Milwaukee Journal Sentinel buildings sale pending as buyers plan major redevelopment project
A group of local investors, including a firm converting the former Grand Avenue mall into apartments, offices and a food hall, plans to buy the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s buildings — creating another big downtown redevelopment play.
Gannett Co. Inc., which owns the Journal Sentinel, has a purchase agreement pending for the property, said Andy Fisher, the Journal Sentinel’s chief business executive.
But the buyers first need to complete an investigation of the property’s conditions. That could take months, Fisher said Wednesday.
Gannett is not yet disclosing the buyer’s identity.
According to commercial real estate industry sources, the buyer is a partnership that includes Interstate Development Partners LLC, which is redeveloping the Grand Avenue, and J. Jeffers & Co., which has done several conversions of historic Milwaukee buildings.
Tony Janowiec, Interstate Development president, and Joshua Jeffers, J. Jeffers & Co. president, both declined to comment.
Sources said the Journal Sentinel buildings could be redeveloped for a mix of uses —such as apartments, retail space and offices.
That could include keeping the Journal Sentinel as an office tenant.
However, the Journal Sentinel also has been looking at other downtown sites for a possible relocation of its operations, Fisher said.
The pending sale includes the six-story Journal Sentinel building, 333 W. State St.; an attached, four-story building that once housed the Milwaukee Sentinel, at 918 N. 4th St.; Major Goolsby’s sports bar, 340 W. Kilbourn Ave., and a parking lot at 332 W. State St.
Major projects downtown
Interstate Development is leading efforts to create The Avenue, the new name for the former Grand Avenue mall.
Its rebirth includes converting the second floor of The Avenue’s historic Plankinton Arcade into 52 high-end apartments. Those units began opening in January.
Also, the first floor of The Avenue’s newer building, west of North Second Street, is being converted into 3rd Street Market Hall, a food hall featuring over 20 local vendors.
Finally, the upper floors of that building are being renovated into offices, with Graef USA serving as the anchor tenant.
Jeffers & Co.’s current projects include Broadway Connection, an 11-story, 153,000-square-foot office building that will be anchored by the Husch Blackwell law firm. Construction is to begin this spring on the building at 511 N. Broadway.
Also, Jeffers has done several historic restorations in Milwaukee.
Those include the recently renovated Mitchell Building, 207 E. Michigan St.; the redeveloped Mackie Building, 225 E. Michigan St., which includes the Grain Exchange Room banquet venue and Mackie Flats apartments; the conversion of the former Garfield Avenue Elementary School, 2215 N. 4th St., into apartments; the conversion of the former historic St. James Church, 833 W. Wisconsin Ave., into a venue for weddings and other events; and the restoration of two former taverns, 2012-2028 E. North Ave., into Hacienda Beer Co.'s taproom and a fitness center.
The redevelopment of the Journal Sentinel buildings would become the latest in a series of major projects on downtown Milwaukee’s west side.
Along with The Avenue, they include the new Fiserv Forum and the future Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concert hall.
This marks the second attempt by Gannett to sell the Journal Sentinel buildings. Gannett acquired the properties in April 2016 with its purchase of former Journal Sentinel owner Journal Media Group Inc.
In April 2017, Gannett announced a preliminary sale agreement with ProVisions LLC, a Bloomfield Hills, Michigan-based firm led by Murray Wikol.
Wikol planned to renovate it into offices for the newspaper and other businesses, as well as street-level restaurant space.
He also had conceptual plans to demolish a portion of the property, the old Milwaukee Sentinel building, and develop an 18-story office tower at the site.
But Wikol, who bought other Gannett newspaper properties in Green Bay, Oshkosh and Lansing, Michigan, was unable to complete his financing package for the proposed Journal Sentinel purchase.
Gannett in March announced it was putting the buildings back on the sale block. CBRE Inc. was hired to market the properties.
The Journal Sentinel, like other U.S. newspapers, has seen workforce reductions over the past decade.
The newspaper's downtown operations also needed much less space after the 2003 shift of the Journal Sentinel's press room to a new building developed in West Milwaukee.
The Journal Sentinel and its JSOnline.com operations use under 25 percent of the available space. The former Sentinel building is vacant, and the main State Street building is underused.
The Journal Sentinel has 261 employees at the downtown site.
The main Art Deco-style building was constructed in 1924 to house The Milwaukee Journal. The Journal was first published in 1882, while the Sentinel was first published in 1837.
The attached four-story building housed the Milwaukee Sentinel after it was purchased in 1962 by the Journal. The Sentinel, a morning newspaper, and the Journal, an afternoon newspaper, merged to form the Journal Sentinel in 1995.
Tom Daykin can be emailed at tdaykin@jrn.com and followed on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.