R2 Companies Acquires Milwaukee Main Post Office

CHICAGO, Oct. 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- R2 Companies ("R2"), a Chicago based real estate investment firm, announced its acquisition of the 1.1 million square foot property at 341 West St. Paul Avenue in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The 4-story structure sits on a 9.3 acre riverfront site in downtown Milwaukee. The iconic property has been home to the United States Post Office since 1968.

The Post Office Building has 1500 feet of frontage on the Menomonee River in downtown Milwaukee; adjacent to the Third Ward and Walker's Point neighborhoods, as well as the Harley Davidson Museum campus. The site is next door to the Milwaukee Intermodal Station, Milwaukee's main intercity bus and train station, which was renovated in 2007, and will be a hub for the proposed Milwaukee Streetcar Line.

"While the Post Office still occupies this building, we view this as an irreplaceable adaptive re-use development site. A developer is lucky to get one or two opportunities in a career to work on a project of this magnitude," said Matt Garrison, R2's Managing Principal. "Our objective is to be patient stewards of this site and develop it in the best possible way for the City of Milwaukee."

Milwaukee has experienced extensive urbanization of its downtown neighborhoods over the past two decades. Most notable are its warehouse districts, which include the Third Ward and Walker's Point, as well as a downtown entertainment district centered around the newly announced basketball arena for the Milwaukee Bucks.

"We believe Milwaukee is poised for continued urbanization and growth. All necessary elements are in place and we want to build on the existing traction and civic pride from projects such as the Riverwalk, the new Bucks Stadium, the Calatrava Milwaukee arts museum, the new Northwestern Mutual and Johnson Controls buildings. Milwaukee is becoming an incredibly livable and attractive urban area, a Portland of the Midwest," added Garrison.

The Post Office building will continue to operate as a central mail sorting facility and retail post office for at least five years. R2 plans to work with the City of Milwaukee and local stakeholders to determine the best adaptive re-use for this site.

About R2 Companies
R2 Companies ("R2") is a privately held, fully integrated real estate investment firm based in Chicago, Illinois. R2 is an opportunistic firm that invests its own capital alongside a select group of institutional partners, making it an active and highly vested manager and operator. R2 currently owns and operates more than 2.5 million square feet of commercial real estate in Chicago, Minneapolis and Milwaukee and has a multi-year track record of realizing superior risk-adjusted returns utilizing various investment strategies across market cycles. The R2 platform is designed to be nimble, able to quickly and deftly shift strategies and allocations in response to changing market conditions. For more information, please visit www.R2.me.

R2 has been an active investor in market-making developments, most notably on Chicago's downtown Goose Island neighborhood, where the firm announced their 'Goose Island 2025' vision plan this past July in partnership with PORT Urbanism. For more information, please visit www.gooseisland2025.com.

R2 Companies
1130 W Monroe
Chicago, IL 60607
+1 312 226 9737

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SOURCE R2 Companies

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