New MPM Facility Drops a Beam While Celebrating New Milestone

Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin. Photo taken July 15, 2025 by Graham Kilmer.

The final beam for the new Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin was dropped into place Tuesday, literally.

A crew from Mortenson construction was lowering the steel beam onto the top of an elevator shaft when it slipped from its harness and fell onto the top of the new museum structure. It was a scary moment on what was supposed to be a celebratory day.

But no one was hurt and when the workers at the top of the five-story structure signaled they were ok, the crowd gathered below cheered. The crowd included some of the museum’s donors, board members and staff along with local elected officials. They were there to mark a milestone in construction of the new 200,000-square-foot facility that will one day replace the Milwaukee Public Museum (MPM): the end of vertical construction.

County Executive David Crowley and Board Chairwoman Marcelia Nicholson and Mayor Cavalier Johnson were on hand to celebrate the final beam. They signed their name to it, as did many others.

The event was an opportunity to thank and congratulate the many people who helped advance the museum project, “who are so generously giving of your time, your talent, your treasure,” as the mayor said, before it opens in 2027.

Ellen Censky, MPM president and CEO, has led and championed the museum project from the beginning, securing funding from state government and Milwaukee County. She offered this statement: “While today we celebrate the highest point of construction on our new museum, I want to express my deep gratitude to everyone who has helped bring this building to life and kept us on track for a 2027 opening.”

During a brief ceremony, Censky introduced the chair of the board for the new Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin, Patti Brash McKeithan.

“She has been an MPM board member. She’s been the board chair. She was an interim CEO: first one in that role. She’s chaired our galas. She’s helping us with the capital campaign,” Censky said. “And she’s forever an important supporter and advocate, not just for the museum, but for the many of us who are working to preserve this institution for generations.”

The new museum, which MPM has worked to develop for years, now stands at its full height at the corner of N. 6th Street and W. McKinley Avenue. Construction has been underway since 2023. Funding for the new museum includes $40 million from the state of Wisconsin and $45 million from the county. The building was designed by New York-based Ennead Architects to look like Wisconsin’s rolling bluffs. Soon construction crews will start cladding the building in massive, poured concrete panels fabricated by Stonecast Products in Germantown.

” I was just joking with the mayor that this may be the only Downtown with bluffs,” Crowley said.

The county funding for the project was approved by the county board during Crowley’s first term. He thanked the MPM leaders, museum donors and county supervisors for their work on the project that is, “more than just a building.” Visitors will come from all over the state to the new museum, an estimated 5 million during the first decade, the county executive said. “This museum will inspire and educate, it will help to connect generations of Wisconsinites to the next 100 years and beyond,” he said.

County Board Chairwoman Nicholson led a toast to the museum’s legacy, which included inspiring her as a child growing up in Milwaukee and being a resource for local students. She thanked her colleagues for voting to save the museum and to “pass it on to future generations in a better shape than which we found it.”

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