County Selling Land For New Children’s Hospital Clinic

Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin rendering for 7201 W. Good Hope Rd. Rendering by Groth Design Group.

Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin is poised to substantially expand the amount of care it provides on Milwaukee’s far Northwest Side through the development of a new clinic and urgent care facility near N. 76th Street and W. Good Hope Road.

The 20,000-square-foot facility would be built on vacant, Milwaukee County-owned land next to Uihlein Soccer Park, 7101 W. Good Hope Rd.

“We are looking to move the clinic to this new location to be able to expand it to be able to add additional providers for daytime primary care,” said Children’s Hospital vice president Mary Sisney to members of the Granville Advisory Committee Wednesday morning. “Additionally, we will be adding an urgent care location.”

Sisney said it is part of a strategy to provide more acute care offerings closer to where patients live, avoiding trips to the much larger hospital facility.

The nonprofit hospital would relocate employees from a nearby pediatric clinic, 7720 W. Good Hope Rd., and its Wauwatosa urgent facility, 3040 N. 117th St., near Mayfair Mall.

The urgent care component would be open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., with the primary care component operating during business hours Monday through Friday. Service would be available to children from newborns to 18-year-olds.

“I’m excited about your location in this area,” said advisory committee chair and parent Johonna Duckworth.

“I’m happy about this,” said vice chair Natasha Dotson. Citing a child with asthma, she said she regularly has to drive to the suburbs for urgent care.

The existing pediatric clinic to the west has operated in a strip mall since 2005, but it does not offer urgent care services and is not open on weekends.

“I think we are excited about having the clinic expand where it is,” said area alderwoman Larresa Taylor.

The new clinic is being developed for the health care provider by Weas Development.

“We are under contract for all 18.3 acres of this site,” said Connor Weas, associate at the firm and son of founder Doug Weas. A county document says the firm would pay $500,000 for the property, 7201 W. Good Hope Rd.

The clinic would occupy 2.3 acres nearest to W. Good Hope Road. Almost all of the rear of the site would be left undeveloped. “When we do close on the property, our plan is to convey the rest of the site to the Milwaukee Kickers,” said Weas.

The nonprofit Milwaukee Kickers Soccer Club leases the adjacent soccer facility from Milwaukee County. The clinic plan calls for creating a new 213-space paved parking lot for the Kickers, replacing a gravel lot that the clinic will occupy.

Groth Design Group is leading the design of the facility and has worked with Children’s Hospital on several new clinics, including one completed in 2022 on W. Forest Home Avenue.

The city must still approve a zoning change for the clinic portion of the property and divide the parcels.

Sisney said staffing at the facility will grow to 25 individuals. “Our intent is to add at least one to two additional physicians to that practice over time and when we do that we would need to add additional staff,” she told the committee.

She also addressed a concern from the committee that the facility wouldn’t be adequately staffed or staffed with individuals that understand the area’s majority Black population.

“We have been successful in that community because we have a clinic that does represent the community,” said Sisney. She noted that all of the physicians are “persons of color.”

Construction on the new facility is expected to begin in 2024 and be completed in spring 2025.

A 2022 Milwaukee County resolution that modified the Kickers lease of the soccer park said that Weas is working with the soccer club on developing a new indoor soccer facility at the complex. The complex currently includes a smaller indoor facility as well as several outdoor fields and a 4,000-seat stadium used for the state high school tournament and other large events.

The Kickers partnered with the county to develop the facility starting in 1994 and have a lease that can run through 2059 when two 15-year options are included. The organization pays the county approximately $100,000 annually to lease the facility now that construction-related debt has been retired.

Photos and Renderings