A vivid orange planter, trash bin and bench on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive are parts of the streetscaping efforts that Ray Hill helped organize in her work with the Historic King Drive Business Improvement District 8. (Photo by Meredith Melland)
By Meredith Melland
This story was originally published by Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, where you can find other stories reporting on fifteen city neighborhoods in Milwaukee. Visit milwaukeenns.org.
Raynetta “Ray” Hill first learned about commercial corridors growing up near Villard Avenue and Teutonia in the Old North Milwaukee neighborhood.
“Everything that we needed was in our neighborhood,” Hill said.
As executive director of Historic King Drive Business Improvement District 8, Hill is dedicated to working with local businesses and property owners to improve four and half miles of commercial corridor along Milwaukee’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
She applies her knowledge of Milwaukee, her passion for real estate and community to supporting and strengthening the BID’s businesses, honoring the corridor’s history and creating a welcoming environment.
“She lights up a room when she comes in, and she’s really able to navigate a lot of different rooms, which is important in Milwaukee because it’s such a segregated community,” said Joe’Mar Hooper, Hill’s friend and former coworker.
Finding a path in real estate
Hill describes herself as a hands-on learner who struggled in school settings.
“I think that I had a passion for learning, I just always struggled in the traditional sense,” Hill said.
She studied criminal justice in college before graduating from Concordia University and had interest in becoming an attorney or detective, but having a child and starting a family changed her plans.
After being recruited to work in property management and real estate, Hill used her training in de-escalation, active listening and problem-solving to work with tenants.
“The harder part is really being able to communicate and deal with people and their needs, and particularly when they are disgruntled, right? Because for them, it’s their home, and so that’s the closest you’re going to be [to] somebody is when you’re dealing with them in their home,” Hill said.
While learning more about development in the Associates in Commercial Real Estate, or ACRE, program in 2015-2016, Hill met Deshea Agee, the former executive director of the King Drive BID, who later hired her to be the district’s associate director.
In that role, Hill worked on the application for King Drive to participate in the Wisconsin Main Street Program and become a designated Main Street, a national accreditation for commercial corridors.
Agee, now vice president of Emem Group, remembers Hill working until 11:58 p.m. on the night the application was due to ensure it was thorough.
“We stayed in the office late and . . . it turned out very positive for our whole city and our state,” he said.
Hill later returned to the real estate industry before taking over as executive director of the BID in 2021.
As executive director of Historic King Drive Business Improvement District 8, Raynetta “Ray” Hill works with local businesses and property owners. (Photo by Meredith Melland)
Working with the BID’s businesses
Now in her fifth year as executive director, Hill said she’s less focused on trying to fill vacancies along the corridor than meeting the needs of current tenants and creating an atmosphere that draws people to visit the district.
“How do you experience King Drive in a sense where you don’t want to leave or you want to come back?” Hill said. “And so our focus is really strengthening the existing businesses that are here, and also working on the visual aesthetics of King Drive, for it to be welcoming.”
To do this, the BID office refers small businesses to resources, such as digital advertising and marketing, and it also partnered with Brew City Match to distribute nearly $500,000 to new and longstanding businesses.
The BID’s theme for 2025 is to promote King Drive’s “Pride and Promise,” or honor the history of the district’s businesses while also looking ahead at new projects. Hill said it updates “Standing on the Promise,” the BID’s first theme from 1992 that is visualized in the statue of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. standing on books outside of the office.
“It’s amazing to see the generations that have been connected, not only just to the businesses, but the neighborhoods as well,” she said.
Hill also helped facilitate using $700,000 from an expired tax incremental district to add historical markers, neighborhood banners and vibrant orange benches on King Drive from McKinley to North avenues, which were installed last summer.
“All of the wayfinding signage, the beautiful King signs and the Bronzeville signs and all of that kind of thing happened in this time frame, in this way, because of her,” said Ald. Milele Coggs, who has represented District 6 around King Drive since 2008.
Now, Hill hopes to extend the streetscape work north on King Drive to Burleigh Street.
Community impact and other roles
Both Agee and Hooper described Hill as bubbly, with Hooper adding that she’s youthful, invigorated and loves her family and friends. In her free time, Hill said family and food are her joy.
Coggs said working with Hill is refreshing, as she serves on the Bronzeville Advisory Committee and helps plan Bronzeville Week and the MKE Business Entrepreneurship Summit.
“She has allowed her intellect and creativity to be used to help strengthen King Drive and the Bronzeville District,” Coggs said.
Meredith Melland is the neighborhoods reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.