County Selling Downtown Property

Milwaukee County Medical Examiner, 933 W. Highland Ave. Photo by Dave Reid.

Milwaukee County is putting the Office of the Medical Examiner’s downtown building on the market.

The county is looking to sell the 1.07-acre parcel at 933 W. Highland Ave. that currently contains the Office of the Medical Examiner.

The one-story, 58,000-square-foot building dates to 1931, when it was built as part of a larger complex for the former St. Anthony Hospital. Today, the rest of the complex has been converted to apartments. The buildings were divided in 1989, when the county moved the medical examiner’s office into the northern half along W. Highland Avenue.

The county is looking for redevelopment proposals that include high-density or affordable housing and “strong architectural design, financial feasibility, equity and inclusion, and alignment with the city of Milwaukee’s Downtown Area Plan,” according to a statement from County Executive David Crowley’s office.

“Milwaukee County boasts a strong history of supporting economic development efforts by utilizing our real estate assets to attract investments and boost job growth,” Crowley said. “As the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office relocates to its new headquarters inside the Forensic Science and Protective Medicine Facility, my administration looks forward to engaging with the development community, local businesses and the public at large to realize a new vision for this county-owned property.”

The medical examiner and her staff are on their way out. Since 2023, the county has been building a new $233 million building at the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center in partnership with the State of Wisconsin. The four-story, 212,000-square-foot facility will house the medical examiner as well as the county’s Office of Emergency Management and the state Department of Justice’s Milwaukee Crime Laboratory.

The county is providing $127 million in financing for its portion of the facility, employing a mix of federal stimulus funds released during the COVID-19 pandemic, cash and county government-issued bonds.

During his recent State of the County speech, Crowley announced county operations would begin moving into the new building soon. Construction is on track for completion by the end of April, and the building should be fully occupied by June, according to a recent report from the county’s Department of Administrative Services.

The medical examiner’s office has been interested in a new facility for more than two decades, Crowley previously said. The nearly century-old building on Highland Ave. was not purpose-built for the office. Forensic pathologists are in high demand across the country, and the county’s facility has not helped recruitment. Former Medical Examiner Brian L. Peterson once said, “I mean, when you can walk into our front lobby and smell decomposed body on a lot of days, that’s just not good.”

The new facility in Wauwatosa, near the Medical College of Wisconsin, is envisioned as a better location to train future generations of forensic pathologists. It has been designed expressly for the examiner’s office, which conducts nearly 2,000 autopsies a year, as Chief Medical Examiner Wieslawa Tlomak has previously said.

The county will review bids on the parcel on a rolling basis, with an initial deadline of May 26, until an offer is accepted. The property shares a block with St. Benedict the Moor Parish, 930 W. State St. It’s near the Milwaukee County Courthouse and Safety Building, the state’s Secure Detention Facility and the Milwaukee Area Technical College. To the north, across Highland Avenue, is the historic Pabst Brewery campus.

Prior to moving into the former hospital, last known as the St. Anthony Medical Center, the Medical Examiner’s office was located in the Safety Building.

The county is also planning to market another property nearby in the near future. A consultant recently recommended the Milwaukee Public Museum building at 800 W. Wells St. be demolished and marketed for mixed-use residential development once it moves to the new museum being built at 1310 N. 6th St.

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