Former Bay View Library Listed For Sale
City wants to see it repurposed. Plus: A nearby church sold to new congregation.
Llewellyn Library, 907 E. Russell Ave. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.
A former Milwaukee Public Library could become your next home or office.
The Department of City Development is looking for a buyer for the former Llewellyn Library, 907 E. Russell Ave., in Bay View.
A newly-published request for proposals (RFP) calls for a buyer to reuse the structure. An addition or separate structure could be built on a small grass space to the east.
Suggested uses in the RFP include housing, office or commercial space, or a “Live/Work/Studio/Shop/Art Gallery.”
In December, area Alderwoman Marina Dimitrijevic told Urban Milwaukee she expects the site to be reused as housing.
Proposals are required to be fully taxable. A prohibition against applying for tax exemption, as is common for churches and other nonprofit organizations, will be placed on the deed.
The building opened to the public in 1914, with a major addition to the front completed in 1959. The property is located just off S. Kinnickinnic Avenue at the intersection of E. Russell Avenue and S. Lenox Street.
MPL shuttered the facility in 1993, replacing it with the current Bay View Library, a few blocks northeast at 2566 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. The property was then leased to Milwaukee Public Schools, with the neighboring Bay View High School using the building for its Redcat Academy program for several years.
According to 2023 library board minutes, the city has received two appraisals for the property. If the property was sold as a development site for a “high-value apartment building,” the property appraisal is $490,000. If the buyer were required to reuse the existing building, the assessment would be only $330,000.
The two-story, 8,234-square-foot building sits on a 17,365-square-foot lot.
The recently approved Bay View Plan, a land-use plan, calls the site “an opportunity for creative residential, live-work or mixed-use.”
A project that seeks to repurpose the building, once a modest Beaux Arts structure perched atop a hill, is complicated by the unusual 1950s addition and heavily modified interior. The firm of Van Ran & DeGelleke designed the original building.
The library is named for Henry Llewellyn, whose children donated the property. The community room in the current library is also named for Llewellyn.
Open houses are being held June 27 and July 9.
Responses are due July 30.
Nearby Church Sold
Since Urban Milwaukee first reported in late 2023 on the library’s impending listing, a nearby church has been listed and sold.
The Milwaukee Hispanic Church of God purchased the former Deutsche Evangelische Christus Gemeinde (German Evangelical Church), 2644 S. Pine Ave.
Located a block to the west of the former library, the church was listed for sale by the Chicago-based Assembly of Pentecostal Church of Jesus Christ Inc. for $449,000. It was sold in March for $330,000.
“After 129 years the building will remain a Church,” said Corley Real Estate broker Paul Monigal to Urban Milwaukee. “The Milwaukee Hispanic Church of God plans to install a new roof system with estimates over $70,000 and make other restorations & improvements while opening their parish.”
By the end of the month, the pentecostal church had begun offering services in its new building.
The wood-framed structure was constructed in 1895, with a major addition in 1908. It contains approximately 4,500 square feet of space.
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Those 1959 additions are hideous not to mention not very functional. I hope whatever comes in via the RFP process show ways of demoing the new additions and rehabbing the original structure as well as building/integrating some new addition that’s actually modern/works well and fits well with it.
Yes, the mid century ugly has to go. I wonder if there were any objections to the addition when it was constructed back then? But as for saving the older part…it is not going to be cost effective to make into a dozen (?) or so apartments. I know that the city has been relaxing the requirements that it used to have for the amount of parking spaces required for residential and/or business property…but its a pretty congested area even when school is out. I don’t think that the underground access that it has now would ever be enough even for a few cars, given the requirements for fire codes and emergency exits. Having once lived in the neighborhood, its great to say that they want people without cars to move there. But people tend to have cars and then park on the streets that are already lacking enough even for the existing homes already there.
How about a Senior or Intergenerational Community Center on ground floor, with subsidized Older Adult apartments above?