sizes.

“We wanted all of this to feel really interconnected and benefit from the natural light of the tall windows,” said project manager Rikki Miner pointing to how it transitions from a coworking space to a bar to a billiards room and golf simulator. A large fitness center and resident terrace, facing toward Downtown, is also included on the floor.

“There’s something for everybody,” said Hines Chicago office leader and senior managing director Tom D’Arcy.

“We really want this space to be utilized,” said Miner.

Hines hired Dallas-based Ink + Oro to design the common spaces, which were in the process of being furnished at the time of the tour. Solomon Cordwell Buenz designed the building.

Apartments on the lower floors that will open Saturday wrap the northern edge of the eight-level parking structure. The full tower emerges above, with 13 units per floor until reaching the top four floors of larger penthouse floors.

Unit sizes range from 562-square-foot studios to 1,810-square-foot three

D’Arcy said the building isn’t designed with a single tenant type in mind. It learned that from developing 7Seventy7, the building credited by multiple developers for proving the demand for luxury high-rise living in Milwaukee, for Northwestern Mutual.

“If you want to build 300 units in a city the size of Milwaukee, you cannot build for one cohort,” said D’Arcy. He said that’s different from buildings in Chicago targeted at empty nesters or young professionals. As a result, 333 Water has 26 different apartment floor plans. “You have to build for a Marquette graduate up to somebody my age.”

Rents in the building range from $2,067 per month for an entry-level studio to $9,425 per month for a three-bedroom, two-bath penthouse on the top floor.

Above the ninth floor, the balconies are only on the south side of the building. But the cantilevered structural design of the building maximizes the floor to ceiling windows in corner units by pulling the concrete columns. Blackout curtains are included with every units, as is an Ecobee thermostat. Owing to the mid-rise nature of the Third Ward, units just a couple of floors off the ground offer views of the Third Ward as well as the city for many miles to the north or south.

Unit finishes and appliances improve with the more expensive, higher units. A leasing website provides more details on specific units.

The building invites natural comparisons to The Couture, owing to both skyline-changing towers being constructed at the same time. And each developer cites location and amenities as a key part of their sales, with Barrett Lo highlighting the lakefront and Hines the Third Ward.

Even if one never sets foot in an apartment, the building promises to offer public benefit beyond tax revenue. A new connection to the Milwaukee RiverWalk extends southwest from the corner of N. Water Street and E. St. Paul Avenue. Additionally, three commercial spaces are located in the base of the building.

Two of the spaces are targeted at restaurants. A 1,621-square-foot corner retail space faces the Milwaukee Public Market and new riverwalk connection. A 5,175-square-foot space faces the riverwalk and includes a substantial private riverwalk space for outdoor dining. A final 3,256-square-foot faces N. Water Street and is targeted at a retail space. A resident dog spa also faces the river on the first floor.

The building’s design, approved in 2022, was guided by the fact that a 2005 land use plan for the Third Ward calls out the site as suited for a “landmark” building and includes images of a tower. It replaced one of the last riverfront surface parking lots.

Hines, which is serving as its own property manager, has pre-leased only 18 units, but said that is a result of focusing on getting the building finished. Miner said prospective penthouse tenants have wanted to wait to see the finished units.

“We are super excited to get the building open,” said Miner.

W.E. O’Neil Construction is serving as the general contractor. Hines paid $6 million for the 0.79-acre site.

A 371-space parking structure is reserved solely for building residents and office tenants in the adjacent Renaissance Building owned by Physicians Realty Trust. It is managed by Interstate Parking.

An affiliate of Hines will own the building and serve as the property manager.

It also is working on another project in Milwaukee, though not one it will open. Its development management arm is again working for Northwestern Mutual, this time on the overhaul of the North Building into a glassy clone of the 32-story Northwestern Mutual Tower and Commons that Hines helped develop for the insurance company.

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