The Harmony Initiative (the collaboration of the Milwaukee Ballet Company, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts and the Medical College of Wisconsin), which plans to establish a 70,000 to 75,000-square-foot location in downtown Milwaukee, is considering several different options, including the Park East corridor development planned by Rainier Properties LLC northwest of Water Street and McKinley Avenue, according to one of the developers.
Rainier Propeties, which includes developers Bruce Westling and Gary Grunau, plans to build a 15-story building on the site along the Milwaukee River with 280,000 square feet of office space and a Marcus Corp. multi-screen movie theater complex.
The Harmony Initiative is looking for space along or near Water Street, roughly between Kilbourn Avenue and the Park East corridor, said Milwaukee Ballet executive director Dennis Buehler.
“We continue to field any number of proposals of site options and development options,” Buehler said. The Harmony Initiative is in, “active consideration of 4 to 5 different options,” he said.
Buehler declined to say what site options the Harmony Initiative is considering. He did confirm that the initiative has been “approached” by Westling and Grunau.
“We are clearly an option for the Harmony group,” Westling said. “This is an opportunity to do something really special. They want to have a world class destination. I certainly think we have an option that makes sense. It’s a very interesting opportunity to design a building for that use on that site.”
The Harmony Initiative would provide a new home for the Ballet’s headquarters, currently located at 504 W. National Ave. in the city’s Walker’s Point neighborhood. The new facility would provide space for the Ballet Company’s offices, studios for the Ballet and its school, a small performance center with about 300 to 400 seats, and a sports medicine clinic.
The initiative is in the process of forming an advisory committee for the site selection process, Buehler said. The committee will make a site recommendation, subject to the approval of the Ballet, UWM and the Medical College.
The initiative hopes to make a decision about its site by early 2011 and hopes to move to the new location in 2014, Buehler said. Additional fundraising will be necessary for the initiative, he said.
“We’re not rushing this,” Buehler said. “But we are working aggressively.”
