Imagine what it’s like to attend a convention in Milwaukee. After a day of meetings at the Baird Center, you step out of the facility’s main entrance at Wisconsin and Vel R. Phillips avenues, ready to explore downtown. And the first thing you see when you look across the street is…a gigantic parking lot.
Located on downtown’s main street and across the street from the convention center, the site at 401 W. Wisconsin Ave. has long been a major embarrassment for the city, which owns the property. The site has been vacant for 38 years, ever since the Randolph Hotel was demolished in 1985. That’s pathetic.
Previous attempts by the city to attract development to the site have gone nowhere. A 2007 plan by a North Carolina-based developer for a mixed-use development with condos, a hotel, restaurants, retail and entertainment died during the Great Recession. In 2016 the city issued an RFP, and hotel development and meeting space proposals were pitched by Jackson Street Holdings and The Marcus Corp., but neither was selected by the city and they never moved forward.
So now the city is issuing another RFP for the site. Is it finally going to attract the type of significant development that officials have been holding out for?
The timing might finally be right to make it happen. The west side of downtown Milwaukee is hot, and 401 W. Wisconsin Ave. is positioned in the middle of the action. Fiserv will move its headquarters across the street to the east, and Kohl’s will open a store in the same building, which is adjacent to The Avenue, the revitalized former Shops of Grand Avenue that now includes a food hall, office space and apartments.
To the north, a $456 million expansion will double the size of the Baird Center, formerly known as the Wisconsin Center. The expansion will be complete in time for the Republican National Convention and should help attract more conventions to Milwaukee.
The Deer District, Milwaukee Tool’s new downtown office and the Bradley Symphony Center have added more activity to the west side of downtown, and plans are in the works for a professional soccer stadium, an indoor concert venue complex and a new museum to replace the Milwaukee Public Museum’s current facility.
With all of that momentum, hopefully developers will respond to the city’s RFP with big and bold development projects for the 401 W. Wisconsin Ave. site.
A large hotel to serve the Baird Center would make a lot of sense. Hopefully a residential component is included as downtown needs even more residents to increase its vibrancy. An entertainment venue, such as a movie theater complex, would bring much-need energy and excitement.
It’s time to transform this site from an embarrassment into a showplace for downtown.
