What Will Be Done With Existing Public Museum Building?
Milwaukee County seeking consultant to help sell property.
Milwaukee Public Museum. Photo taken March 8th, 2017 by Jeramey Jannene.
When you build a new museum, what do you do with the old one?
Milwaukee County will soon need to figure out the answer to that question.
The nonprofit Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM) is in the process of developing a five-story, 200,000-square-foot museum at the corner of N. 6th Street and W. McKinley Avenue. Construction is scheduled to be completed in 2027.
The relocation will leave the county with a vacant, seven-story building at 800 W. Wells St.
Before it must turn off the lights, the county is looking for a consultant to figure out who might turn them back on or determine how much the underlying land is worth.
The plan is to dispose of the building one way or another, but officials wish to do so “with an understanding of the current state and with future value and community benefit in mind,” according a request for proposals document for potential consultants.
The seven-story building was completed in 1962, with additions in the 1990s for Discovery World, which later left, and the IMAX theatre. The complex is nearly half a million square feet (451,161) and it has four full floors of exhibit space.
According to a 2015 assessment, the structure also has an estimated $28.6 million worth of deferred maintenance and more than $11 million of needed infrastructure improvements. Keeping up with the building’s needs over the next 20 years would cost an estimated $87 million.
The county plans to reevaluate these numbers before selling the property.
Museum staff have been struggling to keep the building in shape, with frequent mechanical system breakdowns and a pervasive moisture problem that is endangering some of the four million items in the county’s collections stored there. At times they’ve had to put out buckets to catch water that leaks into the building when it rains.
The maintenance and infrastructure needs pose a challenge to any future reuse of the building, according to the county. What’s more, any adaptive reuse would have to account for the fact that the building was designed as a museum and has many sections that are completely windowless.
The City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee Downtown BID #21 certainly have some ideas about what should be done to the property once MPM is all packed up and moved into the new museum.
Last year, the city’s Department of City Development and the BID completed a 2040 Downtown Plan. It included high-density, mixed-use redevelopment of the museum site, with “mixed income housing and neighborhood supporting commercial uses on the ground floor.”
The redevelopment would also allow the city to extend N. 8th Street another block north of W. Wells Street. Currently, as the street runs north, it dead-ends into W. Wells Street and the public museum. It restarts at W. State Street, multiple blocks to the north.
“Extending the street grid north of Wells Street to connect to MacArthur Square will also help to support additional infill development on surface parking lots in the area, and the reuse or redevelopment of the State-owned office building at 6th and Wells Streets,” the plan states.
While the county decides what to do with the soon-to-be former museum, the State of Wisconsin is also preparing to move on from the Milwaukee State Office Building. The property, just east of the museum, would be sold after the agencies within relocate to a new building at N. 27th Street and W. Wisconsin Avenue.
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More about the New Natural History Museum
- MKE County: Public Museum Near 75% of Funding Goal - Graham Kilmer - Dec 4th, 2024
- MKE County: What Will Be Done With Existing Public Museum Building? - Graham Kilmer - Aug 7th, 2024
- Indigenous Artist Creating Art Installation For New Public Museum - Graham Kilmer - Aug 1st, 2024
- MPM Holds Groundbreaking for $240 Million Museum - Graham Kilmer - May 7th, 2024
- Kohl Philanthropies Donates $2 Million to New Public Museum - Graham Kilmer - Apr 30th, 2024
- Construction of New Museum Scheduled for Summer - Graham Kilmer - Mar 12th, 2024
- Museum Begins Epic Task Packing Collections - Graham Kilmer - Feb 27th, 2024
- New Federal Rules May Require Public Museum to Remove Some Exhibits - Graham Kilmer - Feb 2nd, 2024
- MKE County: Public Museum Experiencing Frequent Maintenance Issues - Graham Kilmer - Dec 14th, 2023
- MKE County: MPM Needs $35 Million To Begin New Museum Construction - Graham Kilmer - Dec 12th, 2023
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HUmmmmm Thought that we were told that the building needs massive repairs AND NOW it is going to be sold??? To be torn down and the land reuses The State Office building will be empty soon will it not???? Just wondering……
Usually, there are plans what is to be done with the old building before building a new one. Wonder if its proximity to the Deer District has anything to do with the decision to put it on the market, even though Milwaukee Co. citizens were told it needs massive repairs.
Why not make the repairs and turn it into affordable housing for the growing number of citizens struggling to keeo a roof over their heads? Or would that be too disruptive to those who frequent the Deer District?
Wow. They are contemplating “extending” 8th street north? You mean, like, in the old days, ainna hey? All the sewers and access to utilities had to be moved/removed in the early 1960’s when they came up for the plans for everything there, the “Civic Center” as it was once called. And don’t forget that the freeway tunnels are under it as well. The original concept was great (well, back then) to have the parking structure for all of the buildings like the Court House, Safety Building, and the Museum. The building that is now the Police Administration building was originally planned to be a 7 story building for the recreational department for the City (I think part of MPS)…and the jet fountain was going to be an ice skating rink in the winter. Nowadays, they are lucky they can keep up with the leaks from it going into the MacArthur Square parking garage.
While I’m no expert in these things, the key phrase in the explanation seems to be: “… the county is looking for a consultant to figure out who might turn them (figuratively, “the lights”) back on or determine how much the underlying land is worth.”
In other words, who generally might be interested in this property, and how quickly might we sell it? Will demolishing it first be more attractive to the potential buyers or, as was the case with the Bucks buying the old Bradley Center site for $1.00, do we offer it for a low price with the stipulation the buyer incurs the costs of demolishing the structure, thereby avoiding that the County pays to demolish.
The underlying land is the asset. The old museum structure is not an asset both because of all the deferred maintenance and the cost of demolition. Having the County incur the cost of demolition and then find the land is tougher to sell than imagined would put the County in even great financial jeopardy. Money out, no money in. (The City demolished the old Randolph Hotel at Wisconsin & Vel Phillips four decades ago and still has not found a buyer for that site.) The goal here is for the County to make as much money on the transaction as possible and, I assume as quickly as possible.
Why does everyone assume that that land is is so desirable? The corner lot at 7th and State, across from MATC, had the old UWM extension buildings on it decades ago. They were torn down, also thinking that the land would be snapped up for a new office building or hotel. Well, some 30 years have gone by, and it it too, is still just a parking lot for the County (MCSO). Not even worth the price of admission (like 4th and Wisconsin).. Did the State even give either of these parcels proper consideration for the new State Office building? I don’t think so. Using the way back machine…having government buildings in one central location was a good thought…and of course, public access/parking for those employees and users is essential.
@DAGDAG, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with your first question about why people might think the land is desirable, and suspect that is why the study is wanted.
Elected officials are typically just like the rest of us and not developers or land use experts, let alone fortune tellers. We need help in determining how to optimize the value of this site by taking a solid look at possibilities, examples or models from similar situations, etc., maybe even putting feelers out to test the market. Sounds like a great “measure twice, cut once” situation to me.
With the museum gone, what would we want remaining on the site if there is not imminent interest? An empty derelict building or an empty lot? I suspect we’d want an empty lot, but sure hope there is interest. It would be a shame for the County to have to pay to demolish and then not get a sale out of it, let alone forgoing property taxes from having something there. It seems to me to be a great site for housing/multi-use, especially with the new vision that calls for athletic and other outdoor activity uses. MacArthur is really the only large open site downtown capable of doing that, outside the Lakefront.