Miller High Life Theatre mural. Photo provided.

It’s now harder to miss the Miller High Life Theatre.

A new mural on the west side of the downtown theater, 500 W. Kilbourn Ave., sports Miller Brewing’s Girl in the Moon imagery, long associated with the High Life brand. But you won’t find Miller, High Life, nor Molson Coors written out on the mural. Instead, the piece says “Milwaukee” across the top and “Cheers to Our Hometown” at the bottom.

Milwaukee artist Fred Kaems painted the mural, which measures 24 feet wide and 20 feet tall. The mural faces N. 6th Street, just north of the Baird Center and W. Kilbourn Avenue.

The 4,087-seat theater is owned by the Wisconsin Center District (WCD). The Pabst Theater Group manages its booking. The structure was originally built in 1909 as the Milwaukee Auditorium and substantially remodeled into a theater in the early 2000s.

Long known as the Milwaukee Theatre, Molson Coors purchased the naming rights for the facility in 2017. Earlier this year, Molson Coors renewed its sponsorship agreement with the WCD for three years.

New Hotel Opens

A new hotel has opened on the city’s Far Northwest Side.

The 122-room Woodspring Suites is now welcoming its first guests. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held earlier this month.

The four-story hotel was built on formerly publicly-owned land near Interstate 41, N. 124th Street and W. Bradley Road. The property, 12355 W. Park Pl., is a 2.89-acre site left over from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation‘s reconfiguration of nearby freeway ramps.

The WoodSpring brand is positioned as an economy extended-stay offering. Each of the more than 260 hotels across the country is owned and operated as a franchise.

The Milwaukee hotel is owned by Kansas-based New Era Development Group.

A small refrigerator and kitchen area are located in each room, designed to support the extended-stay guests. Rooms are rented by the day or the week.

See our December 2022 coverage for more on the project.

Weekly Recap

Port Officials Have Concern With Potential I-794 Removal

The City of Milwaukee will ultimately need to take a formal position on the different options for the reconstruction of Interstate 794 through Downtown and the Historic Third Ward. But the desire to see an elevated freeway replaced with developable land, as the new Downtown Plan endorses, might crash head-on into concerns of the city-owned port to the south.

The Board of Harbor Commissioners received a briefing Thursday morning on the Wisconsin Department of Transportation‘s (WisDOT) planning process.

The chief concern, according to port director Jackie Q. Carter, is that the port could lose business under a freeway-to-boulevard plan.

The Hoan Bridge and the port on-off ramps at the south end of the bridge would stay under any scenario under consideration by WisDOT, but one of the four options would see the connection between the bridge and Marquette Interchange replaced by a boulevard. As a result, WisDOT officials said Thursday, the Hoan Bridge would lose its Interstate designation.

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New Brewers Subsidy Substantially Better For City, County

A Wisconsin State Assembly committee endorsed a revised Milwaukee Brewers subsidy agreement Thursday that is, at least financially, a much better deal for the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County.

An initial $700 million Republican proposal in September called for the city and county to jointly come up with $202.5 million by 2050 to fund repairs and upgrades to American Family Field. The city was on the hook for $2.5 million annually and the county $5 million, with both expected to pay from the proceeds of their newly-awarded sales taxes.

The new agreement cuts the county’s contribution in half, reducing the overall size of the public subsidy to $546.5 million, and effectively creates a new funding source for the contributions. It also requires a study to be completed within two years on the feasibility of developing land around the ballpark.

The revised deal was praised by Mayor Cavalier Johnson, County Executive David Crowley and endorsed by Governor Tony Evers.

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MPS Celebrates 5 Asphalt-To-Green Space Transformations

Five Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) campuses are now newly “green and healthy” for students and neighbors to enjoy.

MPS Superintendent Keith P. Posley was joined by several community leaders at Riley Dual Language Montessori School, 2424 S. 4th St., to cut a ribbon on one of the reimagined playspaces.

A total of 19,000 square feet of asphalt was removed and replaced with a mixture of more user and environmentally-friendly features. A small, synthetic soccer field replaced an asphalt one, two outdoor classrooms were installed, a nature play area was created, built-in musical instruments were added, 70 trees were planted, a “traffic garden” was painted on the remaining asphalt, a large underground cistern was installed and a series of educational areas that function as bioswales were installed.

“Young people can go out now and just have an amazing time,” said the superintendent. “This could not occur without the support of our amazing community partners… We just want to say ‘thank you, thank you, thank you.'”

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Pet Store Opening in Walker’s Point

Skilos Family Pet Store will open a new store at the northern tip of Walker’s Point.

The company, which also has a store on the East Side, is leasing most of the first floor of a recently renovated building at 131-141 S. 1st St.

Located just outside the Historic Third Ward, the building was recently renovated as a new headquarters for marketing and advertising firm Zizzo Group.

“I received many offers to lease the space, but I took my time in making this decision because it was important to me to bring a tenant to these neighborhoods that would really benefit the local residents,” said CEO Anne Zizzo in a statement announcing the lease. “Bringing Skilos to the area fits with our mission of making Milwaukee a great place to live, work and play.”

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Council Delays Housing Authority Crackdown To January 1

The Common Council’s proposal to send city inspectors into Housing Authority properties will have to wait until at least 2024. But council members vow it is coming, and drew applause Tuesday for moving the proposal forward.

Their concern is that the number of inspections required would overwhelm the capacity of the Department of Neighborhood Services (DNS) and reduce service quality for other nuisance and safety inspections.

“I don’t think that does anyone any good when you play one community off of the other,” said Alderman Michael Murphy at Tuesday’s council meeting.

Earlier this year, Common Ground Southeastern Wisconsin launched a campaign on behalf of residents that seeks substantial changes to alleged failures of the city-affiliated Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee (HACM). One of the key concerns is the physical condition of the properties.

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State Supreme Court Limits Online Access to Eviction Records

The liberal majority of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court is siding with tenant advocates who sought to curb public view of someone’s prior eviction records.

Under existing rules, courts are required to keep records from most evictions for twenty years after a case is closed. But under the recently-advanced proposal, evictions records in many instances would be scrubbed from a statewide court website after just two years.

During an open rules conference on Wednesday afternoon, justices voted 4 to 3 to have a court commissioner draft a revised order that includes the agreed-upon changes. Once that order is circulated, a majority of justices will need to sign on to it, so that the changes could take effect in 2025.

Justice Brian Hagedorn joined the other conservatives in voting against. He worried the changes would be burdensome for courts and suggested concerns about housing could be better addressed by the Legislature.

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Crowley Backs Biggest Project in County History

County Executive David Crowley included in his 2024 budget proposal the biggest project in the history of Milwaukee County.

The budget included approximately $9.45 million for planning and design of a new Criminal Courthouse building to replace the Safety Building, 821 W. State St. It’s estimated the project will cost approximately $488.4 million.

This funding would kickstart the development process, which will involve demolishing the Safety Building, relocating staff and court functions during construction, construction of the new facility, as well as improvements to the historic county courthouse, 901 N. 9th St.

For nearly a decade policymakers have known that the county needed new criminal court facilities. Not only is the Safety Building deteriorating, but it was built to be a jail and never designed for criminal court proceedings. County consultants and court officials have noted that it does not meet modern safety and security standards for a courthouse.

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