New Event Venue Would Fill Empty Industrial Building
A 'perfect' location, says veteran event planner Jerhonda McCrary.
4930 N. 32nd St. Photo taken May 16, 2025 by Jeramey Jannene. All Rights Reserved.
A small warehouse in the Old North Milwaukee neighborhood could become a unique event venue under a plan from Jerhonda McCrary and her four sons.
The new business would be located in the middle of a block of industrial buildings.
“It’s perfect, because there won’t be any noise problems,” McCrary told the Zoning, Neighborhoods & Development Committee on May 6.
McCrary’s IV Generations Holdings would purchase the 3,600-square-foot building, 4930 N. 32nd St., and an adjacent vacant lot from the city for $15,100. A Department of City Development (DCD) report estimates a total investment in the project of $133,270.
“I am a resident and have been a resident of that neighborhood for 10 years,” said McCrary.
The properties are located two blocks north of W. Hampton Avenue. The city acquired the lot in 2017 and the building in 2018, both via property tax foreclosure.
McCrary intends to give the utilitarian industrial building “sort of a Spanish barnyard look.” The lot, 4926 N. 32nd St., would be landscaped as a courtyard.
Built in 1929, the building was occupied by MarkCraft Co., an engraving business, for several decades. Both properties, according to assessment records, were owned by Charles Duellman at the time of foreclosure.
“We are going to offer our building very much like a library,” she said. “So we are going to open it up to the council. We are going to open it up to areas that just want to host some events once a month.”
McCrary said she has had a 33-year career in event planning. “I know just about everything there is to know about event planning,” she told the committee.
But her life story involves considerably more than event planning.
Her LinkedIn profile says she finished a Phd program in education with Liberty University in 2024. She also earned a master’s degree in cultural foundations of community engagement and education from UW-Milwaukee in 2017.
She was charged with 10 counts of felony wire fraud related to mortgages in 2007 and sentenced to 12 months and one day of imprisonment in 2010 for a single case. McCrary and other defendants had many of the counts against them dropped in exchange for providing testimony against Michael Lock, the ringleader who is now serving life in prison for other crimes. Lock, with whom McCrary once had a romantic relationship, was convicted of operating a prostitution scheme that involved his wife, drug dealing and operating a group known as the “Body Snatchers” that buried murdered drug dealers under concrete.
McCrary’s Mogul University Facebook page now provides information and advocacy for people reentering the workforce after a conviction.
The full council unanimously endorsed the sale on May 13.
The city previously listed the properties for sale for $35,500.
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