Affordable apartments rising in Bay View, near west side Milwaukee

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By TOM DAYKIN

USA Today Network via Reuters Connect

Two Milwaukee affordable apartment developments, one redeveloping a former hospital and another in the Bay View neighborhood, are to open by late 2027 – with city financing help.

That would come through tax incremental financing districts, which use property tax revenue generated by the developments.

Those districts, proposed by Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s Department of City Development, were endorsed by the Redevelopment Authority board on May 4. They also need Common Council approval.

One would provide $2.6 million for the $50.7 million conversion of the former Doctors Hospital, 2711 W. Wells St., into 124 one- and two-bedroom apartments.

The project is led by the nonprofit Milwaukee Development Corp., a subsidiary of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.

The other would provide $2.1 million for the $33.3 million construction of the 100-unit Austin Commons, 2318 through 2332 S. Austin St.

That project, with units ranging from one to three bedrooms, is led by Northernstar Companies LLC and Commonwealth Development Corp.

Both developments’ financing includes federal affordable housing tax credits. Those include requirements the apartments be provided at below-market rents to people earning 30% to 80% of the local median income.

The tax credits are sold to raise cash, with the developers then obtaining bank loans and other cash sources to complete their financing packages.

The former hospital includes a building constructed in 1928, with additions in 1964 and 1967, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Milwaukee County in 1993 bought the site and used it to house various county agencies. The county sold the underused property to a Wiegand Investments affiliate in 2015, and it’s since been vacant.

Austin Commons will be built on the site of three vacant houses that are to be demolished.