Milwaukee Developer Kevin Newell

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At 39, Kevin Newell is the founder and CEO of Royal Capital Group. His company is one of Milwaukee’s leaders in urban development, owning and managing buildings in the inner city and also the downtown, including the Five Fifty Lofts across from the Fiserv Forum. 

I met him at one of his newest premiere buildings, ThriveOnKing, rehabilitated out of the old Gimbels-Schusters Building on Martin Luther King Drive near North Avenue. The building, once an arthritic old man, had been injected with a youth serum and was again upright and proud.

The day was nasty gray with cold and snow, but Newell seemed eager to talk about ThriveOnKing, the new complex soon to open. We settled into a couple metal chairs in the work zone and talked.

We are here at the new ThriveOnKing building on ML King Drive. At one time, this building was home to the Gimbels-Schusters Department Store. Take me through the evolution of the Royal Capital renovation and your part in the development.

It started out in 2018 with John Raymond, president of the Medical College of Wisconsin, and his team who wanted to better address the health and social issues. I’m talking about disadvantaged inner city Black neighborhoods. John was looking for a partner to help with the strategy, and we at Royal Capital became that partner. After several discussions, we decided we needed to bring in more stakeholders from the fields of education, healthcare and finance. At the same time, the Greater Milwaukee Foundation was looking to move its headquarters into the inner city to better access the residents. At that point, Royal Capital, the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, and the Medical College of Wisconsin decided to collaborate. We called it ThriveOnKing. Our first goal was to find a location within the inner city. Through extensive research, we found this location here on ML King Drive near North Avenue, the old Gimbels-Schusters building. This location has good access to residential neighborhoods, the downtown and also the Highway 43 freeway.

NOTE: The Co-Chairs of ThriveOn Collaboration are Kenneth Robinson (GMF), Greg Wesley (MCW), and Kevin Newell (Royal Capital). 

Your main two tenants in ThriveOnKing are administrative, the Greater Milwaukee Foundation headquarters and the offices for multiple Medical College of Wisconsin Centers and Institutes. Have these two tenants helped fund the building costs? 

Bringing these two tenants to this disadvantaged neighborhood was important. They have commercial grade leases and significant capital. The total cost of the project is about $150 million. Much of that investment comes from our national partners, but The Greater Milwaukee Foundation has invested $10 million. Royal Capital is the owner and manages the day-to-day operations, leasing and maintenance.

The first floor of the ThriveOnKing building will house your other three tenant partners, Malaika Early Learning Center, JobsWork MKE and Versiti Blood Center of Wisconsin. How do they fit into your plans?

When you look at the most significant disparities in disenfranchised communities, for instance, inner city African Americans, you don’t see early childhood education centers. They seem to be much more frequent in the affluent areas. These are not daycare centers but learning centers for kids from babies to third grade. That is why we are collaborating with the Malaika Early Learning Center. The reason we included the Versiti Blood Center is that blood analysis is crucial to the Black community where sickle cell, diabetes and high blood pressure are issues. As for JobsWork MKE, they can help get folks into self-sustaining jobs and careers including training, and they can also open job opportunities at corporations. 

The Versiti Blood Center of Wisconsin is the exclusive provider of blood and blood products to more than 56 hospitals in 29 counties and collects more than 230,000 units of blood annually.

I understand ThriveOnKing will feature a community gathering space for public art, a wellness space and healthy food options. How will they configure into the facility?

We call that our ‘community front door.’ What you see when you first walk into the complex will be your first impression. We want the public to feel comfortable coming in here. We plan to host everything from a town hall to neighborhood conversations over coffee, and to small nonprofits having board meetings. We want our building to be a gathering place for visitors and area residents, who can shop, talk and dine. That is why we call our central mission, ThriveOnKing Collaboration. I truly believe that collaboration is the new development innovation. 

A key focus area for the ThriveOn Collaboration includes apartments, investing in the availability of affordable housing for residents. I understand you will include approximately 90 units of mixed-income housing for families, seniors and students. How will that break down in terms of demographics? For instance, will the senior housing be separated from student housing? Will families have their own separate location?

We are talking about an area of the city that has witnessed the side effects of displacement. Folks around here are being priced out of the Downtown market. Our residential side will have two, three and four bedroom units, workforce housing for mainly families. We also will have a separate floor for senior housing, and a separate component for housing 200 Medical College of Wisconsin students going through their residency. We have been taking applications for apartments, and we already have waiting lists.

Tell me about the Food Hall. I understand it will offer healthy food access and education to address poor health outcomes in disadvantaged communities.

The Food Hall will offer opportunities for small and local businesses to set up as vendors and gain brand exposure. They should have access to 400 to 500 people walking by on a daily basis, and that includes building employees and students. High density pedestrians walking around, shopping, dining, going to stores and bars. It could be similar to the successful Downtown Third Ward.

In terms of square feet, how big is the ThriveOnKing complex?

Including the adjacent parking structure, about 400,000 square feet.

That is very big

It’s been a challenge, but I love challenges

All in all, how much will the building renovation cost? I’ve read anywhere from $105 million to $150 million.

Right next door, we are building the Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy Charter High School overseen by education pioneer Dr. Howard Fuller. The investor Cory Nettles and his wife, Michelle, have helped raise funding. The school will have an enrollment of about 400 students. If you include that facility, the cost is about $150 million. By this summer or so, we will have completed the ThriveOnKing building and the Howard Fuller Charter High School.

Within a block or two from here, there is the Black Holocaust Museum and eventually the new Bronzeville Art Center. This area could be a destination for a lot of Milwaukee residents and tourists.

You are right. And I’d like to see more of these kinds of complexes in other parts of the central city someday. We have too many naysayers in this city that think we cannot get things done. I try not to listen to them. Zoning is tough. Working through City Hall is tough. Nationally, Milwaukee doesn’t have the greatest reputation for business opportunity because of the negative publicity over our segregation issues. This project has been difficult to get going, but for me, it’s a labor of love. 

You were raised in a difficult environment in the inner city, but you worked hard to achieve success. From what I understand, you have a dedicated commitment to social responsibility. How does that manifest itself in your development projects? I think you call it “color outside the box.”

I tell our Royal Capital team that when we look at a project, we should have passion about the social responsibility. Over 80% of our projects are lifestyle campuses that collaborate with healthcare, mental health professionals, education and nonprofit foundation components. Our goal is to improve the quality of life for folks not just in housing but in other parts of their lives. We are working on opportunities in Texas, Atlanta, Iowa and Michigan. 

On a relevant subject, it seems that many inner city Black families kind of live one day at a time and rarely plan for the long term. This causes a loss of hope for the future, I believe. Cory Nettles, the highly successful Black lawyer, investor and businessman, and also your former advisory chair, grew up in the inner city. He told me that when he was a little kid, he did not even know what a lawyer or businessman did.

As a kid, if you are not inspired, you cannot see your goal, what you might want to become as an adult. Too many kids don’t think about this: “When I am 30 years old, I want to have a good job or business, have a wife and family, a house and a car.” Too often, they are living in households that have too many naysayers.

Are you conscious of DEI when you plan a project?

Yes, in development projects, I am aware of diversity, equity and inclusion discussions. My feeling is this: I’m not here to change hearts. I’m here to change policies because policy is tied into the action of racism. Heart is emotion. Policy is racism.