The Milwaukee hostel that closed after just one year in business because of the COVID-19 pandemic will be repurposed into affordable housing.
Officials involved in the creative endeavor hope to have it operational by spring, able to house about a dozen people.
The Cream City Hostel marked its grand opening in 2019, becoming the first hostel in Milwaukee. Although the pandemic posed an unprecedented challenge to the hostel, a group of investors will repurpose the building.
Juli Kaufmann of RiverBee LLC explained to the Milwaukee Courier that the group of more than 40 investors are “neighbors and we care about the community.”
"It's a way to cut costs by having shared living spaces, shared bedrooms, communal spaces such as that great backyard,” Jerad Tonn, RiverBee LLC investor, told Fox 6. “I think it's needed especially coming out of the pandemic.”
“It's all about the effort of finding those first residents, those first community members,” Tonn continued. “This was a foreclosed building for so long, it saw life and it's going to see even more life going forward, and we are going to make sure that happens.”
“We’re not going to have another vacant building,” he added to the Courier. “It keeps a key intersection more vibrant.”
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