The Forest County Potawatomi Community are moving forward with detailed plans for a $25 million redevelopment of the former Concordia College campus southeast of West State Street and North 33rd Street in the city’s Concordia neighborhood. The project will be one of the largest real estate projects in southeastern Wisconsin in 2011.
“It is my hope we are doing bricks and mortar by late spring or early summer,” said Forest County Potawatomi attorney general Jeffrey Crawford.
The tribe owns an 11.5-acre site along the east side of North 33rd Street and on both sides of West State Street. The former Concordia campus, located on the south side of State Street, is where the first phase of the redevelopment project will take place.
The property was placed into federal trust and has been owned by the tribe since 1990. At the time, it was considered a potential site for the Potawatomi Bingo Casino, but neighbors objected to that plan and the casino was built in the Menomonee Valley instead, Crawford said.
Concordia University moved out of the property in 1983 to its current location in Mequon. The Indian Community School occupied the property from 1987 until earlier this year when it moved to a new facility in Franklin.
“We had a long-term lease with the Indian Community (school),” Crawford said. “We knew that was going to come to an end. We have been planning to redevelop the site since 2007.”
The former Concordia campus consists of seven buildings. The tribe plans to demolish a small administrative office building and restore the other six buildings. The buildings are decades-old, ranging from the 110-year-old, 33,024-square-foot Albrecht Hall to the 61-year-old, 55,830-square-foot Pritzlaff Hall building.
Pritzlaff Hall will be renovated to create space for the Spotted Eagle High School and to create office space.
Spotted Eagle High School will move to the building from its current building on the north side of State Street. The high school has about 100 students and is “bursting at the seams,” in its existing building, Crawford said.
The tribe plans to demolish the high school’s current building and a small apartment building located on its property north of State Street.
The 85-year-old, 34,720-square-foot Wundar Hall building, a former dormitory, will be converted into a business accelerator complex to provide space for start-up businesses. Work on that building has already begun, and the tribe received a $1.1 million U.S. Dept. of Energy grant to provide a modern and efficient energy system to the historic building. Glendale-based Johnson Controls Inc. and Pewaukee-based VJS Construction Services is working on the project.
The Albrecht Hall building might be the jewel of the campus.
“It is a gorgeous building,” Crawford said. “However, it is in serious deterioration.”
The tribe plans to transform the Albrecht building into the primary government center for its Milwaukee government offices. It will be used for meetings with city, county, state and federal officials and can also be used for press conferences, training and presentations. The building also has a chapel that could be used for Native American ceremonies.
The former library building, which is attached to Albrecht Hall, will be used for office space.
“It has good open space, a loft-type feel for office space,” Crawford said.
The 85-year-old Refectory building will be used as a cafeteria for the campus and eventually could be a site for catered meetings.
The former Concordia gymnasium building will be used by tenants in the entire complex, including the high school.
The tribe plans to move much of its administrative offices from its office building at 313 N. 13th St. to the buildings in the Concordia campus, Crawford said. The tribe’s legal department, the Potawatomi Business Development Corp. headquarters and the Forrest County Potawatomi Foundation offices area all expected to be re-located. Next year, five to seven tenants should be in place at the Concordia campus, he said.
“The tribe wants to fulfill the original intent (of acquiring the property), which is to make a home for the urban Indian community,” Crawford said. “We have our own business and government needs.”
The tribe still plans to keep its 13th Street office building. Much of the administrative offices at Potawatomi Bingo Casino will be relocated to that building, Crawford said.
The former Concordia campus still has room for more uses, but the tribe does not plan to add any other buildings to that area.
However, the vacant land to the south of the campus, which is about the size of a football field, and the area to the north of State Street that is vacant and will be vacated by the demolition of the school and apartment building, are planned for future business development. The businesses could be companies that are nurtured by the Potawatomi Business Development Corp., or they could be businesses with no affiliation with the tribe that need space, Crawford said. The development of the vacant land could take several years, and will depend on what opportunities are presented, he said.
“That’s a lot of open space,” Crawford said. “We have an open mind. But whatever we put in there is gong to be complimentary with the neighborhood.”
The redevelopment of the Concordia College central campus is expected to take five to 15 years and cost $25 million, Crawford said.
The tribe likes the historic nature of the Concordia neighborhood and pledges to enhance the property to fit in with the neighborhood, Crawford said.
“It’s a beautiful location, with old fashioned homes,” he said. “We will enhance the neighborhood with historic preservation. We want this to fit well within the neighborhood. We are committed to working with the community to help improve the security of the area and generate jobs that people can walk to. We’re not going to pick up and leave, so let’s generate something positive for the neighborhood.”
