A long-vacant corner building on Milwaukee's Near South Side is about to become a neighborhood coffee shop. New Halo Cafe is planned for the commercial storefront at 564 W. Rogers St., attached to a residential parcel at 1978 S. 6th St. that sat blighted for years before an emerging local developer bought it from the city.
From Tax Foreclosure to Café Build-Out
Developer Crystal Lemmer purchased the corner parcel at 1978 S. 6th St. from the City of Milwaukee for $5,000 in early 2025, after the city had acquired the property through tax foreclosure in late 2023, according to Urban Milwaukee. The parcel includes both a single-family house and a small commercial shopfront, and Lemmer's plan calls for renovating the house first and using its rental income toward renovation of the commercial property as part of the roughly $125,000 development project establishing New Halo Cafe, per the same outlet's reporting. As reported by Urban Milwaukee, the storefront formerly housed a bodega, and Milwaukee Common Council President José G. Pérez described the building as having been blighted for a while.
Lemmer did not respond to requests for comment before publication, the outlet noted. She is an emerging developer who graduated in 2024 from Milwaukee's Associates in Commercial Real Estate (ACRE) program, a 26-week training initiative founded in 2004 to train people of color for careers in commercial real estate development and management, with the program administered by LISC Milwaukee in partnership with Marquette University, MSOE, and UW-Milwaukee. Outside her real estate work, Lemmer serves as managing director of IT operations at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design and is a board member of Cream City South Community Development Corporation.
A Multi-Year Bet on One Block
Lemmer's interest in the block predates the café plan. She purchased the neighboring vacant lot at 1979 S. 5th Pl. in 2022 for $11,000, expanding her footprint on the same South Side block; that lot directly borders the eastern edge of the 1978 S. 6th St. parcel. The Milwaukee Common Council unanimously approved the land disposition sale of the 6th Street property to Lemmer on March 4, 2025, after a hearing before the Zoning, Neighborhoods & Development Committee. The property carries Local Business 2 zoning.
New Halo Cafe is planned for the commercial building at 564 W. Rogers St., on the corner parcel at 1978 S. 6th St. within the Historic Mitchell Street neighborhood, an area that runs between W. Greenfield Avenue and W. Becher Street, and S. 5th and S. 16th Streets. Plans call for renovations to the interior seating area, bathroom, and preparation space, with the café expected to employ three people. According to its application, the business is described as a welcoming environment for individuals, families, students, and professionals to gather, work, and connect.
Pastries, Coffee and Pending Licenses
The menu is expected to include pastries, doughnuts, bread, coffee, espresso drinks, teas, and other specialty beverages, with proposed hours running 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Licenses for the café remain pending before the Milwaukee Common Council, and the business is expected to brighten a street in the Historic Mitchell Street neighborhood once it opens.
The Historic Mitchell Street Business Improvement District is a commercial corridor. A city market study found that Near South Side residents spend roughly $364 million more each year on retail goods and services outside their neighborhood than local merchants generate, pointing to significant unmet demand for food service and retail space in the area.
Part of a Wider South Side Revival
New Halo Cafe's arrival fits into a broader pattern of reinvestment along the corridor. In July 2026, city officials committed funding to preserve and convert the vacant Art Deco former Grand department store building at 1101-1113 W. Historic Mitchell St. into affordable apartments and ground-floor commercial space, a project Hoodline covered in Mitchell St. preservation win. Then, in September 2026, Hoodline reported that Pink Umbrella Theater had bought its Historic Mitchell Street building earlier in the year, taken full occupancy on June 1, and held a ribbon-cutting on June 7, adding another community-focused venue to the strip, as detailed in its report on the theater's accessible new home. Together with New Halo Cafe, those projects suggest a corridor once defined by vacancy is slowly filling back in.
