Heads up, snake button enthusiasts: According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Milwaukee Public Museum will move to a new, $100 million downtown home sometime in the next decade. MPM is pursuing the option over renovating its current home, which, despite some fancy new bells and whistles like the rebooted Streets of Old Milwaukee, and despite the fact that it still rules, is indeed in need of updating. (Have you been to the museum lately?)
According to the JS:
The decision to find a new home for the state’s largest museum follows a two-year study that confirmed each of the two options would cost more than $100 million, [MPM President and CEO Dennis] Kois said. And renovation of the 400,000-square-foot museum would not resolve a separate problem: the need to move 4.5 million artifacts out of the leaky basement to better protect the collection.
After 53 years at its Wells St. home, the museum’s plan to move sets off a search for a new location at the same time officials organize fundraising efforts and consider financing strategies. “The path forward is to find a way to create a new museum downtown,” Kois said.
It will take five to 10 years for all those pieces to fall into place, he said. One thing for sure, the popular dome theater and planetarium will be included in any new building.
More details on the transformation will be released later this year, according to Kois. The museum’s current lease with the county runs through Dec. 31, 2022.
The JS story also details some impending MPM job cuts, as well as a few new jobs. No word yet on the future of that howler monkey.