Whitefish Bay Affordable Housing Development Opens to Huge Demand

Brian Spoerl cuts the ribbon for The Hampton, alongside County Executive David Crowley (right) and Sup. Anne O’Connor (right). Photo taken May 29, 2026 by Graham Kilmer.

As it turns out, there is huge demand for affordable housing in Milwaukee’s suburbs.

Tenants will start moving into a once-controversial affordable housing project in the Village of Whitefish Bay this weekend. The new three-story, 17-unit apartment building, called The Hampton and located at 4800-4818 N. Santa Monica Blvd., received its occupancy permit Thursday.

The developer, Brian Spoerl of Spoerl Commercial, joined county and state officials to celebrate the first affordable housing project in the village and cut the ribbon on the building, which once faced significant community pushback and almost wasn’t built.

The building sits at the northeast corner of N. Santa Monica Boulevard and E. Hampton Road. In 2024, the site was occupied by a squat, vacant building and a few nearby houses. Spoerl wanted to develop housing there and secured financing from the county to support affordable housing in the suburbs.

The building was designed to comply with village zoning and only needed approval for permitting. But it hit a roadblock when the village’s Architectural Review Commission (ARC) denied the permits for the project. Spoerl eventually secured approval on appeal following pushback from the community.

Speaking at the ribbon-cutting Thursday, Spoerl credited County Executive David Crowley with making the project possible.

“[County] Executive Crowley’s economic mobility to the suburbs funding has been a game changer, and not only for this project, but for many projects throughout Milwaukee County,” Spoerl said. “His team provided $3.088 million for this project, which is roughly half our total project costs. Simply put, this project would not have happened without these funds, and without County Executive Crowley’s vision for affordable housing throughout the county.”

Since taking office in 2020, Crowley’s administration has pushed forward affordable housing projects in suburbs across the county. The goal is to create more opportunities for families to live where they choose. The Hampton has already proven a highly sought-after housing option. Spoerl said the project quickly received more than 350 applications.

Crowley has repeatedly hammered the idea that housing is critical to health,  that the county has no hope of achieving his administration’s strategic vision — becoming the healthiest county in Wisconsin by achieving racial equity — without it.

“You cannot have a healthy lifestyle if you don’t know where you’re going to lay your head down at night,” Crowley said. “Since I’ve been elected, we have invested nearly $50 million in affordable housing all across Milwaukee County, because we know that safe, stable homes, they help individuals, they help our families, they help to uplift communities all across our state, and it gives them an opportunity to focus on the other things that matter.”

Along with the county funding, the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA) also provided $1.16 million for the project. Maria Watts, WHEDA senior business and community engagement officer, complimented Spoerl and the design team from Zimmerman Architectural Studios, saying, “This does not look like an affordable [building], it looks totally like market rate.”

Crowley, too, said it was a pleasure to see the finished product, especially considering the difficult approval process.

“I’m gonna be really candid. It was not easy to get to this point,” said Sup. Anne O’Connor, who represents the area on the county board, “and it opened up a lot of really challenging discussions, not only in Whitefish Bay, but on the North Shore.”

The village has a history, O’Connor said, of exclusionary zoning, discriminatory lending practices and restrictive covenants that prevented racial integration. Today, the market cannot produce housing that is affordable without significant support from the public sector, she said.

“I think this is an amazing, gorgeous building, and we should all be so lucky to have something like this in our community,” she said.

The Hampton

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