Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy plans new school building in Milwaukee's Bronzeville area

Rory Linnane, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
·2 min read
Howard Fuller, center, is pictured with students at Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy, which he helped found.
Howard Fuller, center, is pictured with students at Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy, which he helped found.

Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy filed plans Thursday to construct a new building on Vel Phillips and Garfield avenues, just south of North Avenue where there's currently a parking lot and vacant storage buildings.

The charter school is seeking approval from the city's Board of Zoning Appeals for the new building, which would serve about 500 students.

The location is in the Bronzeville area and about four miles southeast from the school's current location, at Capitol Drive and 29th Street, where about 325 high school students were enrolled for this school year, according to state data.

Calls to the school about the project were not immediately returned Friday.

The new building for Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy would be on the northeast corner of Vel Phillips and Garfield Avenues, as shown on Google Maps.
The new building for Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy would be on the northeast corner of Vel Phillips and Garfield Avenues, as shown on Google Maps.

The building would be at least four stories high, according to documents filed with the city, with part of the fourth level being an outdoor space.

The surrounding Bronzeville neighborhood is in the midst of a series of commercial developments tied to the visual arts, including the Bronzeville Center for the Arts.

The site is across from Milwaukee Public Schools' former Garfield Avenue Elementary School, which was targeted for renovation into apartments. The closest operating MPS school is Dr. George W. Carver Academy of Mathematics and Science, about five blocks away on W. Brown and N. 1st Streets.

More: A Christian academy will move into a former MPS school as the district competes for students

Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy school was founded in 2004 by a group of pastors alongside Howard Fuller, a former MPS superintendent and longtime education activist, who now holds the title of Board Chair Emeritus.

Charter schools, which are given more flexibilities than traditional public schools, can be independently run but must be approved by a public board. Most are approved by school boards but in Milwaukee, charter schools can also be approved by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee or, in the Collegiate Academy's case, the city's Charter School Review Committee.

The school focuses on enrolling its graduates in higher education. Last year, about 88% of Fuller graduates enrolled in a four-year college and about 12% in two-year programs, according to state data.

The earliest the Board of Zoning Appeals could consider the proposal is June 30, city officials said.

Contact Rory Linnane at rory.linnane@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @RoryLinnane. 

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy plans new building in Bronzeville