A local developer is cancelling plans to build 125 apartments on a vacant parcel just north of the Mayfair Collection shopping center in Wauwatosa, after city officials said a critical piece of the developer's financing fell through.
The West Allis-based MSP Real Estate had been working with the city to redevelop the parcel on Foundry Way, a triangle of land bordered by Mayfair Collection on the south, Interstate 41 on the northwest and railroad tracks and the Currie Park Golf Cours on the northeast.
On Nov. 11, the Wauwatosa Common Council's Finance Committee met to discuss next steps, but City Finance Director John Ruggini said MSP would be backing out of the project. The developer had been passed over for a $2 million affordable housing grant, leaving "no financial path forward for that project," Ruggini said.
Joe Phillips, a council member representing District 6, asked if the project was "totally dead," and Ruggini confirmed that it was. "We're all very disappointed," Phillips said.
Mayor Dennis McBride, who also attended the meeting, spoke to say that MSP's financing snag underscores how difficult it has become for cities and developers to plan viable housing projects with affordable rents — an argument, he suggested, in favor of the city actively courting such developments and working with developers.
"Afforable housing isn't something that's easy," McBride said. "It's extremely difficult."
Ruggini said city leaders now will start again looking for developers interested in the Foundry Way site, and he hopes that MSP will return to the city with another, viable project proposal in a different part of the city.
