CH Coakley Adding Solar Panels to Warehouses

CH Coakley Putting Solar Panels on its Fleet of Warehouses

CH Coakley president

Mike Coakley, president of CH Coakley

Seeing business remain steady through the Covid-19 pandemic, Milwaukee moving and logistics company CH Coakley continues to invest in its local buildings and now plans to outfit them all with solar power.

“We looked at what we could do to improve operations here to make them more attractive, make them more marketable, increase the values and reduce the energy costs,” said president Mike Coakley.

The initiative starts with three buildings that by the end of this year will have new solar panels on their rooftops. That includes two industrial buildings Coakley recently purchased after selling its former flagship on North Martin Luther King Jr. Drive for the ThriveOn Collaboration redevelopment.

It is an almost $2 million investment for the first three buildings, said executive vice president Steve Swanson. He said there are benefits to reducing the risk of future energy price increases that would impact company operating costs.

“In the future, if things jump up, we’re protecting ourselves to a certain degree in taking certain pieces off the table,” Swanson said. “We have some control over that if we can produce free energy to some degree.”

The solar cells will produce enough electricity to cut at least one-third of the buildings’ energy costs. Savings on the utility bills will exceed the upfront cost of installing the solar panels within six years, Coakley said.

“A lot of our clients like the fact that Coakley is taking the initiative, putting the money where our mouth is and investing into solar,” he said. “That’s a component that all of the corporations want to see.”

The buildings receiving solar this year are the about 192,000-square-foot warehouse at 1400 S. 113th St. that Coakley bought in late 2020, its warehouse on Northpark Drive in Menomonee Falls and the 375,000-square-foot Milwaukee building at 6101 N. 64th St. the company acquired in late January, Swanson said.

The recent building purchases stemmed from Coakley’s sale of its 400,000-square-foot King Drive facility in Milwaukee. The company sold the bulk of that former Schuster’s Department Store to be converted into affordable housing and offices for the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and the Medical College of Wisconsin. CH Coakley’s main offices remain on King Drive.

Proceeds from that sale paid for the two recent acquisitions, which resulted in a net increase of about 170,000 square feet for Coakley’s local real estate holdings. It now owns eight buildings with about 1.9 million square feet.

“The warehousing side continues to be pretty robust, and even the commercial office moving is actually rather robust even through the last year of Covid,” Coakley said.

The pandemic forced many companies to delay their long-term decisions about future office needs, but projects that were already underway before March 2020 generated work for Coakley last year. That includes moving and storing office equipment for BMO Harris, which moved into the new BMO Tower in downtown Milwaukee. Coakley also moved law firms Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, the other anchor of BMO Tower, and Husch Blackwell, which moved to the recently completed Huron Building in downtown Milwaukee.

BMO Harris and Michael Best were both “white glove” moves because their employees were not in the office due to Covid-19.

“Normally, we work in conjunction with the individuals, but not last year,” he said. “Coakley came in and we did the entire move from pack, load, organize, unload and unpack and organize.”

Going forward, Coakley expects more work as companies reconsider the sizes of their offices and, in some cases, downsize as more employees work from home. The company also has remained busy in its third-party logistics services for telecommunications companies that are building up their 5G infrastructure, he said.

“That has just been a robust industry for the last several years,” he said. “We continue to see more activity coming in the near future.”

Milwaukee Business Journal reporter

Sean Ryan

Reporter

Milwaukee Business Journal

At A Glance

  • System Size

    173.6kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $28,483 Annually

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metered

  • Environmental Equivalents

    184,864 Pounds of Coal

At A Glance

  • System Size

    26kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $4,238 Annually

  • Utility Provider

    Two Rivers Water & Light

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    2,411,958 Smartphones Charged

At A Glance

  • System Size

    23.8kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $3,716 Annually

  • Utility Provider

    Alliant Energy

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    1,948 Pounds of Coal

At A Glance

  • System Size

    197.6kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $22,293 Annually

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metered

  • Environmental Equivalents

    20,695 Gallons of Gas

At A Glance

  • System Size

    149.5kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $23,913 Annually

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metered

  • Environmental Equivalents

    1.8 Tanker Trucks of Gas

At A Glance

  • System Size

    123kw

  • Estimated Savings

  • Utility Provider

    Madison Gas & Electric

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    13,709,514 Smartphones Charged

At A Glance

  • System Size

    389kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $56,681 Annually

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metered

  • Environmental Equivalents

    44,398,424 Smartphones Charged

At A Glance

  • System Size

    133.2kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $1,114,935

  • Utility Provider

    Madison Gas & Electric

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    14,727 Gallons of Gas

At A Glance

  • System Size

    25.7kw

  • Estimated Savings

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    26,293 Pounds of Coal

At A Glance

  • System Size

    26kw

  • Estimated Savings

  • Utility Provider

    Alliant Energy

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

At A Glance

  • System Size

    28.86kw

  • Estimated Savings

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metered

  • Environmental Equivalents

At A Glance

  • System Size

    43.6kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $151,039

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metered

  • Environmental Equivalents

    4,817,623 Smartphones Charged

At A Glance

  • System Size

    73.84kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $329,713

  • Utility Provider

    Plymouth Utilities

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

At A Glance

  • System Size

    64.845kw

  • Estimated Annual Savings

    $21,442

  • Utility Provider

    WPS

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

At A Glance

  • System Size

    133kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $386,522

  • Utility Provider

    Alliant Energy

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    12,550 Gallons of Gas

At A Glance

  • System Size

    26.6kw

  • Estimated Anual Savings

    $3,953

  • Utility Provider

    Alliant Energy

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    12,578 Pounds of Coal

At A Glance

  • System Size

    128.7kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $513,821

  • Utility Provider

    Manitowoc Public Utilites

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    13,964,512 Smartphones Charged

At A Glance

  • System Size

    45.5kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $275,531

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    4,679,952 Smartphones Charged

At A Glance

  • System Size

    1.825 MW

  • Estimated Savings

    $103,000 Annually

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Direct Sell Rate Tariff

  • Environmental Equivalents

    1,740,000 ton of CO2 emissions

At A Glance

  • System Size

    388.8kw

  • Annual Savings

    $51,288

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metering

  • Environmental Equivalents

    26,104 gallons of gasoline consumed. 22,789 gallons of diesel consumed. 256,673 pounds of coal burned. 3.1 tanker trucks' worth of gasoline.

At A Glance

  • System Size

    388.9kw

  • Annual Savings

    $51,340

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metering

  • Environmental Equivalents

    26,135 gallons of gasoline consumed. 22,815 gallons of diesel consumed. 256,973 pounds of coal burned. 3.1 tanker trucks' worth of gasoline.

At A Glance

  • System Size

    299.3kw

  • Annual Savings

    $42,934

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metering

  • Environmental Equivalents

    20,076 gallons of gasoline consumed. 17,526 gallons of diesel consumed information. 197,404 pounds of coal burned.

At A Glance

  • System Size

    50.7 kW - DC

  • Estimated Savings

    $10,329

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Line Side/Parallel Generation (CGS-NM)

  • Environmental Equivalents

    361,853lbs of coal burned annually

At A Glance

  • System Size

    31.87 kW

  • Estimated Savings

    $4,998 Anually

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Monthly Net Metering (CGS-NM)

  • Environmental Equivalents

    CO2 Emissions: 22.6 Metric Tons 2,341 Gallons of Gasoline

At A Glance

  • System Size

    370kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $1,053,732

  • Utility Provider

    Alliant Energy

  • Connection Type

    Parallel Generation

  • Environmental Equivalents

    401,786 lbs. of Coal or 44,218,770 smartphones charged.

At A Glance

  • System Size

    389kw

  • Estimated Savings

    $1,190,164

  • Utility Provider

    WE Energies

  • Connection Type

    Net Metering

  • Environmental Equivalents

    384,108 lbs. of Coal or 42,273,187 smartphones charged