New Coggs Center Rises

New Coggs Center at 1230 W. Cherry St. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

A little less than a year, ago, county officials and Coggs family members gathered in a parking lot to herald a new building that is intended to serve as the centerpiece of Milwaukee County’s “No Wrong Door” policy.

Now, those doors are much closer to opening.

The new home for Milwaukee County’s health and human services programs is quickly moving to completion, with the shape of the four-story, 60,000-square-foot building at 1230 W. Cherry St. clearly visible. Its scheduled to open in early 2025.

“This new building definitely represents the right door,” said Department of Health and Human Services Director Shakita LaGrant-McClain at an October 2023 groundbreaking. “The new Coggs Center will be a welcoming space for families to access services with dignity across the human services continuum of care.” The No Wrong Door policy aims to connect residents with the services they need regardless of how they first connect to any county program or facility.

The building will replace the larger Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Center, 1220 W. Vliet St., which is located a block to the south. The existing building, built as a Schuster’s department store and now historically protected, was once slated to be demolished and used as parking for the new building. It represented an unusual tradeoff, where the county would develop a parking lot on a side street, only to create a new, larger parking lot on a key corridor linked with Downtown.

However, Milwaukee County changed its direction and is now partnering with Gorman & Company to convert the 213,000-square-foot structure into 65 affordable apartments. The county will accommodate some of its parking needs by acquiring two city-owned vacant lots.

The $42 million new building is being designed by Engberg Anderson Architects. JP Cullen is the leading general contractor. Milwaukee County is funding $32 million of the project’s costs with a portion of its federal American Rescue Plan Act grant.

“For the first time, Milwaukee County will have a building designed specifically to deliver health and human services to the people we serve,” said County Executive David Crowley.

The effort was set in motion in large part by a State of Wisconsin decision. The Wisconsin Department of Health Services relocated in 2022 to leased space several miles northwest at 6055 N. 64th St., depriving the county of revenue to sustain the building. The state, which used the space to provide FoodShare and BadgerCare benefits, said it was relocating to be closer to program users. A 2021 county administration report concluded that the county should sell the Coggs Center, as it was becoming a financial liability due to deferred maintenance and the then-looming loss of the state agency.

The building was a department store until 1961, when it was purchased by the county for its Department of Welfare. It was renamed after Marcia P. Coggs in 2003.

Coggs was a legislative trailblazer. In 1977, Coggs became the first African American woman elected to the Wisconsin State Legislature. Later she became the first African American to serve on the Joint Committee on Finance, the Legislature’s most powerful committee. She passed away in 2003 at the age of 75.

Her granddaughter Priscilla E. Coggs-Jones, a member of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, called her the “conscience of the state of Wisconsin” during the October 2023 groundbreaking. Marcia Coggs was known for her work on fair housing, education, apartheid, integration and human rights. “She was a force to be reckoned with.”

There have already been other changes to the cluster of county-owned lots at W. Vliet and N. 12th streets. In 2022, the northern tip of the Coggs Center property, previously used for parking, was redeveloped into a home for the Milwaukee County Mental Health Emergency Center. A large solar array could be added to the building and a remaining parking lot.

Led by another county American Rescue Plan Act allocation, the King Park neighborhood around the Coggs Center is seeing a surge in new, affordable housing construction.

But the need for many different housing solutions is laid bare in the King Park neighborhood. Just three blocks south of the new Coggs Center, a large tent encampment is located across from the Guest House a Milwaukee shelter. Several other encampments can be spotted in the neighborhood.

Photos

Rendering

Vliet Street Coggs Center

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