Link: Journal stands to gain
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Link: Journal stands to gain
Link: JSOnline: Mone, UWM want to stay
Don Walker is the best friend UWM has in the MJS. I was very happy to see him get the UWM perspective on this.
Can i suggest a change in the color or boldness or underlining links? They are the exact same as the regular font and it would be impossible to tell otherwise without the "LINK:" in front of them. This is for the pantherU theme of course.
MSG has a 5,000-seat theater attached to its complex. Perhaps a compromise can be reached where a smaller arena (5,000-6,000 seats) that could double as a theater could be built as part of the new arena complex. The smaller arena could also replace the Milwaukee Theater and serve as a home to the Admirals and Wave as well.
If Panther Arena comes down, the Panthers will have to go back to the KC. They need to make a push to play half of their home games at the new Arena.
How does one get a building torn down. If the WCD says we are not selling, there is nothing the Bucks can do. Is that correct or is there more to it?
I don't buy that the Arena is going to get torn down. That's a load of hogwash. If any state taxpayer money is used to take down the Arena, then there MUST be money out of that set aside to build Milwaukee an on-campus arena. The Klotsche Center is NOT an option for any long-term scenario.
Jimmy, when it comes to the question of how tearing down the Arena would affect the University, the main players in this thing probably have a spectrum of opinion ranging from ignorance to apathy to hostility. The billionaires from NY probably never heard of us. What has the JS ever done for us that makes you think they'd have a moment's qualm about the effect on UWM if they have an opportunity to make money on the deal? Marquette detests the idea that their old home has our name on it -- something the new Bucks arena would never have for them.
That's why it's important that the University and its constituents put the political pressure on any government actors in this deal.
It's a shame we can't count on the JS to be an honest broker in this discussion, because when it comes time to squeeze the public for hundreds of millions in direct support or infrastructure improvement -- and I guarantee you that time will come -- an honest broker would be putting an aerial view of downtown Milwaukee on the front page and asking why it's being suggested that the public should underwrite much higher costs by tearing down working facilities like the Arena when there is open space for a new mega-arena immediately adjacent to the BC to the north. For that matter, if the pitch is that a new basketball arena will spur development, then building it in the middle of what is already a highly developed area is moronic. On the other hand, if you build it into the Park East corridor, it would open up the possibility of redevelopment in the light industrial area west of Schlitz Park, an area that shares some of the characteristics of the third ward as far as retail/commercial/residential potential.
Not to mention opens the area south of the Park East currently taken by the BC for development. Which, I may add, will fetch higher taxes than the P.E. Corridor will (Oh, and BTW, will actually get developed and not just sit vacant for years).
Another thing that would prevent the Arena from being used:
The only way they can make it happen is if the Bradley Center can be used in the meantime. For that to happen, both State and Kilbourn will need to be closed down, since the Arena space from north to south isn't big enough for the Bradley Center to sit, let alone big enough for a building 150% the size of the BC. They will also need to build over the surface lot between the Arena and the Convention Center, which eliminates any possibility of the convention center being expanded to the north ever. We know the Convention Center is good, but it needs to be about 50% larger than it is right now to make it an elite convention center, the kind that brings in all kinds of conventions that the current space cannot draw because of its lack of size. The size of the convention center is very important, because while the Bucks have 41 dates, the Admirals have 25 and the Golden Eagles have 18, the fact of the matter is the wide majority of time - especially from May through September - there's nothing going on in the Bradley Center. There are musical acts, to be sure, but in the warm summer months many of those acts opt for outdoor venues around Milwaukee, which leaves the Bradley Center unused and downtown lacking a huge tourist attraction. A bigger convention center will draw the kind of summer conventions our downtown craves, which brings in all kinds of tourism revenue for the city and state, and allows lots of business to get paid - a lot. If they built the Bradley Center attached to the Convention Center, that's possible, but the Convention Center doesn't need huge arena space - they already have arena floor space to offer with the Arena. They need more conventional convention (heh) space, something that cannot be provided in the arena.
Glad to see someone else is looking at the map. You are exactly right that there is insufficient space north to south between State and Kilbourn to build a modern NBA sized arena. The only way to enlarge that footprint (without tearing the BC down first, which is absurd unless the Bucks plan to play at the Klotsche themselves for two years) is to build over Kilbourn. So if you're doing that, what happens to all that happy horsesh!t about Kilbourn being the "grand vista" or however it was referred to in the plan that first proposed demolishing the Arena? It makes no sense. On the other hand, the already vacant land north of the BC between 4th and 6th and Highland and McKinley is big enough for anything this side of Jerry's World.
By the way, someone at the Athletic Department or the Wisconsin Center District is on the ball. If you zoom in on the Google map of that part of downtown, the Arena is already correctly labeled the "UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena." Cool!
The repeated line to me in recent weeks has been "We will be at the table."
http://www.biztimes.com/article/2014...NEWS/141039961
If true, the Journal Square will be the site for the new arena.
I'm guessing putting lower bowl seating underground, saves on space.
Lemke is on twitter and spitting fire.
The way it sounds, they may be able to build it down into the ground, which would lead to a significantly smaller footprint. I would hope that if that happens, the new Bucks arena and the Wisconsin Center District should get folded in together to maximize the usable convention space.
Sounds like Major Goolsby's will move into Turner Hall.
Absolutely!
This is what I know: if the Bucks are planning to build east to the River and create a riverfront arena, where they don't touch the UWM Arena, it's going to be the "everybody wins" scenario. If they try to take over the Arena, they've got a real big fight on their hands. Fall of 2017 wouldn't happen.
Listen, I would guess the Bucks owner don't want to piss off the Wave and UWM. I'm not saying the basketball part of it, I'm saying the school as a whole. The Bucks want to be friends with everyone. That's makes them richer!!
We need to be all over this. Any move to encroach upon our space is going to result in a fight. While I'm not a fan of Gimbel and the Center District annoys me a lot, the two groups need to get in lockstep and block 4th street.
I posted this on the KK site and will repeat it here, with some additional comments:
Call me cynical but I smell a rat. My office window directly overlooks the JS site, the Panther Arena and the Bradley Center. I'm looking at all three right now. There is no way an arena with the footprint of the BC can fit on the JS site alone. That site is substantially smaller than the BC site. If you reconfigured an arena vertically and built it edge to edge from street to street -- 3rd to 4th, State to Kilbourn, and buried half of it, so that the upper tiers of the auditorium well above street level might actually have to extend over those surrounding streets, I suppose you might shoehorn a reduced footprint into this site. But I truly doubt there would be any place for a plaza or grand entrance, and I can't imagine a new arena being built without that in this age.
My concern is that this could be the camel's nose in the tent. They cut a deal with the JS, then drip by drip -- with the JS leading the charge, of course, to protect its economic interest in the deal -- the narrative begins to form that the engineering and design is proving too complicated and expensive because of the site limitations and it would all be so much easier if the arena site could span 4th street. Bye bye Milwaukee Panther Arena. If you want precedent go back to the earliest days of the talk about replacing County Stadium. Bud Selig, in his most brilliant move ever, announces that the Brewers will build a new stadium on their own dime. By doing so, he takes full command of the planning, destroying any chance for a downtown stadium like has been built in every other major league city. And by the time we're actually building a new baseball stadium in the valley, where there is no hope of leveraged development, the whole cost is on the taxpayers anyway.
Fool me once...
Here's my additional comment. I spoke with Frank yesterday and as he put it to me: "I don't get pushed easily." I have known Frank for years and that's not hyperbole. If the Bucks or the JS or MU or the politicals decide to push to encroach on (i.e., destroy) the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, they had better have deep lobbying and litigation budgets, and as Jimmy says, they had better be able to convince the NBA to suspend their ultimatum, because there's no way it's going to be resolved by 2017.
Jimmy, you are missing something very critical to this analysis. The new Arena CAN'T extend to the river from the JS site. The block east of 4th street is occupied entirely by the Milwaukee County Historical Society building -- a designated landmark, I believe --and Pere Marquette Park. You'd have as much a chance of building on that property as you would of tearing down the Public Library, City Hall or St. Josaphat's Basilica to do so. Not happening.
Meanwhile, there are two vacant city blocks IMMEDIATELY adjacent to the BC. The mind reels.
The new facility wouldn't need to be the size of the Bradley Center, since a great deal of it would go underground.
It's entirely possible that Lasry and Edens are going to be developing the Journal land to go with a new facility on the Bradley Center space. Who knows.
So where do the Bucks play while the BC is torn down and a new arena is built on the same footprint? That's at least a two season situation. Could be three. If they are buying the JS property for ancillary development it could only mean they expect to build on the Panther Arena/Milwaukee Theater site. Since they can hardly announce that with no buy-in from the WCD, it would be hard to believe they are looking at the JS site for anything other than a site -- or at least a partial site -- for the new arena itself. OnMilwaukee.com sure as hell didn't prepare that rendering of a new arena on the JS site. It came from someone with an interest.
Looking at Google Maps, it looks like they could make it work if they take out 3rd street.
They better not take the Arena.
How would it work with season ticket holders? Isnt it big enough in the space between the BMOHBC and the Park East corridor to build a new arena?
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwauk...281198081.html
If this is true, then I hope that the university makes a stand here. They have to make a stand and flatly say, "If you force us out of our arena so you can build yours, then you have to do one of two things: Either help pay (At least 20% or 30%) for our new arena, either a brand new one or a major overhaul of Klotsche, OR you're going to let us play in the new arena, not Marquette."
Well it sure didn't take long to expose the fiction that the JS site alone is big enough for the Billionaire Boys Club, did it?
A few random thoughts:
It always amazes me when people choose to risk years of litigation when there are far more reasonable alternatives available.
The JS's cheerleader role in this is reprehensible. Lucius Niemann would roll over in his grave to see what has happened to that organization. Its only interest is shareholder value.
Any thought that either the billionaires or the politicians are going to pony up for a separate arena for Milwaukee is extremely wishful thinking. The parties involved in this simply won't care unless they are made to care.
The Theater space isn't needed for this project. This is all about destroying the Arena.
Marquette would change its tune on all of this very quickly if political pressure was applied to demand that the new arena authority give first -- or at least equal -- preference to the city's public University in return for the hundreds of millions in public dollars that will be spent to enrich the billionaires. My guess is that the Bucks have no interest in accommodating three basketball teams.
There are two vacant city blocks IMMEDIATELY adjacent to the BC to the north. The political, litigation, demolition and construction costs of building there are immensely lower than the JS/Arena site. It's about an additional 90 second walk from Wisconsin Avenue. If you are walking slowly. As if anyone's walking from there anyway. Moreover, building on that site (which is not even underused -- it's UNused) would both create the opportunity for infill development to the south once the BC is demolished AND open up the neighborhood north of McKinley to redevelopment similar to the Third Ward. Brewer's Hill to the northeast is already established. This would be a tremendous opportunity for the City. Somebody needs to tell the billionaires that if they want public money running to the hundreds of millions (they do, oh my they do) that's where they're going to build -- and they're going to like it.
The bucks ownership have no place in this city and should have no part in deciding any of this. They obviously have no clue about milwaukee and dont care either. They can go **** themselves with the shovel they are using to dig this hole for themselves.
I'm just saying that the university needs to make their voice heard if they are going to have any say about this. If nothing else, "shout long enough and eventually somebody is going to see what all the fuss is about."
I just don't want to see UWM just roll over again.
Well I can't blame you (or UWM) for that. Clearly they deserve a reasonable alternative should the Arena be sacrificed as part of this process. But it shouldn't be at the expense of Marquette, which is by every measure a bigger and more popular basketball program. I'm sure President Lovell would agree since he is interested in building partnerships between the two schools.
Just because the Milwaukee Panthers don't average 15,000 doesn't mean we don't get a say. I don't think we're the ones with the last word, either. But this whole idea that UWM is irrelevant and the Bucks picked their space so we just have to live with it is ludicrous. There are many people, Bucks and Marquette fans included, who don't want to see their historical home
The line that David Uihlein gave about how the new Bucks stadium should go where the Arena is because that's their historical home is a joke. The sentiment is a wash when you're bulldozing that historical home to put up your new home.
I think a far more valid argument for the Bucks is that it puts them next door to Old World 3rd Street and the bar district - people want entertainment before and after events. But the fact of the matter is that this new stadium is EXACTLY how we fix the problem of the empty Park East corridor. That space is too big to be developed on its own without a stadium.
With a stadium, development around it would happen on its own. To make sure the best possible development happens, though, we need to blank out the tax code in the area for 5-10 years, including construction costs, for development surrounding the stadium. That allows the area around the stadium to be built up concurrently with the stadium, thus turning the Park East corridor into an immediate bustling environment - and much closer to the Schlitz Park business area than their proposed space.
Meanwhile, this post from September 27th looks all the more prophetic - Link: Journal Stands to Gain
This was a discussion on MUScoop a few weeks ago. There is a big reason why Park East is a poor site for something this big. It will increase costs tremendously due to bad soil.
http://www.muscoop.com/index.php?top...3578#msg653578