The Kinnickinnic Avenue corridor in Milwaukee’s Bay View neighborhood continues to gain momentum as developers are planning a pair of major apartment projects.
“KK is a very hot area,” said Alderman Tony Zielinski, who represents Bay View. “Success begets more success. The cat’s out of the bag: this is a great place to live.”
The most noteworthy project planned on or near KK is a $40 million redevelopment project with 307 market rate apartments planned by a joint venture of Milwaukee-based WiRED Properties and Indianapolis-based Milhaus Development. The site is a largely vacant 105,000-square-foot industrial building complex on a 6.3-acre site at 2151-81 S. Robinson Ave., one block west of Kinnickinnic Avenue.
“(Milhaus is) an absolutely terrific mixed-use and urban multi-family developer,” WiRED Properties owner Blair Williams said. “They look for sites like this Bay View site, underutilized urban sites.”
“We like neighborhoods that have character,” said Milhaus president Jeremy Stephenson.
The WiRED/Milhaus development will have four buildings and an internal grid of private streets. There will be about 2,000 square feet of retail/commercial space and additional amenity and community spaces.
Most of the existing industrial complex on the site will be demolished, but the developers hope to retain some of the existing architecture into the new structures.
“(The site) is one of the weakest areas of Bay View,” Zielinski said. “That needs to be cleaned up. That project is going to help improve the neighborhood.”
At a neighborhood meeting on the project, some residents raised concerns about the size of the project and said the added density and traffic would hurt the neighborhood. But others said the additional population would boost retail businesses on Kinnickinnic Avenue and would make the area safer, with better lighting and more eyes on the street.
Zielinski says businesses along KK support the project because it will increase the population density and bring more customers within walking distance of the street.
“The businesses on (Kinnickinnic Avenue) that I’ve talked to are salivating about this development,” he said.
Another project that would increase the population density in the KK corridor is a five-story, 72-unit apartment development planned by Dermond Property Investments at 2202 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. The site is currently occupied by two buildings, one a two-story, 133-year-old building and the other a two-story, 91-year-old building, and a surface parking lot. The property was formerly occupied by Faust Music. In addition to the apartments, the $12 million development would have 2,300 square feet of retail space and 79 parking spaces.
In a note to residents, Zielinski said Dermond is tweaking the design to incorporate more brick and make other changes.
The large apartment development trend on and near KK began in 2012 when HKS Holdings LLC completed Dwell, a 70-unit apartment building at 2440 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. Part of the building is four stories tall and part of it is five stories tall.
“Before Dwell, there were no higher end apartment developments on KK,” Zielinski said. “There are young professionals that want to live in Bay View, but they want to live in something that is modern.”
Some Bay View residents oppose dense developments like Dwell. But Zielinski said the projects are adding to the positive momentum in the neighborhood. The apartment developments have been clustered along the KK corridor, adding vibrancy to that commercial street, while single family home areas off of KK maintain their quaint charm, he said.
“Ten years ago KK was dead,” Zielinski said. “People in our district want a vibrant, thriving business district on KK. We’ve been getting the population density on KK to support the businesses on KK. Projects like (the WiRED/Milhaus project and the Dermond project) are going to continue to turn that area around.”
The focus has been on attracting dense development near KK, while preserving the atmosphere of the single family home neighborhoods, Zielinski said. City officials have turned down developers that want to build apartments in Bay View in single family home areas outside of the KK corridor, he said.
Some people have moved from the densely developed East Side to Bay View in search of a healthy, single family home neighborhood. They want to be close to a vibrant commercial corridor like KK, but they don’t want dense apartment development in their single family home neighborhood, Zielinski said.
“We’ve got a blueprint in place (for Bay View),” he said. “We are following that blueprint and it’s working. Bay View is one of the safest places in the city to live. You are starting to see a lot of families with kids living in the neighborhood.”
Bay View has a “terrific vibe” and Kinnickinnic Avenue has “incredible food and beverage offerings,” Williams said. But the KK corridor still needs additional population density to bolster the business district, he said.
“The KK district needs more body count,” Williams said. “It needs more traffic. There is room for improvement on KK, and I think it’s primed for it.”
One tangible sign of the revitalization of the KK corridor was the reopening of the Avalon Theater in December. The 87-year-old theater, located at 2473 S. Kinnickinnic Ave., had been closed since 2000. Avalon Theater owner Lee Barczak, who also owns Rosebud Cinema in Wauwatosa and Times Cinema in Milwaukee, remodeled the building, adding new seating with reclining chairs, a bar and sit-down dining service in the movie theaters.
Another major addition to the KK corridor came when Colectivo, formerly Alterra Coffee, built a 15,000-square-foot café and bakery at 2301 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. in 2012.
Bay View may be a development hot spot, but its attractiveness is not new, Williams said.
“I think it’s a new appreciation (of the neighborhood),” he said. “Bay View has always been attractive in a lot of ways.”
The neighborhood provides an enticing option for young families in Milwaukee that are ready to move out of downtown area apartments into a single family home, but still want to live in the city, Williams said.
“It is the type of community that Milwaukee needs,” he said. “As a city, we need (neighborhoods like) Bay View, where people can move on to the next phase of their lives and stay in the city of Milwaukee. If thoughtful development can occur in Bay View and not change the community, but impact it in a positive way, it can help prepare the neighborhood for its future. I believe Bay View can become one of Milwaukee’s greatest urban neighborhoods.”
“This is not the renaissance of Bay View,” Zielinski said. “This is the golden age of Bay View. And, we haven’t come even close to reaching our potential.”
