Celebration of community and collaboration took center stage Thursday in Milwaukee's Bronzeville district to kick off the construction of 90 affordable housing units as part of the
ThriveOn King development.
Milwaukee-based
Royal Capital Group has been leading an effort for the better part of six years to redevelop the former Gimbels and Schuster’s department store building at Garfield Avenue and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive into a community hub.
Work is nearing completion on the project's 470,000 square feet of commercial space for organizations that include the
Greater Milwaukee Foundation and the
Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW), among many others, which will serve as support services for the affordable housing units.
It's all in an effort to build the "best King Drive in the nation," project and local leaders said.
The mixed-income apartments will include affordable housing units for families and people 55 and older, as well as market-rate apartments and units dedicated for medical students at MCW. The apartments being are being constructed inside the 1917 portion of the former department store, which has been closed more than 50 years.
"I don't know about other folks, but I'd never been in this building before ThriveOn was being built," Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said at the groundbreaking ceremony. "It was boarded up. To see a former department store open its doors as a community hub — for healthy foods, for health and wellness, early childhood education, job training — is phenomenal."
Construction work on the apartments, led by Milwaukee-based
C.G. Schmidt, is expected to be completed in December.
"Sometimes on paper, using our current methods of evaluating financial feasibility, it really is challenging to do projects like this," said
Ken Robertson, chief operating officer of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. "This project is really about what is possible when we move away from incremental change and we have the vision and courage to transform our communities through direct investments."
Royal Capital had a long list of thank yous to its financial partners, nine in total, including
CIBC Bank USA ($45.5 million in debt and equity) and
CREA ($20 million in equity), among other public and private entities.
"This took some convincing to become part of our big idea about how we're going to treat people in our community, how we're going to expect change by making significant investment of our time, our intellect, our passions and very importantly our capital," said
Elmer Moore, CEO of the
Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority. WHEDA awarded about $14 million in tax credits to this portion of the project.
"This is a moment where we have an opportunity to truly transform what this city is and who this city is for, and it has to be about the people who have often been underserved," said
Lafayette Crump, commissioner of the Milwaukee Department of City development. The City of Milwaukee provided $15 million in tax incremental financing for the project.
To close the groundbreaking ceremony, Royal Capital CEO
Kevin Newell invited several of his relatives on stage to talk about the family's journey of moving from Mississippi, and the importance of support systems to creating healthy families and communities.
"In community there's access to health care, education, childcare, a home," Newell's cousin
Eva Williams said. "Your community is not just about you, but it's about how your decisions impact others and, above all, we're all connected."
