St. Francis, WI

St. Francis began as farmland. The Encyclopedia of Milwaukee says farms took up the high ground above marshy Milwaukee around 1834, when the area was part of the Town of Lake.

The power plant shaped the city's politics. The Lakeside Power Plant was completed in 1921 on the lakeshore, and the same entry says its tax revenue is why the rest of the Town of Lake fought every attempt to split St. Francis off in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Incorporation finally passed on July 24, 1951, when 1,069 people voted for it, according to the city's history page, and the Encyclopedia puts the new city's population at 6,181. Changes in state law later cut the plant's tax value to the city, and the plant was dismantled in the 1990s, per the city's own 2017 development report.

Two fights over infrastructure followed. In the 1960s residents blocked a proposed expansion of General Mitchell International Airport, which borders the city, though they kept complaining about noise. They also stopped a freeway through the city, then accepted the Lake Parkway, a four-lane road with a lower speed limit and landscaping, which opened in 1999 and linked the Hoan Bridge to the airport. The Encyclopedia credits the parkway with spurring investment in new apartments and condominiums, which is the story of the city's lakefront ever since.

St. Francis is one of the smallest suburbs in Milwaukee County. The Census Bureau's 2024 Gazetteer puts its land area at 2.56 square miles. Milwaukee's Bay View neighborhood is to the north and west, Cudahy to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, and Mitchell Airport along the southwest, according to Wikipedia and the city. The Wisconsin DOR's 2025 report lists a population of 9,023.

South Lake Drive is the lakefront road. The Census Bureau's geocoder places the 3700, 4100 and 4200 blocks of South Lake Drive inside St. Francis, and those are the addresses of the city's three big lakefront buildings. The same road continues south into Cudahy. Howard Avenue, where the city's Civic Center opened in 2014, is the main east-west street, and I-794 and the Lake Parkway give the city a fast link to downtown.

The housing here is more apartment and condo than most suburbs. The 2020-2024 Census ACS counts 5,495 homes. Only 2,472, about 45%, are single-family detached, while 1,706, about 31%, are in buildings of 20 or more units. Of the 5,197 occupied homes, 2,835, about 55%, are owner-occupied. The ACS median gross rent is $1,004 a month, with a wide margin.

Mail can mislead. St. Francis shares much of its identity with Bay View, and some listings and maps blur the two. Its ZIP code is 53235, but always confirm the municipality on the tax bill, because the line with Milwaukee sets the tax rate, the zoning and the school district.

St. Francis splits cleanly into two markets. East of South Lake Drive is the lakefront, almost all of it large buildings. West of it are the city's houses, most of them modest postwar homes.

The lakefront is new. The city's 2017 development report says properties east of South Lake Drive are zoned Planned Development, and most of the large parcels there came open only because the Lakeside Power Plant closed. Today that strip holds three projects I cover in detail below: The Landing at Park Shore condominiums at 4100 South Lake Drive, 42 Hundred on the Lake apartments at 4200 South Lake Drive, and The Bluffs on Lake apartments under construction at 3700 South Lake Drive. If you want to own on the water in St. Francis, you are almost certainly buying a condo.

West of Lake Drive is the older city. The 2020-2024 ACS counts 1,306 homes built in the 1950s, the biggest single decade, plus 566 from the 1940s and 756 from 1939 or earlier. Those are the bungalows, Cape Cods and ranches on the grid streets toward Kinnickinnic Avenue and the airport. Most are three bedrooms or fewer: the ACS counts 1,771 three-bedroom homes and only 358 with four or more.

Near the Cudahy line, St. Francis High School and the school district offices sit just west of the 4200 block of Lake Drive.

Most of what is new on the St. Francis lakefront stands on land the Lakeside Power Plant used to hold. The city's 2017 development report says its Tax Incremental District 5 "includes the lake front and the former WE Energies 'Lakeside Power Plant' property dismantled in the 1990's." It then lists the remaining plant parcels one by one.

The southern piece is 4200 South Lake Drive, a 7.5-acre site the report describes as "only available due to the closure of the former WE Energies 'Lakeside' power plant," with the Oak Leaf Trail between it and the lake. That became 42 Hundred on the Lake, a 236-unit apartment building that opened in 2021, as Patch reported in July of that year, quoting rents from about $1,200 to over $3,300 at opening.

The northern piece was three parcels totaling about 21.6 acres, which the 2017 report called "the northern most portion of the former WE Energies 'Lakeside' power plant site" with "a commanding view of the downtown Milwaukee skyline." It added that two of the lots "maintain some development constraints based on the actual location of the power plant." In September 2025, M&R Development and Campbell Capital Group began building The Bluffs on Lake on a 21-acre site at 3700 South Lake Drive, according to the developer's release: 278 apartments in four- and five-story buildings on the bluff, with 8,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and first units targeted for late 2026. The acreage and location match the report's northern parcels.

A third piece went to the city. The report says St. Francis bought a 5.56-acre site at Norwich and Kinnickinnic Avenues "as a part of the former WE Energies 'Lakeside' power plant site," with part of the old railway trestle to the plant still in the woods on its north edge.

For a buyer, the practical point is simple. This is former industrial land, so for any building or lot on it, ask the seller or the association for the environmental reports and any deed restrictions, the same way you would on any redeveloped site. The city's 2017 report also set a 150-foot height limit on these Tax Incremental District 5 parcels.

If you want to own on the lake in St. Francis, the main door is The Landing at Park Shore, and in 2026 it became regional news. In June 2025, its developers, Emem Group and Maharani, announced an 89-unit "A-Wing" to be built on a vacant foundation next to the complex's three existing wings at 4100 South Lake Drive, according to their release. The release said list prices would run from $250,000 to $800,000 for one-, two- and three-bedroom units, some with dens, balconies and lake views, and that the existing wings were built about 20 years earlier.

By September 2026 it had momentum. Spectrum News reported that it is the first condominium complex built in Milwaukee County in nearly 20 years, that more than half of the 89 units already had accepted offers before construction, with 47 buyers signed, and that move-in was expected the following summer. The project's website lists a pool and spa, fitness room and great room, and says the association fee includes water.

Here is the honest price picture. St. Francis is a lakefront condo and rental market, not a $2 million house market. On October 5, 2026, the 20 highest-priced of 175 Lake Michigan listings in Milwaukee County on LakeHouse.com included none in St. Francis. The 2020-2024 ACS counted 186 owner homes valued at $500,000 to $749,999, with a very wide margin, and none above $750,000. The $800,000 top of The Landing's announced range is the high end of what I could find in public sources.

Coming from Lake County, Illinois, the closest comparison is a lakefront condo building on the Illinois shore: the water and the view, a building to manage the shoreline, and an association budget to read closely. For a condo here, I'd ask for the association's reserve study, the last two years of minutes, the special assessment history and the rules on rentals before writing an offer.

St. Francis is a city, so its own zoning governs, and Milwaukee County has no shoreland zoning role here. The current ordinance is Chapter 455 of the city code, which replaced the old code in a comprehensive rezoning adopted in October 2004, as the city's 2017 development report notes. Properties east of South Lake Drive are zoned Planned Development, which means each large lakefront project is approved by the Common Council as its own plan after a public hearing rather than built to a standard district's rules.

That is why the lakefront looks the way it does, and why each new proposal becomes a public debate. The 2017 report set a 150-foot height limit on the Tax Incremental District 5 parcels, including the Triangle, so the current fight over a 13-story tower sits inside that limit.

State law sets the floor for wetlands. Under Wis. Stat. 62.231, every Wisconsin city must zone unfilled shoreland wetlands of 5 acres or more that appear on the state's wetland maps. Any work on the shore itself, such as armoring the toe of the bluff, generally needs a permit from the Wisconsin DNR.

The bluff is the physical issue. Much of the St. Francis lakefront is a bluff above the water, which is why The Bluffs on Lake took the name. The Oak Leaf Trail runs between the 4200 South Lake Drive site and the lake. Lake Michigan bluffs along this shore are actively eroding, as the 2026 fight over the bluff at Sheridan Park in Cudahy, just to the south, shows. For a condo, the association should be able to tell you who owns the slope, whether there is a shoreline engineering study, and what the reserve says about it.

I could not read the full text of Chapter 455 for this guide, because the online code host blocked automated access. Before you buy a house where an addition, garage or second unit matters, confirm the rules with the city's building inspector.

St. Francis prices were flat over the last year. Zillow's home value index put the typical St. Francis home at $286,511 in August 2026, down 0.4% from $287,667 a year earlier. The 53235 ZIP code index was $286,119. Zillow's top-tier index, the upper third of homes, was $350,022, down 0.9%. Those are estimates for all homes, condos included.

For context, the same Zillow data had the typical home in August 2026 at $290,985 in Cudahy, which rose 5.5% over the year, $307,215 in South Milwaukee, $414,503 in Oak Creek and $227,629 in the City of Milwaukee. St. Francis and Cudahy are priced almost the same today; the difference is that St. Francis has more condos and apartments and Cudahy more single-family houses and duplexes.

The census fills in the stock. The 2020-2024 ACS puts the median value of owner-occupied homes at $234,500, with a margin of about $18,600. Survey values lag the market, so read that as a floor. Unlike most inner suburbs, St. Francis has a real share of new housing: 1,221 homes, about 22%, were built in 2000 or later, almost all of them the lakefront condos and apartments.

Rent is a big part of this market. Zillow's rent index for 53235 was $1,444 a month in August 2026, up about 4.6% from $1,380 a year earlier, and the two new lakefront rental buildings will add 514 units between them. That supply is part of why a condo owner here should expect real rental competition if they ever lease the unit out.

I'm not using MLS statistics on this page. Wisconsin sold data comes through a different MLS than the Illinois one I work in, and in a city this small, building-by-building condo sales are the only numbers worth using for a specific unit.

Coming from Lake County, Illinois, the tax bill is the first thing people compare, and St. Francis is the most expensive city on the south shore by this measure. The DOR's 2025 report, for taxes levied in 2025 and collected in 2026, shows $25,033,191 in total property tax on $1,068,599,900 of full value in the city. That is a gross rate of $23.43 per $1,000 of full value and an effective rate of $21.72 after the state school levy credit.

The assessment level is close to market. The same report shows St. Francis assessments at 98% of full value in 2025, so the rate printed on a bill is only a little higher than the full-value rate, about $22.16 per $1,000 of assessed value on an effective basis, by my arithmetic.

Part of the reason for the high rate is the development itself. The DOR figures show about 17% of the city's full value, roughly $182 million by my arithmetic, sitting inside tax incremental districts, where the new value pays down the cost of development before it reaches the general tax base. The lakefront buildings sit inside TID 5. When those districts close, that value will help spread the levy; until then, the rest of the city carries more of it.

The school piece is one district. All of St. Francis is in the St. Francis School District, and the Department of Public Instruction's 2025-26 rate for it is 9.94 per $1,000, one of the higher school rates in the county.

Here is a worked example. A $300,000 St. Francis home at the 2025 effective rate of $21.72 per $1,000 would carry about $6,516 a year, and a $500,000 lakefront condo about $10,860. At Ownwell's Lake County, Illinois median effective rate of 2.61% (updated April 2026), the same values would carry about $7,830 and $13,050. Nearby, the DOR's 2025 effective rates were $16.80 in Cudahy, $15.75 in South Milwaukee, $15.87 in Oak Creek and $20.78 in the City of Milwaukee.

Two state credits come off the bill. The lottery and gaming credit applies only to a Wisconsin resident's primary residence and for 2025-26 is figured on up to $27,000 of value at the school tax rate, roughly $270 here by my arithmetic. The first dollar credit, figured on up to $9,000 of value, applies to every improved parcel. Wisconsin's real estate transfer fee is $0.30 per $100 of value, or $900 on a $300,000 sale.

This is general information, not tax advice. Your actual bill depends on the parcel, the assessment and the credits you qualify for. For a condo, add the association fee to the comparison, because it often covers costs a house owner pays separately.

The biggest open question in St. Francis is the Triangle. The city's 2017 development report describes it as a 12.67-acre parcel north of East Howard Avenue and west of South Lake Drive, with lake views, inside the Lake Shore Catalytic District, which then called for small-scale specialty retail on the ground floor and offices above.

The current plan is much bigger. In August 2025, BizTimes reported that Cream City Real Estate Investments, an affiliate of KGI Construction Group, was in talks to buy the 13-acre lot bounded by Lake Drive, Packard Avenue and Howard Avenue from the city. Its proposal had a 13-story mass timber apartment tower with 170 units, a five-story building with 130 units, and retail buildings for a drive-through coffee shop, a sports bar and a medical office. A planned new library was dropped after residents objected.

Residents organized against it. TMJ4 reported in June 2026 that the city had received an initial Planned Unit Development application for two apartment buildings totaling 300 units and about 22,500 square feet of retail, and that the city points to its comprehensive plan's call for mixed-use and high-quality multifamily development. A group called Community for the Triangle had gathered more than 1,000 petition signatures by July, per Spectrum News. In September 2026, WISN reported renewed opposition to a version still described at 13 stories, and the mayor said developing the lot, vacant for decades, was long overdue. The Business Journals reported in late August that the developer had returned with plans for 310 apartments and a grocery store.

The other projects are further along. The Bluffs on Lake is set to deliver its first units in late 2026, and The Landing's 89 condos were expected to be ready for move-in the following summer. That puts roughly 600 new homes on or near the lakefront within a couple of years if the Triangle goes ahead.

For a buyer, the Triangle matters most if you are looking at a condo or house with a view across it, or on Packard and Howard. A 13-story building would change views and traffic on those blocks; a smaller retail plan would not. I would watch the city's Plan Commission and Common Council packets before committing on a nearby address.

All of St. Francis is in the St. Francis School District, which the DOR's tax report shows covers the city and no other municipality. It is small: three schools and an enrollment of 1,106 on the 2024-25 report card.

If schools are deciding between two south shore cities, compare the report card for each school, not just the district number, and visit.

Mitchell Airport touches St. Francis to the southwest, and the city has argued with it for decades. The Encyclopedia of Milwaukee records that residents blocked a proposed airport expansion in the 1960s and then complained about noise.

The formal help has ended. Mitchell's noise management page says Milwaukee County's Airport Area Noise Management Program, which provided sound insulation and related services to more than 500 homes in the cities of Milwaukee, St. Francis, Oak Creek and Cudahy, closed on July 31, 2015, and that the airport now offers a do-it-yourself sound insulation guide.

The upside is access. The terminal is about 4.2 miles and 10 minutes from the center of the city by OpenStreetMap routing (OSRM), free-flow, and the Amtrak station at the airport about 12 minutes. For a lakefront condo, the airport is mostly out of earshot; for a house on the southwest blocks, visit at several times of day before you buy.

St. Francis lives next to Bay View, and most daily life spills across the line. Bay View's main streets, with restaurants, coffee shops and groceries, are about 2.5 miles and 7 minutes from the center of St. Francis by OSRM free-flow routing, and the developer of The Bluffs on Lake pitched exactly that in its 2025 release. Downtown Milwaukee is about 12 minutes away.

The lake is the outdoor anchor. The city's 2017 report says St. Francis has 63 acres of public parkland, 23 of them fronting Lake Michigan, with access to the Milwaukee County Oak Leaf Trail. The trail runs along the lakefront in front of the big buildings and continues south into Cudahy's Sheridan Park and north into Bay View and the City of Milwaukee.

Inside the city, Howard Avenue and Packard Avenue are the commercial streets, with the Civic Center, which houses City Hall, police and fire, on Howard. The newest Triangle proposal adds a grocery store, according to a Business Journals headline from August 2026. For more, see the sibling guides for South Milwaukee, Oak Creek and Greendale.

These are free-flow estimates from OpenStreetMap routing (OSRM), computed in October 2026 from the center of St. Francis. Real trips vary with traffic and season.

Downtown Milwaukee is the easy commute. The Milwaukee Intermodal Station is about 6.1 miles and 12 minutes away by the Lake Parkway, the Hoan Bridge or I-794, and Mitchell Airport's terminal about 4.2 miles and 10 minutes.

From Lake County, Illinois, the drive to Vernon Hills is about 59 miles, roughly 1 hour 15 minutes, and to Lake Forest about 56 miles, roughly 1 hour 10 minutes, by I-94. Downtown Chicago is about 85 miles, roughly 1 hour 50 minutes free-flow, and O'Hare about 82 miles, roughly 2 hours. The Bluffs on Lake's developer put the Illinois line at 35 minutes away.

For rail, the Milwaukee Airport Railroad Station, which Milwaukee Magazine called one of the Midwest's 10 busiest Amtrak depots, is about 4.9 miles and 12 minutes away, with the Hiawatha to Chicago Union Station. Metra's closest station is Kenosha on the Union Pacific North line, about 37 miles and 53 minutes away. A proposed MARK Rail stop in Cudahy, if it is ever built, would be a few minutes south.

For comparison, Lake Geneva is about 48 miles and 1 hour 10 minutes from St. Francis. For a Lake Michigan condo within about an hour and a quarter of Vernon Hills, St. Francis and Cudahy are closer than Milwaukee's North Shore.

The St. Francis Police Department, based at the Civic Center on Howard Avenue, provides police service across the city. I don't characterize the safety of any town or neighborhood. Anyone who wants the data can contact the department or look it up in the FBI's Crime Data Explorer.

It is one of the closest Lake Michigan cities to Lake County, Illinois.

The 2025 effective rate of $21.72 per $1,000 is the highest on the south shore, prices were flat over the last year, and the city is in the middle of a fight over how much more housing the lakefront should get. West of Lake Drive, most houses are modest postwar homes with three bedrooms or fewer.