Work starting on Mount Mary housing for nuns, single moms
Work to take a year after Sept. 3 groundbreaking
Construction is starting on an unusual housing development that includes 24 apartments for single moms who are Mount Mary University students and their children.
The Trinity Woods project also features 52 assisted living apartments for members of the School Sisters of Notre Dame and 90 two-bedroom independent living units for the sisters and for other seniors.
The $45 million development has completed its financing package, according to an announcement from Milwaukee Catholic Home.
Trinity Woods is a partnership among Milwaukee Catholic Home, School Sisters of Notre Dame and Mount Mary University, which has its campus on Milwaukee’s far northwest side.
A groundbreaking is set for Sept. 3, with a grand opening in fall 2021.
The project site, 9525 W. Burleigh St., is already zoned for institutional housing, so the development will not undergo Plan Commission and Common Council review, a project spokeswoman said.
Trinity Woods did require a zoning variance for the senior housing, which the Board of Zoning Appeals has granted.
“An intergenerational home that will include sisters and students is a wonderful fit for the campus,” Mount Mary President Christine Pharr said when the plans were announced in December.
“There are so many synergies with academic programs, including nursing, dietetics and occupational therapy,” Parr said.
While unusual, other colleges and universities provide housing for single mothers.
They include College of St. Mary, in Omaha, Nebraska, where Pharr previously served as vice president for academic affairs.
“Educating single mothers who often live in poverty breaks that cycle and provides their children with a firsthand experience of the value of education,” Pharr said last year.
Also, other religious orders have developed housing for their members at college campuses.
Some of the nuns will move to Trinity Woods from the historic School Sisters of Notre Dame complex in Elm Grove.
Mandel Group Inc. in February said it had agreed to buy the 30-acre property, at 13105 Watertown Plank Road, with plans to redevelop it into apartments and other uses.
The Trinity Woods project developer is Senior Housing Partners of Roseville, Minnesota, with project architecture design by Plunkett Raysich Architects of Milwaukee. The general contractor is VJS Construction of Pewaukee.
Financing was secured through Northland Securities of Minneapolis, First Business Bank of Madison and the Wisconsin Health and Education Faculties Authority.