875 East Wisconsin Avenue Corporate Office Building

875 team puts jewel on Milwaukee’s crown

By Sean Ryan

The construction team for the 875 East Wisconsin Avenue project made it look easy to design, build and lease an eight-story office building on a crowded downtown Milwaukee street.

The project developer, Irgens Development Corp., Wauwatosa, had half of the building's 220,000 square feet of rental space leased out before construction started in May 2002. It had only pockets of available space left over before construction ended in August 2003.

General contractor CG Schmidt Construction Inc., Milwaukee, had to overcome a series of underground site issues on top of the typical problems associated with downtown construction, said CG Schmidt Vice President Mikelis Abuls. Downtown Milwaukee's Marshall Street, and all the utilities beneath it, ran through the 875 site. Abuls said the construction team rerouted most of the lines with no sweat, but one pipe caused some extra problems.

"We had to reroute these utilities across the entire site," he said. "The one that was kind of a challenge was the storm sewer."

The city wasn't able to remove and reroute the storm sewer until seven or eight months after construction started. Since the original sewer was running through 875's future underground parking garage, the crew had to hang a temporary sewer line off the site's eastern foundation wall until the city rerouted the line.

"We built a temporary sewer along the foundation wall by O'Donnel Park to keep everything going and allow the old sewer to be ripped out," Abuls said.

After spending three summer months digging the foundation, the team had to rush to build the elevator and stair towers before the steel arrived in December. Since they could only fit one tower crane on site, crews had to finish using it for the stairs and elevators before the ironworkers took over to build 875's steel skeleton.

"For us it was a little bit of a question of timing," Abuls said. "We had to complete those by December 2002 because that's when the steel showed up."

	Project Name: 875 East Wisconsin Avenue Corporate Office Building Location: Milwaukee Submitting Companies: CG Schmidt Construction Inc., Milwaukee, and Eppstein Uhen Architects Inc., Milwaukee General Contractor/Construction Manager: CG Schmidt Construction Inc. Architect: Eppstein Uhen Architects Inc. Engineer: Arnold and O'Sheridan Inc., Brookfield, structural engineer; Ring & Du Chateau Inc., Milwaukee, mechanical and electrical engineer Owner: Irgens Development Corp., Wauwatosa Project Cost: $25 million Start Date: May 2002 Completion Date: August 2003

The completed building's design is meant to look clean and simple both on the exterior and interior, said John Chapman, design associate with project architect Eppstein Uhen Architects Inc. Outside, the building's glass façade stretches out to Wisconsin Avenue, using simple vertical and horizontal lines to contrast with the cement buildings around it.

"We brought the building façade out to the street edge," Chapman said. "That helped it engage the existing fabric that's already there. The current thing in office buildings is to get as much natural light in as possible and bring exposure to the outside."

The building's lobby also plays it simple, using a slate wall as a backdrop to its limestone floors and cherry wood finishes, Chapman said. The architects hung colorful tapestries made by a Minnesota artist by the elevators to add flare to the room.

"It's sort of a focal point, given that the building design is pretty simple," he said. "As people are sort of waiting for the elevators, they can stand around and look at the art."