A historic office building with ties to the region’s paper industry is getting a new life in downtown Appleton, Wisconsin, as a micro-apartment community designed to serve residents looking for shorter-term living.
Park Place Holdings is converting part of the office building at 1101 E. S. River St. in Appleton into South River MicroFlats, a 15-unit micro-apartment community scheduled to open this April.
This development is an example of a trend in commercial real estate: transforming underused office space into residential units as hybrid work reduces demand for traditional workplaces.
South River MicroFlats will include studio and one-bedroom apartments ranging from 275 to 438 square feet. Both furnished and unfurnished units will be available, with lease terms ranging from one month to a full year.
The option to rent for as little as a month? That’s key to the success of the project, said Caleb Hayes, chief executive officer and founder of De Pere, Wisconsin-based Park Place Holdings.
“We thought there would be a lot of demand. There is not a lot of product in our area like this,” Hayes said. “The market has responded. We are getting interest from coaches who are only going to be here for a specific season. We are getting interest from students who are here for internships and need something small for three to six months. We are getting interest from students in the area. Traveling professionals and traveling nurses are interested.”
A long history in the area
The South River MicroFlats building boasts a long history in Appleton. Built in 1952, it originally served as part of the Institute of Paper Chemistry, a graduate research institution formed through a partnership between Lawrence University and Wisconsin’s paper industry.
When the institute relocated to Atlanta in 1989, the property sat vacant for nearly a decade before being renovated into professional office space in the early 2000s. In 2004, the building received a Historic Preservation/Restoration Certificate Award from the Appleton Historic Preservation Commission.
Now, developers are once again reinventing the property.
Construction on South River MicroFlats began in summer 2025, with Witt Construction serving as the project’s builder.
Making the pivot
Hayes said that Park Place Holdings had tried to fill the 120,000-square-foot office space for several years. The demand, though, wasn’t there.
Because of this, Hayes and Park Place decided to pivot, transforming a portion of the building into South River MicroFlats.
“At the time, it felt like wasted space,” Hayes said. “We couldn’t fill it. We had to think of something new. What could go here that the market really needs?”
Hayes said that the gap between the average U.S. homeowners’ monthly mortgage payment and the monthly rents for one-bedroom apartments across the country is shrinking. More renters, then, are looking for quality apartments that they can rent at a lower cost.
“We decided to take a gamble,” he said.
So far? It looks like the gamble might pay off. Hayes said that Park Place Holdings has received from 50 to 60 applications for South River MicroFlats’ 15 existing units. If this demands holds, Park Place Holdings will offer more micro-apartments in the building, potentially up to 90 of them.
“It’s my hope that we will start construction on the new units later this year,” Hayes said.
Plenty of benefits
The micro-apartment community will feature several amenities aimed at professionals and short-term residents. These include outdoor courtyards with gas grills, a fitness center, bike storage, shared workspaces and high-speed Wi-Fi. The building’s original architecture, which includes large windows and high exposed ceilings, will remain a defining feature of the redesigned units.
Location is another selling point. The property sits near the Lawrence University campus and downtown Appleton, with easy access to U.S. Highway 10 and Wisconsin Highway 441. Residents will also have transit options nearby, including a bus stop across the street and the free Downtown/Riverfront Trolley just a short walk away. Appleton International Airport is about a 17-minute drive from the site.
Developers say the project also responds to a growing demand for flexible housing, particularly among traveling health care professionals and other short-term workers. The number of travel nurses nationwide has surged in recent years, and Wisconsin hospitals continue to face nursing shortages, creating demand for furnished housing options near job centers.
For Park Place Holdings, the micro-apartment project may only be the beginning.
The company is exploring a potential expansion that could add as many as 90 additional apartments within the existing property.
“The flexibility that we are offering is what the consumer wants right now,” Hayes said. “If you are a kid coming in for an internship, you usually must sign a one-year lease. With us, you can sign a three- or four-month lease at a third of the cost. I wouldn’t say that we have an apartment shortage in Appleton. But we do have a shortage of spaces for people looking for shorter-term rentals.”
