National Avenue Bank Building Finds New Life As Corporate HQ
After BMO closed the branch, a Milwaukee roofing firm is moving in.
414 W. National Ave. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
M&I Bank built the neoclassical building at 414 W. National Ave. when it was a fast-growing bank seeking to establish its first branch. Now, 121 years later, another company will take over the building to mark its rapid growth.
Roofed Right America is establishing its first stand-alone headquarters in the 12,250-square-foot building as it continues its acquisition spree.
Adam Brissman and Ricardo Herrera launched the commercial roofing company in 2006 and grew it to 135 employees. Then, in 2023, they took a private equity investment from Great Range Capital and started buying firms in other markets.
“We’ve grown to the point where we took some private equity funding and bought five companies. At this point, we’re a fairly large venture, totally Milwaukee-based,” said Brissman in an interview with Urban Milwaukee. “We need somewhere to put our corporate headquarters.”
The company has long operated from an industrial building at 429 W. Boden St., near Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport. But the growth has reached a breaking point. “We’re on top of each other over there,” said Brissman.
The former M&I Bank branch building will house 25 to 30 employees. “It will eventually be up to, in the next year or two, 50 or 60,” said Brissman.
Much of that will come from acquisitions. Roofed Right intends to continue to acquire one to two companies per year, but Brissman said they remain selective on which firms they pursue.
The new building will serve as an attractive home base for the growing company.
“It’s a really beautiful building with a stained-glass skylight and plaster features, and we’ve uncovered a stone floor that was covered in carpet and five layers of flooring,” he said.
Leveraging historic preservation tax credits, Roofed Right will preserve much of the structure’s historic integrity. The vault will become a “showpiece” conference room. Brissman said a mosaic floor pattern from 1905 was uncovered that was not salvageable, but will be recreated in the building’s bathrooms.
A 40-kilowatt solar array is also being installed on the roof.
An investment group led by Brissman acquired the property for $1.5 million in 2023.
M&I expanded the building in 1922 and remodeled the building a handful of times as banking evolved. BMO, which acquired M&I in 2011, closed the branch in 2021. When the property was listed for sale in 2023, BMO was listed as having a lease that extended through the end of 2025.
The building sits on the southwest corner of the 0.48-acre lot, but an underground vault and basement run perpendicular to the building along the north end of the site, yielding an L-shaped structure. A 28-space parking lot is located on the property.
Lex Design Group is serving as the project architect. Roofed Right will serve as its own general contractor.
Since taking the private equity investment, Roofed Right has publicly reported acquiring Upstate Roofing & Painting of New York in 2023; Diamond Roofing Systems of Ohio in 2024; B&M Roofing of Colorado in July 2025; and Eagle Rivet Roof Services, with operations in Connecticut and Massachusetts, in October 2025.
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