MILWAUKEE — Northwestern Mutual is doubling down on its commitment to downtown Milwaukee.
The company announced Thursday that it’s planning a $500 million renovation to one of its downtown buildings in order to relocate thousands of employees from Franklin.
Milwaukee’s skyline is set for another transformation thanks to downtown’s largest employer.
Northwestern Mutual says it’s planning to redevelop its north office high rise into a second glass tower at its downtown campus.
"I want the employment to be here, I want the synergy to be here,” said Common Council President Jose Perez.
Perez celebrated the expansion of Northwestern Mutual’s downtown presence at the company’s news conference Thursday. He calls it a vote of confidence in the city’s future.
"It's attractive, it brings people to the city,” he said. “We want to remind the community that an investment of $500 million means an addition to the tax base, it means an addition to services and we can maintain those services and those are spread out city wide, they're not just for downtown."
“What kind of ripple effect can that have on businesses downtown?” TMJ4’s Ben Jordan asked.
"The nearby businesses will flourish whether you're in the service industry, professional services,” Perez said. “We want to see some of the vacancies we have get filled up and that's why we continue to do this."
Northwestern Mutual says about 2,000 of its employees will eventually relocate from its Franklin offices.
It’s the latest large business to move operations from the suburbs to the biggest city in the state.
- Milwaukee Tool’s downtown office is bringing hundreds of new employees to the city.
- Fiserv Inc. is moving its headquarters from Brookfield to HUB640 next year.
- Rite Hite Holding Corporation left Brown Deer for Walker’s Point
- SoftwareONE is relocating employees from Waukesha to a multi-use building in the Third Ward.
"I think that's just something that the businesses are taking the point on, but certainly they're finding a receptive partner in the city which in many cases has provided incentives to help that happen,” said Milwaukee Business Journal reporter Sean Ryan.
Ryan says the biggest draw for Northwestern Mutual is to create a more attractive workplace to convince remote workers to come back to the office.
"In doing this, they're saying they have about 70 percent of their people in the office at any given time locally and they want to get that back to the pre-pandemic level which is about 85 percent,” he said.
The Milwaukee Downtown Business Improvement District estimates the downtown area has about 90,000 workers, but its latest survey found just 60 percent of whom work in-person. Ryan believes more downtown companies will make an even bigger push to bring employees back to the workplace as the pandemic continues to wind down.
“You're adding to the vitality, you're patronizing the businesses that are around you in the downtown area,” he said.
