In January 2026, the Wisconsin Center District (WCD) released a 116-page study that appears to suggest demolishing downtown’s Miller High Life Theatre and replacing it with a brand new 650-room hotel.
In February 2026, Pabst Theater Group CEO and co-owner Gary Witt released a 1,100-page binder full of printed emails that absolutely suggests the public’s overwhelming interest in preserving the Miller High Life Theatre.
“I wanted the people to have a voice, and the best way that they could have a voice wasn’t by forwarding a bunch of emails or filling someone’s inbox,” Witt tells Milwaukee Record. “It was to make a show of something that was that large.”
The 22-pound (!) binder is just the latest development in the ongoing Miller High Life Theatre saga. A brief synopsis:
In 2025, in the wake of the $456 million expansion of the Baird Center, the WCD hired Chicago consulting firm Hunden Partners to conduct a “Highest & Best Use Analysis” of the district area. “Hunden analyzed properties beyond the UWM Panther Arena and the Miller High Life Theatre which includes land and buildings surrounding the Baird Center that could be acquired and potentially used for a future expansion, hotel, or other development,” the study says.
When news dropped that the study would possibly recommend tearing down the Miller High Life Theatre and the UWM Panther Arena to make way for a hotel, Milwaukee alderman and WCD board member Bob Bauman nominated both properties for historic designation. That historic designation was approved in late 2025. Historic designation doesn’t prohibit demolition, though another piece of legislation recently proposed by Bauman would make demolition of historic properties more difficult.
Fast forward to January 2026. While the final WCD study does not explicitly call for the demolition of the Miller High Life Theatre, attached renderings depict a new hotel on the site of the theater—next door to the still-existing UWM Panther Arena.
“The theater is in need of capital improvement to remain relevant and up to industry standard,” the study says. Elsewhere, it claims “there is not significant community attachment to Miller High Life Theatre due to its extensive 2003 renovation,” and that the theater “faces competition from venues that are higher quality and/or offer more historical charm.”
Rendering: TVS
Witt, whose Pabst Theater Group operates and exclusively books shows at the nearly 120-year-old theater, has publicly blasted the WCD study. In particular, he says the assertion that the seated Miller High Life Theatre will be made redundant by the just-opened Landmark Credit Union Live venue is deeply flawed.
“If you base your study of tearing down High Life on the fact that Landmark Credit Union Live is going to put it out of business, then you’re a fucking idiot,” Witt says. “Landmark Credit Union Live is a general admission floor with reserved seats upstairs. So not only would [the WCD] be tearing down the only 4,000-reserve-seat theater in Milwaukee, it’s the only 4,000-reserve-seat theater in the state of Wisconsin. It would make Milwaukee the only major city in the Midwest without a 4,000-seat-reserved theater. It’s such a foolishly bad idea.”
“Landmark Credit Union Live is a beautiful addition to the live performance venues in the city, but is completely different venue than the High Life Theatre is,” Witt told FOX6 in January.
Furthermore, Witt has accused WCD president and CEO Marty Brooks of commissioning a study with a predetermined outcome. Witt says that Brooks reached out to him in May 2025 and told him the soon-to-be-announced study would recommend the preservation of the Miller High Life Theatre and the demolition of the UWM Panther Arena.
“On Thursday, May 15, 2025, Marty gathers [Pabst Theater Group co-owner] Matt [Beringer] and me together and tells us, ‘I want to make sure you guys heard from me first and that you don’t hear it in the news,'” Witt says. “‘We’re going to be having a meeting tomorrow and I’m going to tell the board that we’re doing this study. I want you to know that no matter what you hear on the news, High Life is one-hundred-percent safe. My goal is to take down Panther Arena because it’s not profitable. I want to put a hotel there because [the WCD] can afford the debt. We’ve discovered that since we built the new convention center we can afford the debt, and because we can afford the debt and the city can’t afford to TIFF it, the reality is that we’re the only ones that can get this thing built.'”
Brooks denied Witt’s claims—and unrelated claims that he inappropriately touched Milwaukee Common Council President José Pérez—earlier this week.
But back to that binder full of emails.
Witt first presented the binder at a WCD committee meeting on February 20. Since then, he’s been outspoken in print, on radio, and on television.
“I wanted to be able to have the voice of the people who actually use these places come into play,” Witt says. “We sent out a note to our customer database that basically said, ‘Hey, this is what’s been proposed. You have 24 hours to get back to us and give us a one-page response.’ In the first 10 minutes, we got 350 responses. Once I saw the numbers coming in, I decided I wanted to make a real show of it, to make this heavy book. We turned it off after 24 hours when we had 1,100 responses. And I wanted to show them what 1,100 responses look like.
“It’s been an effective tool,” Witt adds, “and I’m not done yet.”
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