From department store to community hub: Inside the construction of 'ThriveOn King'

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- There was a time when some of the most popular gathering places in American cities were department stores. On Milwaukee's near north side, there's an effort underway to transform one shuttered store into a new community hub.

The Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Medical College of Wisconsin and Royal Capital are in the process of converting the old Gimbels and Schuster's department store on what is now Martin Luther King Dr. into 'ThriveOn King,' a collection of homes, office space and community services.

The store closed in 1970 and became a distribution center for Gimbels. In 1992, C. Coakley bought the property and converted it into a storage facility.

In 2020, Royal Capital Group acquired the building. The developer then partnered with the foundation and the medical college to transform the structure into what they hope will be a hub for the neighborhoods that compose Bronzeville, the historic heart of Milwaukee's African-American community.

Now, workers are in the process of breathing life back into the 116-year-old building. The $150 million project hasn't always been a smooth process.

"It'd be a lot easier to knock it down and build something new," Tom Calouette, a senior project manager at the CG Schmidt construction firm, said. "But keeping the historic fabric presents a lot of challenges and successes for me and my project team."

Calouette said workers will preserve many of the iconic features from the old store, including the large revolving doors and display cases that once contained mannequins near the main entrance.

"We will replace the glass, we will clean up the wood. Missing pieces, such as this," he said, gesturing to a damaged portion of wood framing, "We will have made locally to replicate that exact profile."

Kenneth Robertson, executive vice president of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, maintains this kind of partnership, and rejuvenating an iconic building in the process, can transform a community.

"You need institutions like us kind of going in the same direction to really ignite that spark of development that you see that's happening in other communities," Robertson said.

One section of the building is dedicated to nearly 90 residential units. The mixed-income apartments will range from 1-4 bedrooms.

Robertson said portion of the units will be reserved for people 55 and older. Another section of the homes will be for students and young physicians at the medical college.

The foundation is also moving its entire operation into the building, and it will occupy the entire fourth floor.

"Actually living day-to-day, walking alongside of our community, will help us be better prepared to make sure the tools we're employing to improve folks' lives are really relevant," Robertson said.

Robertson added the foundation's space in the new building will include extra meeting rooms other nonprofits would be able to use.

Still, the most noticeable aspect of the renovated building will be first-floor community hub.

Versiti Blood Center of Wisconsin will have a space, and Jobswork MKE will move its training center there as well.

The Malaika Early Learning Center will open a second location, and it will have space for 78 kids in the ThriveOn facility, according to its executive director, Tamara Johnson.

"The cost of care for infants and toddlers is extremely expensive," Johnson said. "And so, most times, providers sometimes shy away from that care because it's not cost-efficient or effective for the business."

Johnson said financial support from the foundation will allow Malaiki to focus its ThriveOn location exclusively on kids five-year-old and younger.

"Early childhood education- we know that that's a challenge in Milwaukee with a gap of basically 5,000 seats that we're trying to close," Robertson said.

The daycare center will have two levels; the first floor will include classroom space for infants, toddlers and Pre-K students. The second floor will serve as a professional development space, where both staff and leaders from other child care facilities in the city will be able to come in, debrief, and over time, develop best practices.

"They're able to get their foundational classes, they're able to continue their education," Johnson said. "Which will equate, ultimately equate, to high-quality care for all children."

The goal is to have everything -- from the services to the residential units -- open and running by the fall of 2024.

Robertson said combining community services, art, office space and residences into one of the neighborhood's most historic structures is all part of a master plan to have all of Milwaukee see Bronzeville differently.

"All those pieces are very intentional," he said. "And it's about us partnering to really help a neighborhood come together, and to help a neighborhood thrive."