Dental Associates’ HQ Wins Award For Coolest Office

For the second time in three years Dental Associates, a dental group practice headquartered in downtown Milwaukee, has won Milwaukee Business Journal’s coolest office designation.  The Iron Block Building, located at 205 East Wisconsin Avenue (intersection of North Water Street and East Wisconsin Avenue), dates back to 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was president and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Dental Associates purchased the building to house its corporate offices and a downtown dental clinic back in 2012. The Iron Block building needed extensive repairs to its namesake iron facade, along with additional remodeling, to accommodate Dental Associates. In 2013, after repairs and remodeling, Dental Associates relocated from Wauwatosa to the newly renovated 51,200 square feet of space in the Iron Block Building.

The Iron Block Building is unique in Milwaukee as it is the only surviving building with a cast iron exterior. The building was originally designed by a New York based firm that was the driving force behind prefabricated cast-iron architecture in the United States. While being built, it is believed a schooner on its way to Milwaukee from New York somehow lost one of the cast iron pieces to the building in the waters of Lake Michigan near Whitefish Bay. A duplicate had to be recast and shipped again.

According to Iconica, the architectural firm which recently remodeled the building, “The facade is one unit, but inside it was divided into sections with different businesses per section, and the sections followed the slope of the Iron Block hill. Architects unified the whole thing into common floor plates. Though the building was quite long, it was made of solid brick throughout, and needed to be opened for larger expanses of dental areas.”

The building has unique spaces including what was once an unused attic that now serves as Dental Associates’ “ThinkSpace.” This area is used for lunch and learns, continuing education and other meetings. There is also a rooftop area that is utilized by employees for lunch breaks as well as other types of outdoor gatherings.

The downtown location not only houses operational staff and corporate functions, there is also a full service dental clinic that offers general dentistry, as well as other dental specialties including orthodontics, periodontics and oral surgery.  Click HERE to see the 13 operatory dental clinic.

Video Source – Milwaukee Business Journal

Dental Associates started in 1974 on South 16th Street in Milwaukee. Originally a one-chair clinic with just a few employees, they have grown to 14 clinics with over 800 dedicated team members. Dental Associates is owned by a dentist rather than a corporation. Though they are the largest group dental practice in the state, what Dental Associate believes sets them apart is their ownership. When founder and first owner Dr. John Gonis passed away in 2008, his nephew Dr. Thomas Manos took over and the clinics remained in the hands of the family and a dentist.

Dental Associates has 14 locations in Wisconsin including locations in (2) Appleton, Fond du Lac, (2)Green Bay, Greenville, Franklin, (3) Milwaukee, Waukesha, Wauwatosa, Kenosha, and Sturtevant (Racine).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources: Iconica, Dental Associates, Milwaukee Business Journal