After years of planning and fundraising to build a new museum, Milwaukee Public Museum officials marked a milestone on Tuesday afternoon with an unorthodox groundbreaking ceremony for the $240 million project.
With stormy skies over Milwaukee, MPM officials pivoted from plans to hold the groundbreaking at the project site at the corner of Sixth and McKinley streets in the Haymarket neighborhood, to a ballroom at the nearby Trade Hotel.
Despite the last minute venue change, the event was attended by more than 200 people, many of them project planners and donors. Civic leaders were also in attendance from Mayor Cavalier Johnson and County Executive David Crowley to a bevy of aldermen and state legislators, many of whom took their turn to pose with a golden shovel on stage, rather than a gravel lot.
“On behalf of the teams at the Milwaukee Public Museum and my fellow board members we bid you a very warm welcome and say thank you to all of you for joining us here today in this climate controlled groundbreaking,” said John Roberts, MPM board chair and executive vice president and chief distribution officer at Northwestern Mutual. “And whether we are outdoors or indoors, we are still here to have a lot of fun this afternoon. We have a lot to celebrate. This is the largest cultural project in the history of our state.”
In the planning stages for the better part of seven years, the project has been promised $45 million in public funding from Milwaukee County and another $40 million from the State of Wisconsin. MPM is responsible for raising the remaining $150 million from private donors. Another $5 million in federal grants are also being pursued, which would get the project to the $240 million mark, but that money has not yet been awarded.
Construction of the building itself will cost approximately $200 million. The remaining funds for the project will cover the costs to move the collections from the existing building, provide millions for the museum’s endowment – money that would essentially go towards running the new museum – and to pay for project management and the ongoing fundraising campaign.
“Our future museum is for everyone,” said MPM president and CEO Ellen Censky, addressing a room full of attendees that included both schoolchildren and prominent business leaders. “And it’s made possible by all of you and by so many other people in this community throughout the state, and actually from across the globe who have participated in surveys, in focus groups, in interviews, and in workshops to make sure that our future museum represents and reflects the most up-to-date science, and the stories of our peoples.”
In addition to performances by local student groups from Indian Community School, Hmong American Peace Academy, Bruce-Guadalupe Community School and Ko-Thi Dance Company, the ceremony also included remarks from Mark Denning, a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, and a land blessing from David Grignon, the tribal historic preservation officer and Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin.
“Everything that our great creator has given – that we need in our life – is in this world. Everything, every answer, every place of healing is present. And sometimes young people, older people, we don’t see the answer in front of us,” Denning told attendees. “But this (museum will be) a place of learning and a place of natural history. It will be a place of healing. It will be a place to go where people can learn and have words that they have no words for. The feeling of a bird song, seeing a fish and understanding how it works, and how sturgeon, after 170 years of being missing from our waters, have now returned to Milwaukee. And that means something.”
Cherished input
Speaking after the event, Katie Sanders, MPM’s chief planning officer, said seeing the future museum through the lens of area schoolchildren and tribal leaders has been a key part of the planning process.
“It’s really important to have the young people here, because that’s who we’re building the museum for. It’s important not to lose sight of the many generations that have been served in the past by the museum, but also the many generations that will be served in the future. But we want to make sure that we’re putting the young people at the forefront when we’re celebrating such a big milestone,” Sanders said.
Involvement from native American tribes in the state is also crucial, Sanders said, especially given the fact that the museum cares for a “significant native collection.”
“We’ve been working with the different tribes for decades on caring for those collections, but also have been very intentional about making sure that those stories are represented from a first-person’s perspective in the future museum,” she said. “We’ve had many work groups. We’ve visited many of the reservations multiple times. Part of the design for the new plaza is to have an indigenous artist design a sculpture or installation to represent that (the new museum) is home for everyone – that ‘all are welcome here.’”
Construction timeline
With at least $80 million in private donations now pledged to the project, which includes a $2 million gift from Herb Kohl Philanthropies announced early this week, the project’s construction and fundraising efforts remain on track, MPM officials say.
Although Tuesday’s groundbreaking was purely ceremonial, Milwaukeeans can expect to see some site preparation work beginning as early as this month. Actual construction of the 200,000 square-foot building is slated to begin in mid-June, however most of the work that occurs this summer and coming fall will be underground. The new museum is slated to open in 2027.
Construction of the new building is being led by Mortenson in partnership with ALLCON. The structure itself was designed by Ennead Architects and Milwaukee-based Kahler Slater.
