Public Museum Near 75% of Funding Goal

Rendering of new museum viewed from the west side of N. 6th St. Rendering by Kahler Slater.

As the future Milwaukee Public Museum begins to rise out of the ground, MPM Inc. says fundraising for the project is going well.

MPM is fundraising for a new five-story, 200,000-square-foot museum, which will be built at the northeast corner of N. 6th Street and W. McKinley Avenue, replacing the existing museum at 800 W. Wells St. The museum, built in 1962, has mounting maintenance issues that prompted MPM to develop a new facility.

The $240 million project received $45 million from Milwaukee County and $40 million from the state. MPM is attempting to raise another $150 million in private donations and $5 million in federal grants.

That effort is going well, Ellen Censky, MPM president and CEO told supervisors on county board’s Committee on Parks and Culture Tuesday. Though, upon questioning by Sup. Steve Taylor, Censky declined to provide a specific figure for how much has been raised.

The holidays are prime time for soliciting donations, and Censky said they did not want to reveal any figures publicly until after the giving season ended. “The number is going up every single day as we bring in funding,” she said.

She did say MPM had raised nearly 75% of its $150 million goal, and it is only halfway through the five-year capital campaign. When MPM held a ceremonial groundbreaking for the new museum in early May, it had raised approximately $80 million.

Currently, $200 million is budgeted for construction; $20 million for the packing, moving and storage of the 4 million items in the museum’s collections, which has already gotten underway; and $20 million will be set aside for a endowment to provide the institution with long term funding. The push for endowment funding will likely continue after the building is constructed.

Construction began this summer, with pilings being driven into the ground at the 2.4-acre site, Censky said. In October, the City of Milwaukee approved building permits for the project, “which then allows the building to actually go vertical, and, in fact, that has started to happen.”

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