Harmony Initiative considers Marcus Center parking structure site

The Harmony Initiative (the collaboration of the Milwaukee Ballet Company, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Medical College of Wisconsin), which plans to establish a 70,000 to 75,000-square-foot location in downtown Milwaukee, is considering a location at a potential redevelopment of the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts parking structure.
The 700-space Marcus Center parking structure is located northwest of North Water Street and East State Street. For years the Marcus Center has wanted to redevelop the parking structure site with a mixed-use building, but no project has ever materialized.
After putting those efforts on hold for a few years, the Marcus Center is in the early stages of again trying to put together a development for the site, said president and chief executive officer Paul Mathews. The Marcus Center’s goal is to generate additional revenue that will allow it to be self-sufficient and operate without a subsidy from Milwaukee County, Mathews said.
The parking structure is 40 years old and is, “clearly near the end of its useful life,” Mathews said.
The Marcus Center would like to increase the number of parking spaces on the site to at least 1,200 to support its own operations, and could add even more spaces to support any other development that is added to the site, Mathews said.
Details about the cost and scope of a redevelopment of the Marcus Center parking structure site have not been determined yet, but the Marcus Center is hoping to put a project together within the next three to six months, he said.
The Harmony Initiative project could be a good fit for a redevelopment of the Marcus Center parking structure, especially since the Marcus Center is where most of the Ballet’s performances are held, Mathews said.
“I think it’s a logical location for them,” Mathews said. “I think there’s a lot of synergy there.”
The Harmony Initiative is looking for space along or near Water Street, roughly between Kilbourn Avenue and the Park East corridor. The Marcus Center parking structure site is located within that area.
Another project within that area that the Harmony Initiative is considering is the mixed-use development proposed by developers Bruce Westling and Gary Grunau (Rainier Properties LLC) northwest of Water Street and Knapp Street, along the Milwaukee River. The Marcus Corp. plans to put a multi-screen movie theater complex in that project.
Milwaukee Ballet executive director Dennis Buehler recently said the Harmony Initiative is in “active consideration” of four to five different options. The initiative hopes to make a decision about its site by early 2011 and hopes to move to the new location in 2014, he said. The Harmony Initiative site 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. It 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.