How Capri Communities Compensated $1 on Land for Its New $29M Group

Capri Communities’ most recent group in Milwaukee’s historic Italian-American community expense $28.9 million — but the selling price tag on the land was just $1.

St. Rita Square, a 118-device developing offering unbiased dwelling, assisted residing and memory care, opened in July 2020 and occupancy is currently at 70% and climbing, Founder and Principal Jim Tarantino explained to Senior Housing News.

The internet site incorporated a long-vacant faculty and convent, and Capri was able to acquire the land for the job from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee for $1.

In return, Capri crafted a new church adjacent to St. Rita’s Sq., which it then bought to the archdiocese for $1. The funding system took problems about growing land expenditures off the table, and authorized Capri to reallocate funds to the design of the local community and the church.

“Basically, [the archdiocese] donated the land, and we donated the church back again to them,” he mentioned.

Dependent in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Capri is the biggest Dairy Point out developer, proprietor and operator by full amount of models. Its portfolio consists of 25 communities, including St. Rita’s Sq..

Tarantino traces the firm’s marriage with the archdiocese back to the mid-1980s and one particular of his earliest developments: an adaptive reuse of a convent into senior housing. That growth, Hedwig Property, is still in procedure.

St. Rita has deep ties to Milwaukee’s Italian local community. A different church, Our Woman of Pompeii, burned down more than 50 a long time in the past and its laity moved to St. Rita — in truth, Tarantino’s relatives was lively in the church.

AG Architecture

But the St. Rita campus suffered from considerable deterioration, the church was in what was at first the gymnasium of the faculty, and the archdiocese generally required to establish a new church on the site, but was never ever able to get previous scheduling phases.

With the land from the archdiocese in location, Capri was capable to blend the campus with two supplemental parcels, razed the structures, and labored with AG Architecture to make a enhancement that harkened to St. Rita’s initial architecture while keeping a present day sense.

The improvement is a testament to the longstanding connection among Capri and the archdiocese, and has proven to be mutually helpful. The two buildings are linked, and the church makes a all set-designed intergenerational environment. Capri assisted the parish with a drive-via spaghetti dinner through the pandemic, which handed out in excess of 800 meals.

“It speaks to the toughness of our romance with the archdiocese,” Tarantino reported.