2007 W. Vliet St. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

There was much to celebrate in 2023 when a former school, described by the area’s city council as “almost the epitome of neglect,” was converted into affordable housing for military families.

But now four new homes are to be built on the school’s former parking lot.

Gorman & Company, which also renovated the school, is working to complete the two-story houses in the 2000 block of W. Vliet Street.

“What’s special about this, aside from saving a historic building that is a landmark in this area, is the houses in front of it. Those houses in front of it represent something,” said Gorman Wisconsin Market President Ted Matcom during a tour of the McKinley School Lofts on Tuesday with Acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Adrianne Todman“A neighborhood is great when it offers affordable housing in an apartment setting. That’s fantastic. The real stability and renaissance of the neighborhood is in homeownership and the involvement of those stakeholders. And these homes in the neighborhood are trying to strike that balance.”

The homes are being offered for sale online for $359,900 to $369,900. “We already have a list of about 15 buyers,” Matkom said. “Demand is no less than we thought.” Work is expected to be completed next month.

Two different floor plans were used: a floor plan with four bedrooms, two bathrooms and 143.6 square meters of space and a floor plan with three bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and 134.6 square meters of space.

At that time City Council Robert Baumanwho saw the property just outside his district during redistricting, pushed to include the homes in the redevelopment project. The city also provided resources to make it possible. In 2020, a tax financing district was created that provided a $300,000 grant ($75,000 per home) to develop the homes. It also included $650,000 for environmental remediation of the fire-damaged, asbestos-containing school, which the city acquired through property tax foreclosure from a daycare operator decades after Milwaukee Public Schools sold it. The increased property tax revenue from the school and the four homes will pay back the grant.

“I would say this building is probably the worst building we’ve ever tackled in terms of its condition,” Matkom said in August 2020. And Gorman has renovated many schools in Milwaukee.

The homes, which sit on roughly 7,000-square-foot lots and have a detached garage, are intended to serve as proof that market-rate homes can work in the area. They also address an urban planning issue, as the school is located about 250 feet from W. Vliet Street.

When the plan was discussed publicly in 2021, it was assumed that the homes would sell for about $150,000 and be built for $250,000. Since then, construction costs and sales prices have skyrocketed both nationwide and in all Milwaukee neighborhoods. Matkom said offhand on Tuesday that he expects construction costs to be about $400,000.

Real estate agent Missy Buttrum of HomeWire Realty is the agent for Gorman.

The houses are being built by KGI Construction Group and designed by Quorum Architects.

The new owners are not only getting a new house, but also a new street. W. Vliet Street between 12th and 27th streets was rebuilt in 2023 thanks to a flood of funds from the bipartisan infrastructure bill. The shovel-ready project was abandoned nearly a decade earlier because construction bids far exceeded budget.

The houses have the addresses 2001, 2007, 2015 and 2025 W. Vliet St.

Photos

McKinley School Lofts

Existing members must be logged in to view the interactive map. Log in.