Beyond Yoga Opens Community Studio in Vacant South Milwaukee Space

A once-vacant building on Milwaukee Avenue in South Milwaukee is now Beyond Yoga, a community-focused studio built with help from the city’s Bucyrus New Business Grant Program. The project turned empty retail space into an active first-floor business and gave founder Michelle Marrero a foothold on a block where South Milwaukee wants more doors open, lights on, and people coming through.

The grant program is aimed at exactly that kind of reuse. The City of South Milwaukee says approved businesses can receive one-time $5,000 grants when they open in vacant commercial space on Milwaukee Avenue between the 800 and 1300 blocks. Eligible spaces must be first-floor storefronts larger than 500 square feet, open to the public at least 25 hours a week, and vacant for at least 60 days. City officials say the broader Bucyrus Foundation grant programs were created to encourage commercial redevelopment, attract and retain businesses, and assist nonprofit community uses.

Beyond Yoga’s footprint matters because it is not just another fitness tenant filling a lease. The studio is also tied to a Marquette University research partnership centered on women veterans, a project titled Behavioral Coaching to Increase Engagement in Yoga Among Women Veterans with PTSD. The Athletic and Human Performance Research Center says the study will test a behavioral coaching intervention designed to improve retention in a 12-session, community-based yoga program for women veterans with PTSD.

The project team includes Dr. Jacklynn Fitzgerald, Dr. Rachel Bollaert, Dr. Meghan Bennett of the Clement J. Zablocki Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and Marrero as the community partner through Beyond Yoga, LLC. Marrero said participants take 12 yoga classes, and about half also receive behavior-change coaching, making the studio part wellness space, part support setting, and part research site.

That combination gives the storefront a role larger than a typical studio opening. Marquette has previously framed related work around whether yoga can help improve PTSD symptoms for U.S. combat veterans, and the South Milwaukee project extends that academic interest into a neighborhood setting. Marrero has said she wants the space to help people slow down and reconnect with themselves, their breath, their minds, and their bodies, while also supporting the kind of local revival that is bringing new small businesses back to Milwaukee Avenue.