Marquette University Expands to Milwaukee’s Global Water Center

MILWAUKEE — Marquette University in Milwaukee will be the final tenant in the city’s Global Water Center, a collaborative water-industry consortium located in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood. The university recently announced that it plans begin building out the center’s last unoccupied floor this summer. Upon completion, Marquette University will join a number of other research facilities, firms and accelerator spaces for emerging water-related companies working to advance water science, conservation and innovation.

Marquette University President Michael Lovell unveiled the facility’s preliminary designs to several hundred members of the Marquette community earlier this month. The design includes space for flexible laboratories, open workstations and staff offices, as well as those geared toward research, collaboration and conferencing. The 8,000-square foot space will occupy the sixth floor of the approximately 105-year-old building.

The Global Water Center is housed in a converted warehouse that offers approximately 98,000 square feet and is certified LEED Silver. Aside from tenant offices, exhibition spaces and a 44-seat lecture hall, it also includes a public café and shared core facilities such as a water flow lab. The university will also be able to take advantage of these common spaces.

The center’s overall goal is to bring university researchers together with industry experts to create synergies and connections, resulting in new business and jobs in the water technology sector, according to Kahler Slater of Milwaukee, the building’s redevelopment architect.

When construction wraps up on the space in late 2015, Marquette University will become one of several higher education tenants, including the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater’s Institute for Water Business and the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences. Other founding tenants include the Fund for Lake Michigan, Noah Technologies, Sloan Valve and Veolia Water North America.