Bronzeville Center for the Arts Proposed

An emerging nonprofit arts organization is seeking to transform W. North Ave.

Bronzeville Center for the Arts (BCA) was revealed Wednesday as the winner of a competitive bidding process to purchase the former Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) facility at the busy intersection of N. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. and W. North Ave. It intends to develop a “world-class art and cultural center” at the 3.4-acre site.

BCA has conceptual plans to develop a 50,000-square-foot facility at the site, including an auditorium and exhibition space, as well as creating a green space with a sculpture walk.

The announcement comes just weeks after the organization secured city approval to purchase a vacant lot two blocks to the west at 507 W. North Ave. as part of a $1 million plan to develop a gallery space, workshop and office space.

Both projects are now proceeding, with construction to begin this spring on the gallery effort.

“It’s certainly ambitious and that’s the most exciting thing about this,” said board chair Kristen D. Hardy in an interview.

The organization hopes to use the two facilities to host museum-quality exhibitions of visual art, educational programs, hands-on art workshops and performances.

“We look at that as a whole campus,” said Hardy of the potential for the DNR site and gallery space.

If everything goes exactly according to plan, the DNR-site facility would open in 2024. “There’s going to be a lot more community conversations to figure out exactly what the community wants,” she said. “We want to create a shared vision with the community.”

A final project cost would be developed once a more concrete vision is developed.

Hardy, assistant general counsel and assistant secretary at Northwestern Mutual, is a resident of the adjacent Halyard Park neighborhood. “I was really excited to get involved in the community I intentionally planned to live in,” she told Urban Milwaukee. Hardy credits artist Della Wells, the board’s vice chair, with spurring the discussions that led to the organization’s 2019 formation.

The BCA developments build on a number of other efforts underway in the area, including The Griot apartments (which house the soon-to-open America’s Black Holocaust Museum) and ThriveOn King development from the Medical College of Wisconsin and Greater Milwaukee Foundation. A number of other smaller projects are planned within the King Drive corridor.

“They all have a greater vision of raising the profile of Bronzeville and more importantly being something the community gets behind,” said Hardy.

“We have a great opportunity to increase our collective knowledge about African American art, art history and artists,” said artist Mutope Johnson, who also serves as the BCA’s project manager. “The center will be a true destination, celebrating the past while making art of the African diaspora a central focus in the cultural consciousness of present and future generations.”

BCA intends to purchase the DNR site, 2312 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr., for $1.6 million. It would demolish the two-story, 33,995-square office building that was constructed in 1983. A portion of the existing structure was built in 1911 as a Neoclassical-style bank branch. The sale will first be considered by the State Building Commission on Feb. 9 and needs further approval from the State Legislature. A third-party consultant, previously appraised the property for the state at $1.2 million. The property was listed for sale via a request for proposals in October.

The DNR vacated the building in 2021 as part of a relocation to the Menomonee Valley.

A conceptual rendering of the proposed center was produced by Wilson & Ford Design Studios. The rendering, described as non-site specific, shows the facility on a currently vacant site located across the street, kitty-corner from the proposed gallery.

Gallery Rendering + Site Plan

DNR Site