A nearly century-old building in Milwaukee's Uptown neighborhood has a new job, and it took a lot of patience and a long list of partners to get there.
KG Development Group recently finished redeveloping a former Jewish home at 2436 N. 50th St. into Phoenix Residential Apartments, a 31-unit affordable housing development. Urban Milwaukee reported on the Sept. 21 ribbon cutting and called it a first-of-its-kind crisis housing facility for the Milwaukee area. Some units are set aside for people going through a crisis, whether that's homelessness or domestic violence.
The building went up in 1929, so this is a structure close to 100 years old taking on a brand-new purpose.
How it's set up
Developers Anthony Kazee and Jamie Gray, who lead KG Development, partnered with Milwaukee County on the project. The county put in about $1.3 million toward the roughly $9 million redevelopment, according to Urban Milwaukee.
The county's Housing Division is attaching housing vouchers to eight of the units, which helps cover part of the already-affordable rent. The division will also lease 10 crisis units, where people can stabilize before they move into permanent housing.
That model fits what the county has been doing for more than a decade. Under the "housing first" approach, the county gets a person experiencing homelessness into stable housing first, then connects them with longer-term help like mental health care or job services. James Mathy, the county's housing division administrator, said housing is the primary social determinant of health for the county's Department of Health and Human Services.
Jen Schomburg, president of St. Luke's Medical Center and Aurora's Southeast Wisconsin area, said the project will close a gap in the local system of care. Hospitals often have patients who are medically ready to go home but have no stable place to go. "Without stable housing support, the risks of setbacks, complications, and repeat hospitalizations increase," she said.
Thirteen sources of money
Here's the part every contractor who has worked on an affordable job will recognize. Kazee said KG Development had to stitch together 13 different sources of financing to make the project work.
The last piece, the one that let the project finish, came from Bader Philanthropies. Bader doesn't often get involved in housing development, Urban Milwaukee reported. Frank Cumberbatch, Bader's vice president of engagement, said the organization realized housing was a blind spot after it moved to King Drive in 2018, and that stable housing is the foundation for tackling the other social issues it cares about.
"It takes you know a village to make new deals happen," Kazee said at the ribbon cutting. "I'm just grateful that we're able to get all these finance partners together in order to make this game happen."
County Executive David Crowley also spoke at the event, pointing to the county's investments in affordable housing projects. "Without a roof over your head, it's hard to focus on your mental health," he said. Crowley noted the county continues to have one of the lowest unsheltered homeless populations per capita in the country.
Why it matters for Contractors
Conversions like this are some of the most interesting and most demanding work in the business. Turning a 1929 institutional building into modern apartments means opening walls nobody has seen in decades, bringing mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems up to current code, and fitting new unit layouts into a structure that was built for something else. Contractors with old-building experience have a real edge on jobs like this.
The 13 financing sources matter on the jobsite too. Every funder can come with its own paperwork, inspections, draw schedules and reporting. On a stacked deal, the contractor who keeps clean records, tracks change orders carefully and meets each funder's rules helps keep the money flowing. That's how you get asked back for the next one.
This project also shows where some affordable housing money is coming from right now: county housing dollars, health care partners and philanthropy. Urban Milwaukee noted the county has also put county, state and federal money into affordable developments in nine suburbs, so this kind of work isn't limited to the city.
Milwaukee has plenty of older buildings like the former Jewish Home. If this model works, contractors who know how to bring them back to life could see more calls like this one.