Project team members and public officials gathered Thursday afternoon to celebrate breaking ground on a 197-unit workforce housing development in University Research Park on Madison’s west side — a project six years in the making.
The $65 million development, called Element Collective, is located on Element Way along the new, east-west bus rapid transit (BRT) route and close to major employers, including Exact Sciences, Element Labs and Thermo Fisher Scientific. It’s the first ground-up development in Madison for Milwaukee-based luxury apartment developer Mandel Group. Element Collective is slated to be move-in ready by summer 2027, Mandel Group senior partner Bob Monnat told In Business Madison.
Element Collective will rent to tenants who earn between 30% and 80% of Dane County’s median household income. Rather than targeting the luxury market Mandel Group typically caters to, Monnat said, the company hopes to address the housing needs of the “missing middle” of workers, including police, firefighters, nurses and teachers.
“There’s been this huge gap between luxury and affordable apartments,” he said. “Affordable housing is for the most economically distressed, and, with the luxury market, you have to have a really good income to pay for that. So, there are all of these people who make the world go ‘round, and they can’t afford to live anywhere.”…