By Kris Leonhardt

Editor-in-chief

GREEN BAY – The Brown County United Way has joined a project that will bring more affordable housing to the city’s east side.

The “City East” project is working toward a three-story facility with 43 units to be constructed on an empty lot at the corner of Walnut and Roosevelt streets in the city of Green Bay — a project that MF Housing Partners of Appleton has been working on for over a year.

Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich said that “affordable housing is a priority from us in this city and this community” during a joint press conference announcing the partnership.

“We understand the need that exists. And we’re constantly, literally on an everyday basis doing everything that we can to provide more high-quality housing for people of all income levels,” he stated. “And I think this is such a great example of some of that work coming to fruition.”

He added that affordable housing is “expensive and complicated.”

“And so that’s where the city of Green Bay comes into play and other units of local government come into play. Because from a market point of view, it doesn’t always add up or it doesn’t always make sense. And so that’s why we have this really vital role to play in providing support for these projects,” he explained.

“We have $400,000 in home funding; that’s federal funding that comes to the city. We have a $400,000 loan through our tax increment district affordable housing program. We have a $300,000 loan thanks to the Affordable American Rescue Plan Act dollars that have floated into the city… that’s without the donation of the land that we’re talking about here. So, that’s another $200,000. So, $1.3 million in support that the city of Green Bay is offering to this project and it’s absolutely essential. It’s absolutely vital that we do that, because of that gap that I mentioned in terms of affordable housing availability in the city.”

“It will be home to one-, two- and much-needed three-bedroom apartment units in the city,” explained Marissa Downs, principal at Mosaic Development, one of the partners of MF Housing Partners.

“Typically, this work is commonly accomplished through a partnership with WHEDA (Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority) but this resource is limited, so not every development that is imagined is built. It is common as submitted development to lead up for consideration, but not be one of the projects that are selected for funding, which is excruciatingly disappointing to all of us — the city, the developers — but it is a common outcome.

“So, in this case, the news that our city use development was not funded originally when we submitted it to WHEDA brought us back to the drawing board with the mayor and city staff. And because we all believed in this much-needed housing, and we knew was important and it was worth trying to reimagine this development.

“It just so happened at the same time, Brown County United Way was also exploring locations to bring forward their exciting new programming concept. And thankfully, the mayor and city staff saw that there could be some synergy here.

“By the time we created a new plan to incorporate this neighborhood community space into the city’s development, WHEDA let us know the good news that we were in fact going to be able to be selected to move forward as originally planned.”

The plan was ultimately approved implementing the needs of the Brown County United Way.

“For us, this marks a special moment in our journey for the last five years in particular, but overall because we’ll be celebrating 100 years,” said Robyn Davis, president and CEO of Brown County United Way.

“Within the last five years, [we are] really reimagining what our organization could do and should do to drive transformational change. And one of the things that we added to our strategic portfolio was to amplify the work that we’re doing around impact initiatives — advocacy and impact initiatives.

“We launched the Thriving Neighborhoods Initiative a few years ago, and there are a number of components to it. But the central piece was this neighborhood community space. And we had dollars that were set aside from our annual giving campaign and a private donor. However, we weren’t ready to take that next step. And thanks to Senator Tammy Baldwin and her staff, we successfully submitted a congressional spending request that yielded a $1 million appropriation in the federal budget.

“So that accelerated this process and the opportunity to create a space where neighbors can come together, learn and grow together.”

All combined, the developers, United Way and WHEDA bring nearly $6.8 million to the table for the project.

Davis said that 5,000 square feet will replace their Adams Street offices and provide on-site services for emerging needs.

Total cost for the project is estimated at $11 million, and developers are hoping to break ground in July.