There’s a new plan to save the Mitchell Park Domes.
The Friends of the Domes presented a plan Tuesday, co-signed by Milwaukee County Parks, for a $133.4 million redevelopment of the Mitchell Park Domes.
The friends group would assume ownership of the Domes through a long-term ground lease, leaving the surrounding park as public land. The new governance opens the project up to a menu of financing unavailable to the county, and has long been contemplated as a path forward for the Domes.
The group’s plan uses a financing stack that includes $30 million from the county and $35 million in private philanthropy to cover the cost. The project would finally make the millions in repairs needed maintain the iconic structures, but also build a new $26 million addition, expand the gift shop, add a new cafe, create a children’s garden dome out of an existing greenhouse and turn the former sunken garden into a new stormwater garden.
The county has sought a solution for the insurmountable maintenance at the Domes for more than a decade. Pieces of concrete began falling out of the structure in 2013. The county convened a Domes Task Force in 2016, which worked for three years on a plan for the Domes. In 2019, the task force and a consultant, Arts Market Inc., proposed a grand redevelopment of the Domes with a financing stack similar to what the friends group proposes.
But the task force proposal did not have a governance structure or fundraising effort in place, and assumed rapid development timelines that ultimately proved unrealistic. A year later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the Domes issue took a backseat for county government.