Community Within the Corridor is much more than an apartment complex development.
With an abundance of ancillary uses planned to help lift up residents and neighbors, it could be a catalyst for change on Milwaukee’s north side and serve as a model for other affordable housing endeavors, say the project’s developers and supporters.
The $66 million project, which began construction this year, will redevelop a former Briggs & Stratton complex at North 32nd and West Center streets. Six buildings totaling roughly 380,000 square feet will be turned into 197 affordable apartments, a 35,000-square-foot community service facility, business accelerator space and a 25,000-square-foot recreation center.
Que El-Amin, project developer and principal of Milwaukee-based Scott Crawford Inc., explained the reasoning behind pairing affordable housing with these additional uses: “You want to bring housing that is supportive, and you want to make an environment where people really want to live, and (where) they’re most successful.”
The future community center will be in the building directly north of Center Street, between 32nd and 33rd streets. It will include a laundromat, daycare, entrepreneurship center, afterschool STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) programming and some food offerings. The center will be the new home of Young Enterprising Society, an entrepreneurial organization co-founded by Que El-Amin and his brother, Khalif.
It will also have the Creative Corridor, a space for local artists and creatives. The Creative Corridor will have recording studios, podcast booths, artist classrooms and a dance studio. It is being led by Rayhainio Boynes, founder and chief executive of Sharp Creatives and a member of the development team. He’s also known as Ray Nitti, a local musician and filmmaker.
Boynes said he’ll use his connections with industry professionals in Los Angeles and elsewhere to implement programming at the Creative Corridor.
“The main thing about Creative Corridor was building a space where we start to maintain our homegrown talent,” Boynes said.
He said he knows talented people who have moved to bigger cities, such as Chicago and Miami, because they thought there were no resources for them here.
“In my time, I found that to be extremely false. We have tons of platforms and resources within this city, we have just historically allocated and distributed it in a certain way,” he said.
The recreational space, meanwhile, will contain two full courts for basketball, volleyball and other sports. It will also have playground equipment, and equipment for recreation activities such as ping pong and pool tables. The team is also working to install a small skatepark there. This would all be indoors. The rec center will be toward the center of the 130 affordable housing units on the east side of 32nd Street.
Lastly, the business incubator will be in the building facing Center Street, east of 32nd Street. It will contain a number of businesses that are either opening their first or second location. The businesses will include Splash Beauty, Raquel’s Hair is Art, Barber Zoe’s Barbershop and Urbane Communities. The Center Street Marketplace BID No. 39 will also move its offices there.
“We think this will be a hub, but this won’t be the final thing that we do in the area, or that other people will come in and do in the area,” Que El-Amin said.
The project is receiving affordable housing tax credits through the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority. It aligns with the organization’s vision for what affordable housing should look like, due to the number of supportive and community services it will offer.
“That is the future,” Joaquín Altoro, CEO of WHEDA, said of the Community Within the Corridor project.
WHEDA is employing several methods to support the creation of more affordable housing with supportive services. It is organizing webinars and other events to show developers how they can successfully pair affordable housing and supportive services on their projects.
“WHEDA is starting a collaborative partnership with a national expert, the Corporation for Supportive Housing, on advancing supportive services that link housing with health care and job training to assist our most vulnerable populations,” Altoro said.
