Opportunity Center Releases Designs, Announces $5 Million Gift

Plans to develop a major urban athletic center in Milwaukee continue to advance.

The partners behind The Opportunity Center first announced their plans last year to develop an $80 million, universally-accessible sports complex. The complex is intended to serve people of all ages, abilities, backgrounds and incomes with an indoor track, field and pool.

On Wednesday, partners Frank Cumberbatch and Damian Buchman released new renderings of the proposed facility and announced that current board chair David Cooks will serve as CEO. Bader Philanthropies is providing a $5 million gift to advance the project.

Cooks is a Milwaukee native that played high school basketball before experiencing a spinal aneurysm. He is now confined to a wheelchair as a “T-6 paraplegic.” After earning a finance-focused master’s in business administration from Duke University and serving on basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski‘s staff, Cooks has coached basketball locally, worked in finance, given motivational speeches and authored a motivational book.

Kahler Slater is providing conceptual renderings for the project, which would be located on a 22-acre site along N. Green Bay Ave. just north of W. Capitol Dr. and west of Interstate 43.

In addition to athletic space, the facility would also include classroom space and other meeting rooms to provide educational support and mentorship.

“We’re going to supplement what kids are involved in during the school year,” said Cooks in a statement. “The Opportunity Center will serve the whole person, not just serve to develop athletes. Ideally, we’d love to see people of all abilities from Milwaukee and the surrounding municipalities of Whitefish Bay, Shorewood and Glendale running around a 300-meter track. I see young children, disabled veterans and all races being active together, and having interactions you do not see anywhere else in our community.”

The facility is also designed to grab a share of the “sports tourism” market, which is intended to help sustain its operation by drawing youth, college and national events. The indoor, 300-meter track and field facility is billed as “the only urban, universally inclusive, non-university-based track in the country.”

“Franklin and I have both experienced the transformational impact that belonging to an athletic community can have on a child’s trajectory in life,” said Buchman, who founded The Ability Center organization and has worked on accessibility projects across the region. “We see a tremendous opportunity to replicate this experience for thousands of young people in our community that are facing tough odds, and we know it can inspire them to greatness too.”

Buchman is an avid wheelchair basketball player and survivor of childhood bone cancer. Cumberbatch is a former college athlete and current assistant coach with the Milwaukee Mustangs Track Club. Cumberbatch works as a vice president of engagement for Bader.

The Sports Facilities Companies continues to serve as a partner on the project.

“It will be one-hundred percent universally accessible, without barriers including even financial means, which is a huge differentiator,” said Sports Facilities partner Erik Sullivan. “The Opportunity Center is focused on creating sports programming opportunities that do not exist as readily as they should be.

“On one level, The Opportunity Center is about bringing people together to push their physical limits,” said Bader Philanthropies president and CEO Dan Bader. “But, what makes The Opportunity Center special is it will be a place where city limits will become invisible and people will get curious about one another and spark meaningful connections.”

In 2021, the project received a $2.5 million loan from the Milwaukee Economic Development Corporation to support site acquisition. The properties that form the site are split between the cities of Milwaukee and Glendale.

The portion of the property in the City of Milwaukee includes a parcel last occupied by Rank and Son Buick. According to a Wisconsin Historical Society report, buildings formerly on the site were constructed in the 1960s. But the dealership property, 4206 N. Green Bay Ave., was acquired by Clear Channel Outdoor in 2012 for $900,000 and the structures were demolished starting in 2016.  The Opportunity Center paid $450,000 for that site in October 2021.

In September 2021, the center paid $1.86 million for the Glendale portion of the site, 4400 N. Green Bay Ave. It’s a former Milwaukee Road railyard that was owned by Brian Monroe‘s Glendale Partners.

Monroe has parceled off much of the former railroad corridor to adjoining land owners. But with the reconstruction of Interstate 43 underway, the Beerline Trail is being extended and would run under the freeway and along the northern edge of The Opportunity Center site. Monroe previously donated land to enable the trail’s northern extension from Riverwest.

A project website is available for further information on the project. In a press release, the partners said community listening sessions would be held in late 2022 and early 2023. The development is located on the edge of the Rufus King neighborhood.

2022 Renderings

2021 Renderings and Site Plan

UPDATE: An earlier version of this article said Kahler Slater was leading the design of the complex. A project representative said the architecture firm is only providing renderings at this point.