MADISON, Wis. – After months of uncertainty and a constant stream of meetings with real estate companies, private sellers, and property tours, a group of University of Wisconsin-Madison students has found a home.
The Zoe Bayliss Co-op’s search for a new home began when leaders at the university announced the place they occupied for 67 years on Johnson Street would be torn down to make space for a new Letters and Science building.
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“It feels really gratifying to finally have a place set, have that burden lifted off of our shoulders,” o-op president Angela Maloney said.
Their new fixer-upper on Langdon Street was made possible through a new partnership with the Madison Community Co-op, which is now acting as their primary sponsor.
Maloney said MCC had been in the process of renovating the house for about a year and was looking for another co-op to move in, but that was just one reason their partnership made sense.
“With Madison Community Cooperative, they share in the same values as Zoe Bayliss,” she said. “MCC is not going come to us one day and say, ‘We’re not going to offer you a contract anymore, we want to build something else there.’”
In a statement to News 3 Now, UW Housing Director Jeff Novak said his department worked very diligently over several years with Zoe Bayliss to look for alternative solutions on and off-campus.
He said ultimately UW shared a plan with the group to take some existing space in Phillips Residence Hall and renovate it to meet their needs, which the co-op passed on. That plan also included a 12-month lease instead of the academic year contract, making the overall price higher but less per month.
“That offer would have made our rent prices go up significantly and reduced our capacity significantly and put us in a location that was not central to campus at all,” Maloney said. “So as a community we voted all together and we declined that offer from the university, and then it shifted more to looking to our community.”
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What Maloney said they found was the stability they needed to continue their mission to bring affordable housing to UW students and build their intentionally supportive community of international, LGBTQ+, and first-generation residents.
She also said the co-op will expand to include students outside of UW from Edgewood, Madison College and online schools—something they couldn’t do while under contract with UW.
While they will no longer be officially linked to Zoe Bayliss, Novak said University Housing is working to donate furniture and other equipment to the group’s new home.
“I was pleased to learn that the Zoe Bayliss Cooperative was able to secure housing in the community,” he said. “We have thoroughly appreciated our partnership through the years and we wish them the best of luck.”
The new building on Langdon Street should be open for next year’s fall semester. At the same time, the old building is set to be destroyed.
In addition to their financial relationship with MCC, Zoe Bayliss relies on fundraising and non-profit grants to stay afloat. They are currently raising money to furnish their new building.
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