Hoping to serve more women struggling with addiction, including those with children,
Meta House, Inc., is seeking city approval to construct a $30 million, 100,000-square-foot campus on a former industrial lot in the secluded Piggsville neighborhood of Milwaukee.
The nonprofit women-focused substance abuse treatment provider has long been based at 2625 N. Weil St. in the city's Riverwest neighborhood, where it has operated in-patient and out-patient treatment facilities out of three buildings for decades.
Meta House began looking to relocate its operations in late 2021, examining several sites across the city before finally settling on the 4.8-acre lot at 3901 W. Bluemound Road on the near west side. Meta House hopes to build on the southern end of the lot, which is currently home to a battered parking lot. On the northern end of the site, a one-story former Miller Coors facility, which has been vacant for roughly 10 years, would be maintained by the nonprofit, but not utilized as part of the project.
The primary goal with the move is to expand the number of women the nonprofit serves, explained
Valerie Vidal, president and CEO of Meta House. Its current in-patient facility has space for about 35 women. With the new location, the nonprofit expects to have space for 100 beds, about 80 for adult women and another 20 beds for children accompanying their mothers to treatment.
“We have a lot of objectives that we're trying to achieve with this move. The biggest priority is addressing a significant unmet need for substance use treatment, particularly for pregnant and postpartum women,” Vidal said. “We don't have the ability to expand further in our current facilities. And so, by relocating we'll have the ability to add more capacity and serve more people.”
While Meta House briefly explored relocating operations to Glendale, the Piggsville location presented itself as an ideal setting for a number of reasons. While the project requires a special use permit – something the nonprofit could receive as early as this week – several residents have submitted letters of support of the project to city officials.
“(The Piggsville) location was always one of our top sites and throughout our entire search. And the reason we really love this site is because it's centrally located – it's still very close to the central city so it's very easy for our clients to access us through public transportation,” Vidal said. “But we also needed at least four acres to accomplish all that we wanted to accomplish. And obviously finding a site that big in a pretty condensed city like Milwaukee is pretty difficult. We love that it's kind of a quiet area of Milwaukee, but still very centrally located. It's got a lot of beautiful mature trees. It feels very park-like, and we're excited to maintain and continue to add some beautification to what has been an empty parking lot.”
A campus for families
The four-story campus would be spread across two buildings connected by a small, centralized reception area. The in-patient facility would be about 65,000 square feet and the administrative and outpatient building is expected to be just shy of 35,000 square feet.
While the new facility will provide needed beds for all women receiving Meta House services, it is being specifically designed with children in mind. Meta House typically has a waiting list of about three to six months. And although the vast majority of the people it serves are from the greater Milwaukee area, the nonprofit often gets calls from agencies in other counties looking for beds for pregnant and postpartum women as few treatment facilities serve that population.
Having a space designed for moms, especially those with small children, will help strengthen that mission, Vidal said.
“Right now, we're operating out of spaces that weren't built for the purposes for which we're using them,” she said. “Our new campus is being designed specifically for our youth. Right now, clients have to navigate a significant number of stairs in all of our buildings. But with the new building we're able to make sure that we've got spaces to accommodate a mom who may have multiple kids with her in the residential treatment setting. There’s also just the therapeutic elements of natural light and green space that we just don't have in our current buildings.”
The hope is to begin construction on the new campus this year, said
Sarah Koehn, director of operations for Meta House, with the expectation that the buildings will be completed and ready for clients and staff by late 2025 or early 2026.
While the nonprofit doesn’t have any immediate plans for the former Miller Coors building, Vidal said Meta House is in very early conversations with some possible tenants to lease it.
“We're really only considering tenants that would be compatible with our mission or that would bring some benefit to the community or to our agency,” she said.
Once the new campus is up and operational, Meta House will likely sell the two Riverwest buildings it owns. The third building it occupies is owned by Three Holy Women parish.
