BMO Tower 790 N Water St

From the banks of the Milwaukee River to the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan, Milwaukee’s East Town neighborhood has been the cultural and financial center of Milwaukee since its inception. Home to some of the city’s finest restaurants, museums, hotels, apartments, and condos, this neighborhood also boasts a diverse and evolving office market that is helping contribute to Milwaukee’s current downtown renaissance.

Downtown Milwaukee has benefited from strong flight to quality and employer demand for newer college graduates, who increasingly choose to live and work close to the urban core. Highlighting strong demand, downtown’s population grew an impressive 23% between 2010 and 2020, most evident by the new office and apartment towers that dot the skyline. Since 2016 alone, close to 2.5 million square feet of new office space has been built downtown. East Town captured the bulk of this new construction, at 2.1 million square feet, representing 16% of its current inventory.

East Town’s central location benefits from convenient access to the freeway system and various modes of public transportation. Interstates 43, 94, and 794 provide direct access and allow for a mere 15-minute drive to the Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport. Other forms of transportation infrastructure include Milwaukee County Transit System’s robust network of busses, which will soon be adding Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) to its list of services. The 9-mile, $54 million BRT line is expected to open in mid-2023 and will connect East Town, Marquette University, and the Milwaukee Regional Medicine Center.

In addition, the city’s streetcar system, “The Hop”, currently connects East Town to the Milwaukee Intermodal Station, the Historic Third Ward, and the Lower East Side. Meanwhile, proximity to several of Milwaukee’s major universities, including Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, provides office users with a diverse, young, and well-educated talent pool to draw from.