Work could start by summer on apartments near former Milwaukee Walmart

By TOM DAYKIN

USA Today Network via Reuters Connect

Construction could start by late summer on an affordable apartment community near a long-closed Walmart store in Milwaukee‘s central city.

The 100-unit first phase of Midtown Commons is planned for a parking lot east of North 60th Street and north of West Hope Avenue.

That’s just north of the Walmart, 5825 W. Hope Ave., which closed in 2016, and south of a former Lowe’s store converted in 2018 into a distribution center for Sellars Absorbent Materials, 5800 W. Hope Ave.

Gorman & Co. has applied for a construction permit for a four-story building on the parking lot’s western portion.

Gorman’s plans filed with the city Department of Neighborhood Services also call for a similarly sized building, which would the development’s second phase, on the parking lot’s eastern portion. That’s west of North 56th Street.

Those plans show a surface parking lot and children’s play area between the two U-shaped buildings. The first phase would have a mix of one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments, as well as a fitness center and community room.

The development will need Plan Commission approval because the site is within the Midtown Center development incentive zone, said Madison Goldbeck, Department of City Development marketing and communications officer.

Ald. Mark Chambers, whose district includes the site, didn’t immediately respond to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s request for comment on that approval process.

With commission approval, construction would begin by Aug. 31, said Ted Matkom, Gorman’s Wisconsin market president.

Plans for the apartments surfaced in 2025 when Gorman, based in the Madison area, applied for federal affordable housing tax credits.

Developers receiving affordable housing tax credits must provide most of the apartments at below-market rents to people generally earning no more than 60% of the area median income.

The credits are sold to raise equity cash. A developer then typically obtains a bank loan, and perhaps other sources, to complete the financing.

The tax credits were approved in May by the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority.

The former Walmart was an anchor store at Midtown Center, an underused shopping center.

The 150,000-square-foot closed Walmart and its 15-acre lot were sold in 2022 to an affiliate of Affordable Family Storage affiliate for $3.28 million.

The Council Bluffs, Iowa-based firm in 2023 proposed converting 107,000 square feet at the former Walmart into 850 self-storage units, with the remaining space used as four small- and mid-sized retail and commercial storefronts.

That proposal was opposed by Chambers and the Department of City Development.

Self-storage centers are barred at Midtown Center, and Affordable Family Storage’s plans don’t meet the city’s criteria for providing an exception, the department said.

The Plan Commission voted to deny the company’s request for the zoning exception.