An affordable apartment development with a commercial-grade kitchen to help launch new food businesses is hoping for a spring construction start now that’s securing additional public funding.
The 2,500-square-foot Riverwest Food Accelerator would be developed on East North Avenue, just across North Commerce Street from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s RiverView Residence Hall. It would be on the ground floor of a four-story, 91-unit affordable apartment building.
The accelerator will host food-oriented activities — recognizing the neighborhood’s need for access to healthy foods and food education.
Developers General Capital Group and KG Development Group LLC announced their plans two years ago, with the project later securing federal affordable housing tax credits.
Developers who receive tax credits must generally provide at least 85% of a building’s apartments at below-market rents to people earning no higher than 60% of the local median income. Those credits are sold to generate cash, with the developers securing commercial loans and other funds to complete their financing packages.
But the Riverwest development, like many others throughout Wisconsin, has been delayed because it needs more funding as inflation drives up construction costs − and as interest rates on commercial loans increase.
The project recently got some good news with Milwaukee’s Housing Trust Fund set to provide $1 million for the $26.7 million development.
That grant requires Common Council approval, with the council’s Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee to review the trust fund recommendations at its Tuesday meeting.
“We are working on filling the remaining financing gap and are optimistic now that we are that much closer,” Linda Gorens-Levey, a General Capital partner, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
A spring construction start would result in the food accelerator and apartments being completed by roughly late summer or early fall of 2024, said David Weiss, a General Capital partner.
Along with helping launch food-oriented businesses, the accelerator will also provide cooking classes for residents and other community residents.
Milwaukee’s Housing Trust Fund Advisory Board is recommending $8.8 million for 12 projects − leveraging more than $121 million in local construction and rehabilitation work over the next year, said Ald. Michael Murphy, advisory board chair. The grants are coming from $10 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding.
The largest grant, $1.5 million, would be provided for the 93-unit King Library Apartments, in the 2900 block of North King Drive. That $32.2 million development, which is being done by General Capital and Emem Group LLC, includes replacing the current King Library with a new library branch.
Also, Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity, Revitalize Milwaukee and ACTS Housing, which would each receive $1.25 million for their work on buying and renovating homes for people with low incomes.
Other recommended grants include $783,765 to Movin’ Out Inc. and Rule Enterprises for a $21.4 million, 79-unit apartment building under construction at 1887 N. Water St.; $500,000 to KG Development LLC for its planned $6.6 million rehabilitation of a 40-unit building at 2436 N. 50th St., and $500,000 for the $13.4 million Bronzeville Creative Arts and Technology Hub, featuring 54 apartments and production space for filmmakers, musicians and other creatives that Fit Investment Group LLC and Cinnaire Solutions Corp. plan to develop north of West North Avenue and west of North Sixth Street.
“The Housing Trust Fund has made a significant difference for Milwaukee families and neighborhoods, by making supportive housing, home ownership and rental housing more affordable for people who want to live here,” Murphy said, in a statement.
Metro State University students, pilots and volunteers loaded food, toys and supplies into more than two dozen aircraft at the Centennial Airport on Sunday.
It was all part of the annual VFW Charity Airlift.
Mitchell Johnson is on the Metro State flight team, and he’s volunteering his time, aircraft, and fuel costs to help deliver much-needed relief to veterans and their families.
“I think we have about seven thousand pounds of food and supplies going out today,” said Johnson. “So, we’re all very excited to come out and get to both, kind of mashing our hobby and our passion for aviation, with being able to help people throughout the holidays.”
For 12 years, the VFW Charity Airlift has worked with the Colorado Aviation Business Association and Metro State’s Precision and Aerobatics flight teams to make the event happen. And this isn’t just any donation drop, its focus is getting to those people in rural communities, which many times are hard to reach.
“We get so many donations here within the metro area, but our rural communities are really underserved, so we found a way as pilots, one that we can give back to our community, by collecting donations here in the metro area, and then providing them,” said Chris Swathwood, with CABA. “That’s really what we want our students to see, not only is it the career and future but aviation can be used in such a positive way to really help support our country and our community.”
Sunday’s special flight is taking Johnson to Pueblo, and he’s hoping his kindness and the kindness of others will go far beyond.
“Do your part, and as a whole, you can make a difference,” he said.
Erik Levy, owner of the recycling company Save That Stuff, has taken repurposing to a new level — buying a surplus Brockton fire truck that he may retrofit with a pizza oven and grill to provide snacks for his employees, clients, and neighbors.
“I’ve never bought a fire truck before; my life is now complete,” Levy said. “We are not exactly sure how we will use the vehicle, but we’ve talked about a pizza oven and grill. I like the idea of an emergency vehicle in a non-emergency situation.”
Levy bought the 1981 pumper truck in late November for $7,400 in an online auction.
“It was a little bit of an impulse buy,” Levy said. “But it relates to what we do and is kind of a three-dimensional business card.”
Levy said the truck probably will stay in Brockton — where his company has a storage yard on Oak Hill Way — after getting modified at the headquarters located under the Tobin Bridge in Charlestown.
Save That Stuff started in 1990 with a single 1971 Volkswagen Double Cab — a half bus, half pickup truck — that Levy used to pick up cardboard in Boston. The company now has 35 trucks collecting waste from about 3,500 businesses in the Boston area, with an emphasis on hard-to-recycle materials, Levy said.
For example, Save That Stuff picks up coat hangers from the Gap, shredding and granulating the plastic parts to be made into new plastic products, he said.
