In 2023, the Greater Watertown Community Health Foundation launched a $22M+ investment in The Collective and in more than 80 acres along the Rock River on the south side of Watertown.
The Collective addresses key community needs including housing, childcare, mental health, and capacity-building. An incubator for innovation, it showcases best practices and models strategies that can be scaled throughout the region and beyond.
Who uses this space, and how does it serve businesses or the community?
The Collective provides a vibrant home for community collaboration. The efficiencies of a shared location are enjoyed by nine (and growing) businesses and nonprofits. Office space and coworking memberships support local innovators and remote workers who enjoy a flexible, state-of-the-art environment located between Milwaukee and Madison.
The entire second floor of The Collective is dedicated to early learning with on-site childcare and Head Start classrooms. The ground floor houses a satellite express Y, which will connect to a new, full-service YMCA to open in late 2025. A second campus building, the Matz Center, was repurposed into a much-needed youth crisis stabilization facility, in partnership with Jefferson County, providing care close to home for families with children experiencing mental health challenges.
The campus will also be home to Rock River Ridge, a housing development that brings together people at all stages of life in one thriving community that is walkable, promotes connectedness, and highlights the area’s scenic beauty.
This neighborhood included investment by the Foundation, the City of Watertown and utilization of the Live Local Development Fund, a public/private partnership that provides gap financing through a revolving loan fund. The neighborhood will be an estimated $66 million project that creates 188 new units: 78 for-sale single family homes, 18 for-sale twin homes, and 92 for-rent multi-family homes.
Planning for the next neighborhood of affordable housing is underway.
What excites you most about this development?
Through impact investing, we were able to leverage the Foundation’s assets to inspire large-scale, collaborative projects that address key community needs. This reduced risk, allowing for other partners to invest, and helped expedite timelines, while still maintaining a sufficient rate of return for future investments by the Foundation. We had co-investors and collaborators woven throughout the different layers of the project, all of whom celebrated this opportunity to do something bold.
As a community health foundation, we don’t want to be just a check-writer. We want to illuminate the needs of the region and invest strategically in wellbeing… in building strong families and thriving communities. Investments on this campus are a microcosm of our work throughout the region and beyond.
Can we dream bigger? How do we activate change leaders throughout our region to challenge the boundaries of what’s possible? Impact investing is an exciting tool in our toolbox, because it reinforces our commitment to work in collaboration with others, and it brings more partners together around a challenge… and that’s how truly groundbreaking work gets done.
Greater Watertown Community Health Foundation | watertownhealthfoundation.com | 920.390.4000
The Collective | wttncollective.com
