The Show Dome at the Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory will reopen on Friday at 11 a.m., two days ahead of schedule.
Admission will be free for the day and a community input session will be held Saturday to provide updates to the public about the status of the remaining two domes, according to a statement released by County Executive Chris Abele on Tuesday.
“As we welcome visitors to the Show Dome to experience its spring color and beauty this weekend, we also invite visitors to take part in our community engagement process for the long-term planning on the future of The Domes,” Abele said in the statement.
All three of The Domes at the Mitchell Park Conservatory have been closed since Feb. 5, a week after a piece of concrete casting fell and prompted county officials to close the park’s Arid Dome.
Over the past two months, crews have been wrapping thousands of concrete-cast joints that make up the Show Dome’s structure to prevent more chunks from falling. The Show Dome was chosen to repair first because the project posed the fewest challenges.
The other two domes will remain closed for an unspecified amount of time while crews implement the same repairs to their structures. The types of vegetation growing in both domes make repairs more difficult and expensive.
Repairs to the Show Dome are being paid for with $500,000 previously allocated by the county.
The input session on Saturday will take place from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the lobby of The Domes and will feature Milwaukee County staff and representatives from Graef, which has completed numerous studies of the structures’ integrity over the past two decades.
The session “will provide an update regarding the reopening of the other Domes, review the community engagement process, expectations and timeline, and facilitate input from community participants,” according to Abele’s statement.
