Kinship Plans Food Center, Community Hub at Holton and Locust
Organization intends to relocate to new facility on Housing Authority's property.
Proposed Kinship Community Food Center development. Rendering by HGA.
“Food is the entry point at Kinship.”
And in a few years, Kinship Community Food Center hopes to have a brand new front door for people to enter.
The organization is working to build a new headquarters and community-facing facility on a vacant lot at the southwest corner of N. Holton and W. Locust streets. The nonprofit intends to purchase the site from the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM). The grass lot is currently excess space at the northern edge of Holton Terrace, a nine-story, 120-unit public housing building at 2825 N. Holton St.
The new center would include a free “public market,” a commercial kitchen, administrative offices, a community room, a greenhouse and food storage. It would take the shape of a two-story, 28,000-square-foot building on a one-acre site, 421 E. Locust St.
“We would animate this site with a beautiful, state-of-the-art [building], Milwaukee’s first community food center,” said Kinship executive director Vincent Noth to the HACM board at its Aug. 14 meeting. “We are just super excited about this location.”
In addition to providing food, the organization helps mentor people, connecting them with transportation, housing and workforce training. It also provides crisis assistance. “Last year, Kinship helped 94 people find housing or stay housed,” said Noth. “That’s a huge part of what we do.”
“We are looking at this as a win-win, for Kinship, for the community and for the neighborhood,” said Travaux vice president Scott Simon. He said residents of Holton Terrace were consulted on their desire for the site and have supported the proposal.
HACM residents are already interacting with Kinship.
“There were 327 HACM residents that shopped with us in the past three and a half years or so,” Noth told the board. He said Holton Terrace was one of the most significant sources. “We are really pleased about the opportunity for this development partnership.” Several HACM residents also volunteer with Kinship. “It’s just a really meaningful partnership that we’ve had.”
The proposed center is located nearly in the middle of a heatmap of those served by Kinship, and, as Noth noted, is well served by public transportation.
The executive director said the new location would include a catering kitchen to allow Kinship to expand its workforce training program. It would build on the new Kinship Cafe, which opened last month at ThriveOn King. It would also include space for Kinship’s “FEAST” program, a collaborative meal effort, and “FORM,” which provides service-learning and workshops to educate and train volunteers and area residents.
The facility would allow Kinship to relocate its offices, which are located in leased space at 2610 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr., and its food distribution center at St. Casimir Church, 924 E. Clarke St., to the same facility.
“We don’t have an ideal space to do what we do,” said Noth.
Kinship also operates a 27,000-square-foot farm in Glendale at 4355 N. Port Washington Rd. It is used to grow approximately 12,000 pounds of produce annually and would remain.
Until 2022, the organization was known as Riverwest Food Pantry. As Urban Milwaukee previously reported, at the time of the name change Kinship reported providing approximately 300,000 pounds of food annually to more than 15,000 Milwaukee residents. The organization was founded in 1979 as a program of the East Side Housing Action Committee and a St. Casimir’s ministry. It spun off as an independent 501(c)(3) organization in 2013.
HACM intends to sell the property for $590,000, its appraised value. HACM is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to sell the property at “fair market value,” Simon said.
The HACM board endorsed pursuing the sale, which includes a necessary zoning change. The City Plan Commission will consider the rezoning request at its meeting Monday, Nov. 11. The request will ultimately go before the Common Council. The Board of Zoning Appeals will need to grant special use approval for what is being designated a “social service facility.”
HGA is leading the project’s design.
Kinship is expected to need to fundraise for the proposal’s development.
Renderings, Site Plan and Photos
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Great news! Kinship hits a homer with this development!