Wisconsin's Weekend Morning News
MBJ - Brewer's Baseball Telecast
It's time to check in with Teddy Nykel from the Milwaukee Business Journal. And last week, Teddy, we talked about the Brewers and how depressed we were. And I think we still are about their loss to the Mets, but you might have a little bit more information about how their telecasts are going to go, and that could be good news. Yeah, so I think people probably already heard that Valley Sports is likely to end its contract with the Brewers next season, and MLB Major League Baseball is going to be taking over the broadcast. We got a bit more information about what that's going to look like this week. The Brewers' executive Rick Schlesinger gave a press conference where he kind of talked through some of the questions that are probably on a lot of fans' minds. So kind of what we've learned here is that we still don't have a ton of details about what the broadcast are going to look like under MLB's broadcast, but it will be available on cable and satellite. There'll be a dedicated Brewers TV channel that will broadcast the games as well as pre and post game content, and there will also be a streaming option. There's not a ton of details about exactly what that will look like, but it'll be some kind of subscription streaming package that will be available as well for people who want to stream. The good news is, who are fans of the long time on air talent like Brian Anderson and Bill Schroeder, those are Brewers employees, so they'll be staying on, they'll be continuing to do the broadcast even under the new broadcast deal with MLB, and you know, that's kind of where we're at right now. There's a lot of questions about some of the details, but fans will still have multiple ways to watch the games next season. Well I think what fans are most concerned about is will they have to pay to watch the game on TV? So he addressed that or question your address that, you know, it's likely to just the channel will be part of your cable package or your satellite package, so it sounds like no, but he didn't say it's specific to each cable distributor, so still maybe some confirmations there to come. There's always a caveat, all right, he didn't mention the cost, you know, he doesn't know the exact cost for the streaming subscription, but last year the MLB's model for other teams was $99 for six months, so it's kind of a starting point of what people might be able to expect with the streaming subscription. Yeah, that's, that makes it a lot more interesting, all right, let's move to more jobs in the state of Wisconsin, and again, they keep going to that corner around Racine and Kenosha County, and tell us about this German manufacturer. Yeah, so there's a German manufacturing company called Shuts Container System, they're already building one plant in Kenosha, it's expected to be their largest North American facility, and we learned recently that they plan to potentially do two more facilities, so again, the first facility is underway, and the next two could break ground in the spring, and they would have initially 55 more employees combined, all of these plants would be expected to bring nearly $100 million in property tax value to Kenosha, so just continued investment in that corridor of industrial manufacturing. Those are some serious numbers, Teddy, let's take a look downtown, Northwestern Mutual is making a few changes to their facade, tell us all about it. Yeah, so we've already known, Northwestern Mutual is planning to move 2,000 employees from its Franklin campus to downtown, but in order to make that happen, they are renovating one of their older office buildings that's just north of their beautiful glass tower that they built a couple years ago, and as part of this renovation project, they are stripping the entire outside of the building, taking off all of the brick and exterior materials, and they are going to replace it with glass, it's going to look very similar to the taller existing Northwestern Mutual tower, and they're even adding a similar curvature, so it's going to have a very similar architectural design. It's not expected to be done until 2027, but we recently got an update from the company and how things are going, and we got a construction tour a couple of days ago, and so we were able to kind of see where they're at with all the construction, the company said they're still on schedule, and they have finished stripping that exterior brick, and now they'll be able to start with adding that glass relatively soon, next year to, again, make it look like it's neighboring Northwestern Mutual power. I bet a lot of those Northwestern Mutual employees, now that they're working downtown, are living downtown, and that brings us to the couture apartments. They're filling up, but it's a slow and steady process, but tell us about the commercial use of that building. Yeah, so this is right near Northwestern Mutual tower, not far. Everyone I'm sure has seen, you know, driving downtown this new couture tower right along the lake front near summer fest, so the building is roughly around a third full in terms of apartment, so they're still working on leasing up the apartment. The bottom three floors are expected to be restaurants, retail, and the company said that they hope to announce all of those restaurants and retailers by the end of the year. There's two restaurants that they're negotiating leases with that are hoping to open by next summer, so things could start moving pretty fast pretty soon here, but one thing we did recently learn is that the towers adding even more amenities for residents, trying to attract more residents as they're looking to fill up those apartments. They already have an outdoor pool, a fitness center, et cetera, on the fourth floor, but they recently told us that they're planning to take some of the retail space that they planned on the second floor and dedicate that to even more amenities for residents, so there's going to be golf simulators, a kids play area, a yoga studio, a larger fitness center, and so more changes to come there to attract residents to this luxury tower. Well, speaking of luxury apartments downtown, tell us about the other building that's been negotiating with a local restaurant to occupy its ground floor space. Yeah, so this is the other new tower people I'm sure have seen in the third ward right across from the Milwaukee Public Market, another luxury tower that opened this year as well. They are also kind of slowly, steadily filling up the apartment, they're around 18% leased, and similarly, although it's a little bit smaller in terms of their retail footprint, they have retail space on the ground floor. Also like the couture, they haven't announced yet who's coming, but we did recently learn a little bit of a hint, so they have a restaurant space that's right along the Milwaukee River, so that will be a nice area where there'll be restaurants, or restaurant seating right along the river there, and they told us that it is a local restaurant, so they said they have received interest from national brands, but they really wanted to keep it local, and they're negotiating with a local restaurant to occupy that space, and we should know hopefully with around 45 days, so by the end of the year here, we should be kind of knowing all the new restaurants that are going to be filling up these new towers downtown. And I'm sure we'll hear it first from you, Teddy Nykel, with the Milwaukee Business Journal. Always great to have you here.