Now Leasing Office Suites — Featuring Cream City Brick, Exposed Timber, Right on the Riverwalk in Milwaukee's Historic Third Ward.
Lit windows are currently available. Adjoining suites can be combined for full floor access, with direct in-suite elevator entry.
Lit windows are available — details below
A move-in ready floor plan for a team of six to twelve. Four private offices open off a central corridor, with a conference room at the Water Street end where three tall double-hung windows line the brick and the original maple runs unbroken underfoot.
The kitchen is finished and plumbed — sink, full cabinet run, counter space for a fridge and microwave. Exposed Cream City brick on the exterior walls, original timber joists overhead, and enough open area at the front for reception or a shared work table.
The one with the view. Suite 250 faces the Milwaukee River across a run of tall double-hung windows set between Cream City brick piers — west-facing, so the light comes across the water all afternoon, with boat traffic on the river through the summer.
Two private offices, one of them the glass-walled corner at the river end — a frameless enclosure that takes the best light in the suite without blocking a single window. Beside it, a pair of doors opens straight onto the river-facing landing. The long meeting room runs along the brick wall at the interior end, where an original arched opening has been left exposed in the masonry.
Or take the whole floor. Suites 200 and 250 combine into one 3,000 SF tenancy running the full depth of the building — Water Street windows at one end, river at the other. It's the largest contiguous space available at 223.
The most finished space in the building, and the highest one available. Suite 400 sits four floors above Water Street, which puts the windows level with the cornices of the buildings across the road — you look at brickwork and sky rather than at traffic.
Two meeting rooms face the street, glazed in wood-framed partitions so the daylight carries through to the open floor behind them. The rest is open plan against a long run of Cream City brick, with a kitchenette and a private bathroom inside the suite. Nothing here needs building out.
In 1890 the George Ziegler Company hired H.P. Schnetzky to design a headquarters for its confectionery works. Mint lozenges, gum drops, rock candy, chocolate cream drops — and in 1894, the first marshmallows produced in Wisconsin. The building went up in Cream City brick with heavy timber framing, because that is what a candy factory needed: cool masonry, wide open floors, and daylight from both sides.
The factory later became Miller-Armstrong Costume Service, which held the building until 2001. The renovation that followed did the sensible thing: it left the bones alone. Brick was cleaned, not covered. Joists stayed exposed. The maple floors were kept where they could be.
What that leaves is an office building that does not look like an office building. Tenants get twelve-foot ceilings and operable windows on two exposures.
The property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Historic Third Ward district.
The pale yellow brick Milwaukee was named for, fired from local clay. Exposed on the exterior walls of every suite — not a veneer, the actual structure.
Original joists and beams left open overhead. The ceilings read as a working floor rather than a dropped grid, and the height comes with them.
Fiber service to the building, so a five-person studio or a team pushing large files upstairs isn't fighting the 1890 part of the address.
All five floors reached by elevator, with stair access at both ends. Deliveries, gear and clients all get upstairs without a conversation about it.
223 sits mid-block in the Historic Third Ward with two frontages. Water Street brings the foot traffic, the storefronts and the parking. The Milwaukee River and the Riverwalk are directly behind the building — docks, kayaks and a walkable path that runs from the Third Ward up through downtown.
Parking is not included with a lease. Several public structures within a few minutes' walk offer monthly rates — the Chicago Street and Milwaukee Street garages are the closest, both marked on the map above.
A casting studio, a talent agency, a yoga studio, a foodservice group and a restaurant on the ground floor. A mix of creatives and professionals, and world-class food.
Tell us how much room you'd need, and when you'd want to be in. We'll walk you through our openings, so you can picture life in the Third Ward.