In February 1985, in the midst of what would be their sixth straight Central Division title-winning season, Milwaukee Bucks owner Jim Fitzgerald announced he was selling the team. Although the Bucks had been very successful on the court throughout their 16-year history—12 playoff appearances, 10 division titles, two NBA Finals appearances and a world title—they played in the smallest arena in the NBA and suffered from severe financial troubles. The MECCA (now the UWM Panther Arena) sat only 11,000 people. The Bucks had made it known for years that a new arena was vital to their survival, but had yet been unable to finance a project. With the team’s sale now imminent, it was feared that the team would soon be on the move.
But the team was on the market for less than a month before Herb Kohl, formerly of the Kohl’s food and department store chain, stunned the city by buying the team for $18 million and pledging that he would keep the club in Milwaukee. Just days later, philanthropists Jane and Lloyd Pettit announced that they would finance the construction of a new, world-class arena for the Bucks and give it to the city as a gift. In the blink of an eye, it seemed that basketball in Milwaukee had miraculously been saved.
The Pettits were prepared to spend $30-40 million for construction of the new arena, which would be known as the “Bradley Center,” in honor of Jane’s father, industrialist Harry Bradley. The Pettits wanted work to begin as soon as possible and announced that the arena would be located next to County Stadium in the Menomonee Valley. Work at that site could begin soon and the stadium’s parking lots would easily be able to serve the new arena. This ran contrary, however, to the preference of Mayor Henry Maier, a self-proclaimed “downtown man” who wanted the Pettits to either build the Bradley Center just to the north of the MECCA, on a lot presently occupied by a Milwaukee Journal parking lot, or to donate the money to the city for a refurbishment of the old arena. A lawyer for the Pettits said that there was “no chance” of them agreeing to a Downtown site. It was expected that the groundbreaking would occur as early as October, with a target opening date of early 1987.
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This shows where the Bradley Center was originally going to be located. Also noted is the proposed but never-built Menomonee Valley state prison.
But the city kept up its pitch to keep the Bucks Downtown. By the fall, the Pettits had agreed to consider a Downtown site, a five-acre piece of land bound by the river, North Fourth St., and Highland and Juneau avenues. The city agreed to build two parking structures for a Downtown project. City officials seemed confident that they would win the fight and were most surprised in mid-October when the Pettits rejected the offer and officially announced that the arena would be built next to the stadium. Jane Pettit said that the Downtown site would delay the project and she did not want to displace Fourth Street business owners. Insiders claimed that the Pettits were scared off by Maier’s lack of leadership on the matter.
Within hours of the announcement, Brewers president Bud Selig threw a bomb into the proceedings by going public with “concerns” the team had over the site—mainly that the new arena would cost the Brewers parking revenue and impede access to the stadium. Selig—himself trying to finance a new home park for the Brewers—went as far as to say that a next-door Bradley Center would threaten the future of the Brewers in the city.
The Bradley Center board and county officials were livid. They said that Selig had had months to make his objections known, but had waited until the last moment to do so. Selig said he had communicated these issues to board members over the summer. The Pettits, who had never envisioned such trouble in giving away $40 million, withdrew the site as a possibility, not wishing to threaten the city’s other major league franchise.
The project would now be delayed by at least six months, making it all but impossible to open the arena in 1987. The Bradley Center board quickly assembled a list of ten other possible sites, five in Milwaukee and five in West Allis or West Milwaukee. Among the sites were a plot of land just past the end of the Park East Freeway, the old Coachyards site to the west of the festival grounds in the Third Ward, the state fairground (a site West Allis officials were advocating), and former Harnischfeger and Allis-Chalmers factory sites.
A Milwaukee Journal map of potential Bradley Center sites.
Finally, just before Christmas 1985—months after the Pettits had hoped to break ground—the city and the board reached an agreement in which the city would buy the Journal parking lot site and donate it to the project. But the delays were far from over. Included in the plot of land were a number of N. Fifth St. businesses, including the Milwaukee Rescue Mission, the landmark LGBT Mint Bar and the Standard Electric Company. Delays in opening a new facility for Standard held up the clearing of the land for months. Meanwhile, the MECCA was facing a huge possible loss for the 1986-87 basketball season. As part of an agreement with the city, the delay in opening the new arena meant the Bucks could play rent-free at the MECCA until the Bradley Center was move-in ready. If the MECCA board refused, it would void the contract between the Bradley board and the city, potentially killing the arena deal entirely. In the end, the MECCA board had no real chose but to take the loss.
Finally, on October 20, 1986—after more than a year of haggling—Jane Pettit turned over the first symbolic shovelful of dirt at the site, breaking ground on the Bradley Center. In the Fall of 1988, the Bucks, Milwaukee Admirals and Marquette men’s basketball team all moved from the MECCA to the new arena as it was hailed as the finest facility of its kind for 300 miles in any direction and local officials boasted that it would be the pride of the city for the next half-century.
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