A federal immigration agency is moving its Milwaukee operation to a downtown office tower
A federal immigration agency is relocating its Milwaukee field office to one of downtown's largest and most underused office buildings.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will occupy 21,350 square feet at the 14-story, 624,000-square-foot 310W Building, 310 W. Wisconsin Ave., according to a new building permit application.
An agency representative couldn't be immediately reached for information about when the agency plans to relocate.
That agency, along with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, are now at a two-story, 58,400-square-foot building at 310 E. Knapp St.
That building was sold in March to Milwaukee School of Engineering for $1,090,500.
MSOE will convert it into the new home of its Civil and Architectural Engineering and Construction Management Department. That's among several university developments in recent years.
The $14 million conversion project could start by early 2024 after the federal agencies relocate, according to the university.
There's no information yet about where the enforcement field office will relocate.
310W Building's operator, New York-based Time Equities Inc., in September 2021 reported a 35% occupancy rate − among the lowest occupancy rates of large downtown office buildings.
An updated occupancy rate wasn't immediately available.
Time Equities has made several improvements to the building's parking structure, elevators, atrium, mezzanine and lobby since buying it in 2017 for $19.5 million.
310W is downtown's third-largest office building after the U.S. Bank Center and the 411 East Wisconsin Center.
The building opened in 1983 to house federal government agencies and private sector tenants. But the building began losing major tenants around 15 years ago.
Tom Daykin can be emailed at tdaykin@jrn.com and followed on Instagram, X and Facebook.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: USCIS moving Milwaukee operation to downtown office tower
