Affordable rents come to east side
Greenwich Park apartment development offers discounted rates
The new Greenwich Park development doesn’t look terribly different from other apartment buildings that have opened over the past couple of years on Milwaukee’s east side.
The six-story, 53-unit building touts its enclosed parking structure, a must in that densely populated neighborhood; amenities that include a fitness center and community room; and a location that’s within a short walk of shops, restaurants and the lakefront.
But most of Greenwich Park’s apartments have discounted rents, with monthly rates that are hundreds of dollars less than those charged for units at other nearby new buildings.
“We’re likely to have an apartment you can afford,” said David Lyon, vice president of real estate development and acquisitions at Mercy Housing Lakefront Inc., Greenwich Park’s Chicago-based developer. Mercy, a nonprofit corporation, operates other affordable housing in Milwaukee.
Greenwich Park, which opened just before Christmas, was financed in part with federal affordable housing tax credits.
Developers that receive the tax credits, which are provided through an annual competition, are required to provide apartments at below-market rents to people earning no more than 60% of the local median income.
The development, built on a parking lot that Mercy bought from the city for $150,000, amounts to a $9 million investment in the neighborhood, Lyon said. Along with providing affordable apartments, Greenwich Park adds to the property tax base and brings more potential customers to nearby stores and restaurants.
A second phase, with 44 apartments, is planned for the U.S. Bank parking lot just south of the building. That development might begin in 2018.
Years in the making
Greenwich Park was years in the making. Some neighborhood residents opposed the project, saying it was too large.
Mercy in March 2010 initially proposed a ninestory, 83-unit building. That was dropped over concerns about the building’s height.
In January 2011, the Common Council and Mayor Tom Barrett approved a five-story building.
After that proposal failed to obtain tax credits, the plans were modified in 2013 to create two separate phases. The council and Barrett approved the modified proposal, and the first phase received tax credits in 2014.
Mercy later made other design changes, and construction finally started in August 2015.
Some Greenwich Park opponents questioned why federal tax credits were needed to help finance a building on Milwaukee’s east side, where developers have been creating upscale apartments with private financing.
Since fall 2014, three higher-end apartment buildings have been constructed within just a few blocks of Greenwich Park: the five-story, 99-unit Standard at East Library, 2340 N. Cramer St.; the four-story, 52-unit Overlook on Prospect, 2217 N. Prospect Ave.; and the four-story, 39-unit Edge on North, 2310 N. Oakland Ave.
Ald. Nik Kovac, whose district includes the east side, said the area’s high rents show there’s a need for new affordable apartments.
He also said developments like Greenwich Park help make Milwaukee, and the east side, more racially and economically integrated.
Housing for all
Robert Joseph, who developed Overlook on Prospect and Edge on North, said the east side needs diverse housing choices.
“Not everybody’s a surgeon at the hospital,” said Joseph, whose next upscale project will be the sixstory, 88-unit Contour apartments, in the former Prospect Mall parking lot, 2228 N. Prospect Ave. “We need to have housing to accommodate them, as well.”
Indeed, much of Greenwich Park’s marketing is aimed at moderate-income employees of nearby Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital and Prospect Medical Commons, Lyon said.
Also, with many of the neighborhood’s newer apartments being rented to younger, unmarried professionals, Greenwich Park also has a more family-friendly vibe.
Its unit mix includes 16 two-bedroom units and 15 three-bedroom units. Some will likely be filled by people with children.
Along with single people, Greenwich Park is “trying to hit the smaller families as well,” Lyon said.
Of the 53 apartments, 36 units have below-market rents for people whose incomes qualify them for the discounted rates.
For example, a two-person household earning no more than $28,100 annually can rent a two-bedroom unit for $790 a month.
The same type of unit at Greenwich Park has a market rent of $1,470. All rents include heat and electricity.
Meanwhile, the development is helping boost the neighborhood’s public parking supply.
To replace the parking spaces lost in the cityowned lot, Columbia St. Mary’s, which supported Greenwich Park, agreed to make free night parking spaces available at its Prospect Medical Commons parking structure, 2311 N. Prospect Ave.
Those 65 spaces are in the above-ground ramp and are available from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. Monday through Friday, and 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday.