The unique arrangement will allow members of the Wisconsin city club to use a nearby Gold’s Gym and a new restaurant planned for another downtown office building as its own 12-story building undergoes a $57 million renovation. Members will have a private entrance and locker rooms at the fitness facility and the restaurant will be staffed by the club’s current kitchen team.
The Milwaukee (Wis.) Athletic Club (MAC)’s membership will use the nearby downtown Gold’s Gym and a new restaurant planned in the first floor of the City Center at 735, a downtown office building while a $57 million restoration project (http://clubandresortbusiness.com/2017/11/milwaukee-wis-athletic-club-plans-renovations/) takes over the MAC’s current downtown building, the Milwaukee Business Journal reported.
The upgrade of the 12-story MAC building, which has nearly 210,000 square feet and was built in 1918, could start in the coming months, the Business Journal reported. It will take over much of the club’s hospitality and athletic facilities, forcing the MAC to look for a temporary setup to continue services for members during the construction work.
Ryan Doerr, President of Strategic Club Solutions, which is consulting to the MAC on the project, told the Business Journal that the City Center will become a temporary club and offer services to members for about a year. The MAC has more than 850 members now, Doerr said.
“For a year, the members need somewhere to still be members, a place to work out, a place to socialize and continue the camaraderie,” Doerr said.
The club’s members will have access to Gold’s Gym via a private entrance with locker rooms only for the MAC, the Business Journal reported. The MAC’s personal trainers also will work with members there, Doerr said.
Under the agreement, the City Center building will build out a new restaurant for MAC members in the City Center’s former Good Life and Tazinos space, Sheldon Oppermann, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Compass Properties, which owns the City Center. That includes access for MAC members to use the restaurant’s river walk seating, the Business Journal reported.
The City Center’s Good Life restaurant closed in summer 2017. The “six-figure” build-out of the restaurant space this year will add a new bar area, Oppermann told the Business Journal. It also means that first-floor space will be busy, thanks to MAC’s membership, as City Center seeks a restaurateur to rent it on a more permanent basis after 2019, he said.
The restaurant, staffed by the MAC’s current kitchen team, will offer grab-and-go coffee service, with a lounge for meetings, said Doerr. It also will have lunch and dinner service for members, he told the Business Journal.
Construction of the City Center’s new club spaces will take about six to eight weeks, Doerr said. In late November or early December of this year, members will start to transition into the City Center. The MAC building will be handed over to contractors in early 2019. The goal, Doerr said, is to have club areas and some other amenities in the MAC building reopen to members in late 2019.
“We’re targeting a New Year’s Eve party on December 31st, [2019], for MAC members and their guests,” he said.
The MAC hired Milwaukee developers Josh Jeffers, of J. Jeffers & Co., and Tony Janowiec of Interstate Development Partners LLC to lead the restoration of its historic building, which will create a 96-room hotel, first-floor restaurants and new amenities. The construction work could begin in early 2019 for completion in summer 2020.
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