Plans to redevelop the former Fox Bay Theater in Whitefish Bay into a live music and event venue to be called The Argo received final approval Monday evening from the Village Board.
After several rounds of approvals at the municipal level, the project was unanimously approved with stipulations including the allocation of tax incremental funding (TIF) and deadlines for construction.
The Argo team, consisting of Adam Powers, senior brand manager at Pabst Brewing Company, Andrew Coate, product marketing and operations lead at Meta, and Josh Bryant, principal solutions consultant at Demandbase, originally asked the village to provide $1 million in TIF. Whitefish Bay’s Village Board approved the request and will allocate $32,900 every year for 27 years, a total of $888,300, which satisfies the funding needs for the $7.5 million project.
The approval also mandated that the project be completed by the end of 2025. The Argo team’s original timeline had the project’s construction completed by August and the venue open to the public by the end of the year. No updates to the timeline were discussed at Monday’s meeting.
The 18,000-square-foot former theater building, which closed in 2020, is located at 334 E. Silver Spring Drive. The Argo will maintain the theater’s exterior façade but will undergo a major interior transformation with updates including the addition of windows on the second floor, a complete kitchen remodel, the addition of a mezzanine level and an outdoor patio, and a complete remodel of the main venue space to accommodate multiple uses including live entertainment, event hosting, and the occasional movie, according to village documents.
Once open, The Argo will have capacity for 550 to 750 people in the entertainment venue, 200 people in the event venue, and 150 in the bar and restaurant. Capacity will include the 30 employees Argo plans to hire to serve as event staff, security personnel and bar and restaurant workers.
Milwaukee-based real estate development company New Land Enterprises, which owns the property, the Argo team and Milwaukee-based engineering, planning and design firm GRAEF have all contributed to the project.
A representative from The Argo was not immediately available to comment on the approval.
