In the face of rising construction costs and interest rates, Madison-based concert promoter FPC Live is revising its plans for an indoor music venue development in downtown Milwaukee’s Deer District. The project – originally billed as a “complex” housing one 4,000-capacity venue and a second 800-capacity venue – will be scaled back to a single concert venue with capacity for 4,500 people, to be built on the northeast section of the former Bradley Center block, just south of Fiserv Forum. With an estimated cost of $60 million, up from the initial estimate of $50 million, construction is now expected to break ground late this year for an early 2025 opening. BizTimes associate editor Maredithe Meyer recently spoke with Joel Plant, chief executive officer of FPC Live parent company Frank Productions, about what led to the decision to alter the project and what it means for Milwaukee’s live music scene.
Deciding factors
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Joel Plant[/caption]
“There were two big variables that moved on us in the past year, one was material cost. You saw steep increases in almost every commodity and then you saw decreases in commodities like wood. Our building has no wood, it’s all steel and concrete. Those prices are elevated from a year and a half ago and beyond, and they’re likely to stay elevated. The other piece is interest rates. The loans that we had committed to but not closed on got more expensive. We needed to make this room viable, and nobody is going to build a room that they can’t support. In order to do that, we made the decision to focus solely on the large room, enhance the amenities inside a bit and increase the capacity, which makes the room more scalable for more artists.
“Our ability to secure financing was not in question. The question was, how much financing do we want to secure?”
Drawbacks of one venue versus two
“There’s always a risk of missing an artist for a variety of reasons. … The best scenario was that two-room complex, but the variables changed on us. What we’re giving up is the ability to bring artists into a state-of-the-art, 800-capacity room. There are other rooms in the market that will serve artists at that level of their career. We’ve booked into all the rooms in Milwaukee historically and moving forward, we’re optimistic that we will have the opportunity to book into some of those rooms in the future. I think the market is poised to continue to see pretty dramatic increases in the range and size of artists.
“The balance between the small room and large room always was the smaller room was going to have more shows with a much lower attendee count and the large room was going to have fewer shows with much higher average attendee count. We’re still anticipating 135,000 to 175,000 ticket buyers to just the large room, so fewer events but a substantial amount of visitors to Deer District and Milwaukee.”
More opposition expected?
“A lot of the opposition that we heard about locally (last year) was about the 800-capacity room, concerns from some of the smaller venue operators in town about that room cannibalizing some of their business. With the removal of that room, I would expect at least neutrality or, if not, support from some of those smaller venues who recognize objectively that a new, state-of-the-art room that is of a higher capacity than their room will bring more interest to the market.”
