Milwaukee Public Museum seeks $45M from cash-strapped county for new building

The Milwaukee Public Museum is asking Milwaukee County to contribute $45 million for the construction of a new, $240 million public museum, a request that could strain the county’s already tight finances.

The museum is asking the county both to essentially match $40 million it has already received from the state of Wisconsin for the project and to help with a planned $150 million fundraising campaign.

The nonprofit Milwaukee Public Museum plans to build its new 230,000-square-foot museum on a 2.5-acre site, acquired for $8 million, at the northwest corner of West McKinley Avenue and West 6th Street. The museum now contracts with Milwaukee County to operate the museum in a county-owned building at 800 W. Wells St. At its new site, the museum would share space with the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum and be renamed the Wisconsin Museum of Nature and Culture.

There is at least one big obstacle to these plans, however. The museum’s request for county support, if granted, threatens to weaken Milwaukee County’s already delicate financial picture. The county is now dealing with a long backlog of deferred infrastructure projects — including $50 million of work at the public museum’s current building.

That structure’s state of disrepair has already put at risk the museum’s accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums. Losing accreditation could hinder the museum’s ability to attract exhibits, depriving it of revenue.

The Milwaukee Public Museum says it needs the county’s backing to bring in money from private donors. Museum officials have produced an internal report finding that donors tend not to consider the museum a priority because of its previous status as a government department.

There are reasons for optimism, though. The public museum has raised $12.4 million for the project so far, even though it has yet to officially start its capital campaign. And an additional $27 million in possible donations is pending.

According to a report to county officials on the museum, Milwaukee County could contribute $45 million of the project’s construction costs up front — a step that would breach a limit on borrowing the county has imposed on itself.

The county currently contributes $3.5 million a year to the museum’s operations, a sum that would drop to $1 million if the county were to put $45 million toward the project up front.

In another scenario, the county could provide the requested $45 million over the course of the 25 years that the new museum is expected to be in use.

The $40 million the state is providing for the new museum project was approved last summer by state lawmakers, who stipulated that museum officials raise $85 million in outside revenue on their own. The museum continues to plan the project and aims to have ground broken for it in 2023. It has hired Mortenson and ALLCON, of Butler, as general contractors and Kahler Slater and New York-based Ennead Architects as designers. Follow @natebeck9