The idea of converting the maze-like former Carleton School and its grounds, 4116 W. Silver Spring Dr., into a residential development is back.
The school was closed in 2009 and though there had been a deal for the national chain of Rocketship charter schools to buy the building and open there, that never happened and there’s been talk of apartments at the site on and off for more than five years now.
The development, called Historic Patterson Place, would put 30 affordable apartments into the former school building, which was erected in a number of phases over the years, creating some very odd junctions, including one small landing where four staircases converge.
Another 18 townhouses would be built on the grounds, some of which had previously held hoop houses for the now defunct Growing Power.
The original 2019 proposal called for 30 apartments and 30 townhomes, but the latter number was shaved back to 18 after community meetings with neighbors. Then Covid arrived and slowed the whole process down.
According to a report in the Journal Sentinel, the current $21.1 million development plan would use $970,000 in city financing from a new tax incremental financing district.
The TIF requires Common Council approval. It will first go to the Redevelopment Authority board for a public hearing on June 12.
The developers – AndersonWebb LLC and the Wisconsin Redevelopment LLC – would also use historic tax credits and federal affordable housing tax credits, which require that 85 percent of the units have below-market rents for tenants earning less than 60% of the median income for the area.
Assuming the developers would seek both state and federal historic tax credits, those would require historic designation by the National Park Service and by the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Though the neighborhood is heavily urban today, in 1923 and even as late as 1935, newspapers referred to Carleton School District No. 3 (as it was originally called) as a “rural school.”
The earliest part of the building went up in 1917, but it was a very small, one-story portion of the complex that exists today.
Ten years later, the building was expanded to the north.
To the north of that are two separate wings that were added in 1932 (east) and 1936 (west) leaving a weird narrow courtyard in between.
Both those wings were expanded further north in 1950, or at least there were plans to expand them. While they don't exist now, it's difficult to tell if they ever did.
The 1932 addition is a two-story brick and tile building designed by architect John Topzant. I found no architect attributions for the 1917, 1927, 1936 and 1950 sections.
A large 1940 expansion, likely from the pen of architect Charles Smith, contained 10 rooms (mostly on a new second floor above the 1917 and ‘27 sections – and a combination gym and auditorium with space for 600 on the east end of the original building, along with two rooms, one with an apse, on the west side.
That apse has a cool curving iron staircase fire escape outside.
That addition – which pretty much gives us the facade of the building we see today – opened in June 1941 and although it was originally estimated to cost $112,000, it ended up running to $125,000.
The exterior was described in a newspaper tidbit at the time as “colonial” with red brick and limestone, though it is in fact Art Deco albeit with some features that might be read as colonial.
“The school is clad in brick with limestone trim,” notes the WHS Architectural Inventory. “The building displays a combination of character-defining elements from several architectural styles, include Art Deco-style window bays, glass block, shallow vertical ornamentation, and shallow fluted pilasters; and ‘Minimal Georgian’-style multi-light windows, a classically-influenced nameplate/window composition at the main entrance, small octagonal inset panels, and classically-detailed door surrounds at side entrances, complete with pulvinated frieze, corbels, and Regency-style copper roofs.
“As of 2019, the building is one of fewer than a dozen Milwaukee Public Schools to retain its original windows.”
While some sources say the school was built by the WPA, that’s only partially true.
The WPA built that very prominent Deco addition in 1940-1, at the same time it was busily working on projects around the area.
Among the work it was doing concurrently was the construction of the pedestrian tunnel at Hubbard Park, beautifying parks, grading 14.5 miles of Milwaukee streets, paving 22.6 miles of sidewalks and repairing 52 miles of curbs and gutters.
WPA workers also demolished more than $2 million worth of “old buildings” for the widening of Kilbourn Avenue into the boulevard that it is today.
In 1948, the City of Milwaukee annexed the part of the Town of Granville in which Carleton was located and MPS began running the school on July 1 of that year.
Milwaukee grew across the decades of the 20th century via annexation and many MPS schools were absorbed into the district during this process, including other schools in Granville, as well as schools from North Milwaukee, the Town of Greenfield, the Town of Wauwatosa and the Town of Lake.
As all annexations seemed to do, this one sparked some controversy over money.
In June 1949 there were numerous discussions about the fact that Milwaukee was compelled to pay $210,000 for the school and its grounds, with $150,000 of that going to the part of the district that was not annexed so that it could repay outstanding bonds and the remainder of a state loan, along with some other costs.
However, that was sorted and a number of generations of Milwaukeeans attended Carleton – including an especially lucky one that was there when Tetzlaff Frozen Custard was located across the street.
(In fact, a number of Tetzlaffs appear to have attended Carleton.)
The Milwaukee Board of School Directors unanimously approved closing Carleton School in December 2008 and the building closed at the end of the school year. It has been vacant ever since.
I visited a couple times – many years ago now (Will Allen’s city of hoop houses was still in place and extremely active at that time) – and it still seemed to be mostly in good shape, though all those additions were not lined up very well, creating an unusual layout.
It could make for an interesting apartment building, as it joins the growing rank of former public schools converted to housing for seniors, veterans and others, like the ones at 37th Street, McKinley, 5th Street/Isaac Coggs, Garfield, 20th Street/Wheatley, Mound Street, Custer/Edison, Peckham/Jackie Robinson and others.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
