The City of Milwaukee built the first step necessary to kickstart a business park at Century City on the former AO Smith/Tower Automotive site on the city’s North Side, but in true Brew City spirit, it took beer to help get the job done.
Century City was created at Capitol Drive and North 31st Street as a catalyst and it put up building 1 with the hopes of drawing businesses and creating employment there.
This week, Good City Brewing announced that building 1 is now full.
It was built on spec by the city and General Capital Group in 2016 and later sold to Good City Brewing, which moved offices and warehousing there from its East Side location in 2018.
There are now five tenants in the 53,400-square-foot building, including Craft Beverage Warehouse, Hundred Acre urban farm, Klein-Dickert Glass, B83 Testing and Engineering, and Good City.
“When we purchased the building a couple of years ago, we knew it would be a longer-term project. We are thrilled that the building is now fully leased and we remain excited and committed to the future of Century City,” said Good City’s Dan Katt.
“We felt it was important to market the building ourselves and talk directly with prospective tenants to tell the story of the building and what our experience has been. Once the pandemic started to subside in early 2021, the interest level for the space sky-rocketed and the building filled very quickly. There is much more demand for modern industrial space in this part of the city than there is supply.”
Recently, Good City committed one percent of sales of its Home lager to helping Milwaukeeans buy homes.
Last year, it donated a portion of sales of a stout to a housing rehabilitation initiative in neary Garden Homes.
The site is the city’s second largest business park, according to Ald. Khalif Rainey.
“It is exciting to see investment taking place at Century City, and in other parts of the surrounding neighborhood. As investment grows, we are confident job growth and opportunity will follow,” he said.
“I truly believe the potential for adding great companies to Century City – and providing additional excellent paying jobs for nearby residents – is not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’.”
Katt said that now that the first building is 100 percent leased, he hopes to see more development at the site.
Good City also has locations in the Deer District and in Wauwatosa’s Mayfair Collection.
“We are continuing to have conversations with companies interested in relocating or adding operations at Century City,” said Katt.
“We are actively exploring financing opportunities for future development, and really think it is only a matter of time before the next shovel is in the ground.”
Mayor Tom Barrett said the business park is well situated for further development.
“I’m pleased that this portion of Century City is realizing the great potential the entire site has,” Barrett said. “The neighborhood is well connected to workforce and transportation, and forward-thinking companies are finding opportunities at Century City.”
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
