Large Corporation Buys Just’s Art Saloon
A former dive bar for 45 years could be absorbed into corporate campus.
Just Art’s Saloon with now-demolished Courteen Seed Co. in background. Photo taken Dec. 19, 2019 by Jeramey Jannene. All Rights Reserved.
When Art Guenther died in August 2025, it marked the end of an era.
Guenther, 80, had operated his namesake tavern, Just Art’s Saloon at 181 S. 2nd St. for 45 years.
It’s likely there won’t be a new owner to reopen the tavern.
An affiliate of Rite-Hite Holding Corporation purchased the tavern and two neighboring properties owned by Guenther’s estate for $574,000 on Feb. 13. The company, a maker of warehouse equipment, maintains its corporate headquarters a block west.
“At this time, there are no development plans,” said a spokesperson for the company.
In addition to the Just Art’s Saloon property, a quintessential Milwaukee dive bar where the proprietor lived on the second floor, Rite-Hite also acquired two parking lots at 183 S. 2nd St. and 185-187 S. 2nd St.
If the tavern building is demolished, Guenther’s three properties would add 11,200 square feet to an existing 24,742-square-foot vacant lot owned by a Rite-Hite affiliate at 222 W. Freshwater Way. That larger lot, located across an alley, was created in 2023-24 when Rite-Hite demolished the wedge-shaped, 11-story Courtseen Seed Company warehouse, once described as “one of the strongest and heaviest concrete structures in the country.”
Just Art’s Saloon won’t prove as formidable a foe for a demolition crew as the warehouse did. The 1,670-square-foot building has a Cream City brick front facade, but is a wood-frame structure. The city uses the catch-all date of 1900 for its construction, though a similarly sized structure appears on the site in a 1894 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map.
The purchase is just the latest for the Rite-Hite-owning White family.
As the Rite-Hite complex was nearing completion in 2022, affiliates of SixSibs Capital, the White family’s entity for many of its investments, acquired the Courteen Seed building, a neighboring parking lot at 310 W. Freshwater Way, and the Global Water Center, now rebranded as 247 Freshwater. Those purchases gave the White family, which owns Rite-Hite, not just control of the 9.4-acre headquarters site, but also several of the neighboring properties that serve as a gateway to the campus.
The late bar owner had reportedly joked to customers about selling out to Rite-Hite and leaving the bar behind. But, much like Guenther’s long-running jokes about retirement, it never came to pass.
Guenther previously owned at least one more neighboring property. From 2014 to 2024, he owned the two-story, dilapidated structure at 173 S. 2nd St. and had plans to renovate it. It was demolished the same year Guenther sold the site to Elizabeth Van Engel for $50,000. The parking lot at 177 S. 2nd St., located between the bar and the now-demolished building, has long been owned by an affiliate of Joseph Property Development, which redeveloped a warehouse across the street into apartments.
For more on Rite-Hite, see our 2023 profile of the corporate relocation and new headquarters. For more on the bar and Guenther, see our 2014 profile and a profile of Guenther.
2014 Photos
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