Kathy’s House, a nonprofit organization that provides housing to hospital patients and their family members who have traveled to Milwaukee to receive treatment, is planning to build a $7 million, 20,000-square-foot facility with help from Froedtert Hospital.
The organization currently leases a building at the St. Camillus Health Center, a retirement community at 10101 W. Wisconsin Ave. near the Milwaukee County Zoo. But its lease ends on June 30, 2021 and St. Camillus, which is undergoing a series of construction and expansion projects, informed Kathy’s House the lease would not be renewed after 2021, according to a statement written by Kathy’s House executive director Patty Metropulos and published in the organization’s November newsletter.
Metropulos wrote in the newsletter that Kathy’s House is searching for a two-to-three acre parcel of land that costs around $600,000 near Froedtert on which to build the facility. She also wrote that Froedtert has “indicated they will be a lead investor in a new facility, which is estimated to cost $7 million.”
“While we don’t know the specific date a site will be selected, the board has two parcels of land it is pursuing,” Metropulos wrote. She did not provide specific details on which parcels were being considered.
Plans for the new facility include 24 guest rooms with some designed specifically for long-term care patients who are receiving treatments such as bone marrow transplants. Metropulos said Kathy’s House currently leases 15,000-square-feet of space at St. Camillus, which includes 18 rooms for guests.
Metropulos said it’s unlikely Froedtert will be the only outside investor in the project, but “it will be hard to imagine anyone else surpassing their investment. We’d welcome it, but I feel very confident saying they’ll be the lead investor.”
She would not say how much the hospital had committed to spending.
Of Kathy’s House guests, 91 percent are referred from Froedtert Hospital, more than 80 percent have cancer or are supporting a family member with cancer, around 45 percent are patients around around 55 percent are the family members of patients, Metropulos said.
