Downtown Milwaukee project surpasses small and disadvantaged business goals

Northwestern Mutual reported hiring more small and disadvantaged businesses beyond local requirements for its $500 million office overhaul in downtown Milwaukee.

The life insurance company is overseeing the redevelopment of the 18-story building at 818 E. Mason St. The structure, known as the North Building, was built in the 1990s.

The company is working with Gilbane Building Co. and CG Schmidt to refit the North Building and expects to open in 2027. The project includes renovations of the exterior and interior, a new sign and a pedestrian plaza.

The company reported it exceeded goals set by the city of Milwaukee’s Small Business Enterprise/Disadvantaged Business Enterprise and Residents Preference programs.

The city’s SBE/DBE Program ensures a percentage of the dollars spent on a construction project are used to hire small business enterprises through prime contracts or subcontracts, according to a city of Milwaukee ordinance.

The North Building project exceeded the 18% requirement for small and disadvantaged businesses in professional services, company officials said, citing a fourth-quarter 2025 report. The project also exceeded the 25% requirement for construction.

The project also overshot the city’s RPP goal, a program created to encourage contractors and developers to hire city residents on city-funded and private development projects.

The city requires private development projects receiving more than $1 million of direct financial assistance from the city to adopt the program. The program requires 40% of total construction hours to be worked by residents living in the city of Milwaukee.

In March 2023, the city approved a $30 million tax incremental district to support North Building renovations. Northwestern Mutual‘s long-term goal is to move 2,000 workers from its campus in Franklin to downtown after renovations are completed.

The RPP program also has a goal for 25% of hours to be completed by city of Milwaukee residents living in “special impact area” ZIP codes. Company officials said they hired twice as many workers as were required.

Northwestern Mutual tracked its goals using a team that monitored work hours, officials added.

North Building project promotes construction as a sustainable career

Tracy Lutterman, the assistant director of construction management at Northwestern Mutual, said inclusive hiring goals were the company’s mission when the project first started.

“It couldn’t have been done without our partners Gilbane and CG Schmidt. They had this pact at the beginning of the project to achieve these goals, and there was a deliberate way we did it,” she said.

Northwestern Mutual and its construction partners set up career fairs in different parts of the city and talked to middle school students and other young people to teach them about the construction profession, she added.

“We try to get the word out that construction is a sustainable career,” Lutterman said.

The North Building project has some faces from the previous Tower and Commons project, which was completed nearby in the late 2010s.

Brentt Colliers, a CG Schmidt carpentry foreman, originally joined the Tower and Commons project as an RPP worker, Lutterman said.

“He’s now on our current project 10 years later in a more substantial role. The goal of this program, especially with RPP, is to grow people from having no experience in construction to having a life-sustaining career,” Lutterman said.

Northwestern Mutual leadership, project partners and hundreds of tradespeople recently celebrated 1 million safe work hours at the North Building project.

Gilbane and CG Schmidt hosted monthly safety meetings with a new topic for each month, Lutterman said. They also had workers stretch and flex on-site to reduce the chances of work injuries.

A unique feature of the project was visibility, as office workers inside the Tower and Commons could watch construction work from across the street.

“Our construction team has eyes on it, so do all our employees. If we see something, we say something and we all work together to keep the job site safe,” Lutterman added.

With the glass exterior completed, construction crews have focused their work on the interior. A fence is still around the job site and landscaping and paving work needs to be done.

Northwestern Mutual is planning to take over the building from its project partners and train its teams to operate the building.

Meanwhile, work continues on the ground-floor plaza over the former Cass Street and its intersection with Mason Street. That part of the project will be completed in the spring, Lutterman said.