Historic school to become vet housing
Developers to rehabilitate vacant damaged building
Work will begin this summer on converting a long-vacant, fire-damaged Milwaukee school into apartments for veterans — with homes built next door for families who now live in public housing. ● The $12.6 million redevelopment of the former William McKinley School, 2001 W. Vliet St., is a project that seeks to restore and repurpose a 19th-century building that’s been in dire shape for nearly a decade. ● “Maybe the worst building we’ve actually renovated,” said Ted Matkom, Wisconsin market president for Gorman & Co., which has converted other former schools into affordable apartments. ● But, Matkom added, the effort is “well worth it in terms of its architectural integrity and what we want to keep in the neighborhood.”
Matkom made his comments at the May 10 meeting of the Plan Commission, which recommended approval of the project to create more than 40 housing units. It also will need Common Council approval.
The school’s neoclassical-designed original portion was constructed in 1885, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society, with an addition built in 1898.
Milwaukee Public Schools closed McKinley School in the 1970s.
The building was sold in 1991 to VE Carter Development Corp., a now-defunct charter school operator.
VE Carter operated a school on the site until 2009, and a day care center until 2013, when a fire severely damaged the building.
The city foreclosed on the building in 2016 after
Carter failed to pay property taxes totaling $96,000.
Apartments for veterans with children
Gorman’s initial development proposal for McKinley School was approved by the Common Council and Mayor Tom Barrett in late 2018.
It called for 36 affordable apartments, ranging from two to three bedrooms, along with a fitness center and club room for the residents. The apartments will be marketed mainly to veterans with children.
Gorman also planned to build eight townhouse-style condominiums in four buildings along West Vliet Street, on school grounds north of the school building.
Those three-bedroom condos were to be sold at market-rate prices.
Gorman, based in Oregon, Wisconsin, later received federal affordable housing tax credits to help finance the apartments.
The affordable housing tax credits generally require development firms to provide apartments at below-market rents to people earning no more than 60% of the local median income.
Gorman also is getting federal historic preservation tax credits as part of the financing package.
The restoration plans include painting the red brick exterior to restore the school’s original cream city brick color, said Matthew Edwards, of project architect Quorum Architects Inc.
The development proposal was recently revised, which requires another round of city approvals.
Gorman is now planning to create 39 apartments within the former
school.
Seeking more homeowners
Instead of eight townhouses, the firm will build four single-family homes on the school grounds north of the building.
Those will fit better in the neighborhood, Matkom said, with their traditional designs from Quorum approved by the Historic Preservation Commission.
Also, the two-story houses, with backyards and detached garages, have stronger sales potential than townhomes with a more modern feel and design, Matkom told Plan Commission members.
Ald. Robert Bauman, whose district includes the site, was “very passionate” about including owner-occupied units as part of the McKinley School development, Matkom said.
“Owner occupancy is the key to stability in central city neighborhoods,” Bauman said after the commission meeting.
“This is especially true in the west side of my district where owner occupancy is about 14%,” Bauman told the Journal Sentinel.
In addition, the revised plan is adding more surface parking spaces for apartment residents and their guests.
That was in response to concerns raised by neighborhood residents about people parking on the street, Matkom said.
“We really thought getting cars off the street, making sure that happened, was kind of a big deal,” he told commission members.
The development will include on-site services provided by Great Lakes Dryhootch Inc., a nonprofit Milwaukee group that helps veterans, and Lutheran Social Services.
Dryhootch provides peer support services to help veterans make the tranVE sition to civilian life, including help finding jobs and dealing with post-traumatic stress, said Otis Winstead, executive director.
Also, Gorman is working with the city Housing Authority to find home buyers who are now renting through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s housing choice voucher program.
Through that program, voucher holders can receive monthly home ownership payments for up to 15 years, with elderly and disabled people receiving assistance for as long as they own homes, said Amy Hall, Housing Authority communications coordinator.
In effect, those mortgage payments replace the funds voucher holders now receive to make rent payments, Matkom said.
The home buyers must be employed an average of 30 hours weekly, with annual earned income of at least $15,000 (unless they are ages 62 or older, or disabled).
They also must be first-time home buyers or not have owned property in the past three years (unless they were displaced through death or divorce). The home buyers also must be current on their rent.
The program provides help with home ownership expenses, and possible help with down payments, Hall told the Journal Sentinel.
Asbestos so thick, it ‘looks like snow’
The McKinley School development would include about a half-acre of green space as a play area for children. It also would soak up rainwater to reduce flow into the city’s storm water drainage system.
Outdoor green space at affordable housing developments is especially important for children and families during “this era of COVID,” said Benji Timm, city Redevelopment Authority project manager.
Meanwhile, the development is receiving $950,000 of city financing under a separate proposal approved in September by the Common Council and Mayor Barrett.
The city funds will come from the housing development’s new property taxes provided through a tax incremental financing district.
The city funds are needed in part because the building is in bad shape, according to the Department of City Development.
A 2017 inspection found airborne asbestos in some rooms so thick “it looks like snow,” according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
After the 2013 fire, the building was repeatedly vandalized and continued to deteriorate because of exposure to weather.
Along with private funds, the $12.6 million financing package includes a $450,000 EPA cleanup grant.
Because of its condition, the building is being sold by the city to Gorman for $1.
The renovations to convert the school to apartments will start in July after an environmental cleanup is completed, Matkom said. Those units will take about 14 months to build.
Construction of the houses will likely begin by fall, he said.
Other former central city schools being converted into affordable apartments include 37th Street Elementary School, 1715 N. 37th St.; Phillis Wheatley Elementary School, 2442 N. 20th St., and Edison Middle School, 5372 N. 37th St.
The McKinley School redevelopment is important for the near west side neighborhood and Milwaukee, Matkom said.
“It’s an amazing piece of history we’d like to preserve,” he said.