GE Healthcare withdraws real estate listing for massive Waukesha campus

GE Healthcare has withdrawn a commercial real estate listing for its massive Waukesha campus — a prospect that attracted proposals from multiple prospective developers — and postponed plans to relocate the firm’s computed tomography (CT) business to West Milwaukee.

Milwaukee-area commercial real estate developers submitted proposals for the 561-acre property near the prime intersection of Interstate 94 and Wisconsin Highway 16 after the company listed it early this year, according to Milwaukee Business Journal sources who wished to remain unidentified. At least one prospective developer from outside the Milwaukee area submitted a proposal, one source said.

The dollar amounts of the proposals weren’t disclosed.

The property listing that included 1.2 million square feet represented a massive commercial property hitting the southeast Wisconsin real estate market in a prime location.

CBRE had the listing and issued a document early this year explaining that GE Healthcare planned to lease back some of the buildings. CBRE’s listing for the property now states the “GE Healthcare Corporate Campus is no longer available.”

Patrick Gallagher, executive vice president at CBRE’s Milwaukee office, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

A GE Healthcare spokesperson confirmed Tuesday that company executives decided “to remove the Waukesha campus from the market.” The company informed employees of the decision in October but some developers didn’t get the news until more recently.

GE Healthcare in September 2020 announced plans to move hundreds of jobs and operations from the Waukesha campus to the company’s existing campuses in West Milwaukee and Wauwatosa. At the time, GE Healthcare planned to invest $50 million in West Milwaukee in part so the site on Electric Avenue could host the CT business.

At the time of the initial announcement, GE Healthcare said it intended “to concentrate teams and resources in key facilities across Wisconsin.” The company’s MRI unit and 600 employees were to remain in Waukesha.

The Business Journal first reported in February that GE Healthcare listed the Waukesha campus and was seeking proposals. One Milwaukee-area developer interested in the property said developers submitted proposals to the company this summer.

However, word trickled out this fall that the company changed course, said the developer who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The company’s message to employees, which a spokesperson released Tuesday to the Business Journal, gave this explanation:

“We are approaching our expansion efforts in a flexible way to ensure we can meet the needs of our customers. Over the last several months, we’ve seen an increase in CT demand, and our EA (Electric Avenue) manufacturing teams have been prioritizing customer needs while continuing to advance plans to expand the site.

“Given our CT business needs and after careful deliberation, we have made the decision to remove the Waukesha Campus from the real estate market at this time and intend to return the property to the market at a more suitable time for the CT business and the Electric Avenue site.”

General Electric (NYSE: GE) reported Oct. 26 that quarterly revenue in its health care systems business, which includes the Milwaukee-area operations, declined 6% from a year earlier to $3.8 billion. The company attributed the decline primarily to supply-chain challenges.

GE Healthcare’s decision to pull the real estate listing preceded the Nov. 9 announcement by its corporate parent General Electric about spinning off GE Healthcare into a free-standing company.

CBRE had targeted commercial real estate investors with a pitch for “a high-quality corporate campus sale-leaseback opportunity” and “excess land development potential,” according to the listing document.

GE Healthcare planned to lease back some of the buildings. The company’s MRI unit and 600 employees were to remain at the Waukesha campus.

The campus at 3000 N. Grandview Blvd. has seven buildings, 3,064 surface parking spaces, and is zoned for general manufacturing.

The already-built space is in the city of Waukesha and goes back to 1973 with additions as recently as 2005. The Waukesha property contains developable land, CBRE said.

Also listed were six adjoining parcels GE Healthcare owns on 204 acres in the city of Pewaukee that are undeveloped and “largely covered by wetlands” on the north end of the campus.

With the growth of metro Milwaukee and Waukesha County since the GE Healthcare campus opened in the 1970s, the property is “very well-located” with good freeway access, said the area commercial real estate developer. He said the site lends itself to a variety of redevelopment opportunities.

“Ultimately it would be good for Waukesha County if they reinvented it both with existing buildings and other potential uses,” the developer said.

A Milwaukee-area general contractor who asked not to be identified said he was working with a developer on pricing projects at the site and learned that GE Healthcare planned to vacate most of its space, leaving ample room for redevelopment. He said his client was considering possible uses that included apartments.

GE Healthcare is proceeding with one addition to its West Milwaukee campus.

The company leased an 86,000-square-foot industrial building at 4775 W. Electric Ave. from Interstate Partners LLC just north of GE Healthcare’s existing plant on Electric Avenue. GE Healthcare plans to employ 120 people at the new site to assemble positron emission tomography (PET) machines. The Business Journals