The Wisconsin Center District, a quasi-public organization that manages the Baird Center, the Miller High Life Theatre and the Panther Arena, is considering the removal of the High Life Theatre and replacing it with a 650-room convention hotel.
The project has been met by outcry—including a dense volume of public commentary—by community members. The theater’s unique size (4,086 seats), architectural details and hosting of bands from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to Patti Smith and Leonard Cohen, make this venue a historic part of Downtown’s history. But in addition to the cultural impact, the destruction and replacement of the High Life would have significant implications on who lives, plays and works Downtown.
What is the Wisconsin Center District?
The Wisconsin Center District is a public-private organization founded in 1994 under Wisconsin state statute 229.26 to manage the city’s convention facilities. It consists of a 17-member board of directors including the City of Milwaukee Comptroller, County of Milwaukee Comptroller, two
members of the majority party of the Wisconsin Assembly and Senate, two from the minority and the rest appointed by the County Executive, Common Council President and Mayor.
The District is responsible for the maintenance and marketing of their spaces and is partially funded via a 3% county hotel room tax (7% for the City of Milwaukee), 3% county car rental tax and .5% food and beverage tax on Milwaukee County. In 2024, the District received over $49 million in revenue from county taxes.
The District is subject to the Wisconsin Open Meetings Law and its meetings are given public notice and available to stream to the general public. It has the authority to issue tax exempt bonds in order to finance capital costs as a public-private entity.
What is the Plan?
On January 30, Chicago based Hunden group presented a “Highest and Best Use Evaluation” for the Wisconsin Center District’s assets. Among its findings was the recommendation for the construction of a 650-room hotel on the site of the High Life. The report developed a metric with a variety of criteria for evaluating sites to construct the hotel and the High Life site was the highest graded.
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Hunden estimated that inadequate hotel space was the result of 18% of lost conventions in Milwaukee, citing a lack of quality hotel rooms available to the convention space. Yet, the study also acknowledged that with the Milwaukee hotel market sitting at just 62% occupancy—healthy hotel markets sit at 70%—the project may glut the market.
According to Andrew Flack, Chief Commercial Officer of Marcus Corporation, the Hunden report “seems to be guided by an ambition of growth at any cost,” says. Marcus Corporation owns four existing Downtown hotels: the Hilton City Center, Marc Hotel, St. Kate and the Pfister. “If left unchecked this will long-term harm to hotel and visitor economy.”
At an April 1 meeting with the Wisconsin Center Board, Hans Detlefsen, president of Hotel Appraisers and Advisors, acknowledged the damage that building a new hotel in this market may cause to hotel owners Downtown. However, he explained that he felt that “This isn’t something that stops with one investment,” arguing for the city to invest more in tourist-related infrastructure to increase the amount of tourism spending and activity in the city.
Echoing his sentiments, Hunden’s report argued for more retail and green space to activate the convention center as a 16-hour space, without identifying if there is a need for such spaces in Milwaukee.
“It is an increasingly difficult market, and I don’t think that’s the major need,” said Alderman Bob Bauman, whose district includes the Baird center and is on the Wisconsin Center Board, of first floor retail. “Part of the problem with Westown for traditional street level retail is the blocks are very big.
“I don’t think they [Hunden] walked around too much because there actually is green space in Westown,” he continued. “There’s Pere Marquette Park which is a very nice and big green space. There’s Zeidler park … Then there’s that little Postman Square.”
More Downtown Development?
The report is accused of being geared toward increasing revenues for the convention center without regard for what exists already.
Additionally, Milwaukee has continued to invest in its Downtown with city leaders citing how much Downtown contributes to the citywide taxbase—22.1% of property taxes according to Milwaukee Downtown BID #21’s 2026 report. But, despite Downtown’s property tax generation outperforming its landmass, many parts of the rest of the city underperform while the city leaders continue to champion Downtown development.
“You can drive through neighborhoods of Milwaukee that are totally neglected. The streets are garbage, the businesses are boarded up. I mean, come on,” said activist and former District Three aldermanic candidate Frank Ferrante. He stressed the need for “investing in rebuilding a neighborhood [that] is generational, that builds generational wealth in the city, which is what you need to increase revenues for future investments in the city.”
Bauman, though in favor of a convention hotel, has his own concerns about this investment too. “I don’t think there’s any question that the site is Vel Phillips Plaza …that’s without question the best location,” he said of the site for the project.
“So all this analysis and study is wasting money in my opinion, because I could have told you all this before they did this [study].”
His worries about the study were matched by the Pabst Theater Group’s Gary Witt, who argues that the whole premise of the study is questionable. The new Landmark Credit Union Live venue opened on the site of the former Bradley center, a block away from the High Life and of a similar capacity. The Hunden report suggests that the similar size and advanced age of the High Life will lead to more competition to book events, possibly leading to less use. But according to Witt, the report misses a key aspect of differences between the two.
“Landmark Credit Union Live is a standing room venue, a standing room pit on the main floor, right? And High life is a seated 4,086 capacity theater,” he said.
“David Byrne is not going to ask his audience that’s paying $150 a ticket to stand for three hours,” Witt continued. “One is a standing room GA venue that attracts people probably 35 and younger; the other is a reserve seated venue that attracts people probably 35 and older.”
Witt adds that calling Landmark Credit Union Live a sufficient replacement for Miller High Life is nonsensical, misseing the point entirely. “It’s all based on the fact that if someone like Hunden does a study and they make a recommendation based upon something that’s false, do you take the recommendation and therefore write the article about whether we should be taking High Life down. Even writing the article about taking High Life down validates their bullshit theory of the fact that it shouldn’t be there.”
Thus, Witt begs the question of why the study was even done. He explained that “I can verify the fact that before the study was ever done Marty Brooks, who runs the Wisconsin Center District, came to my partner Matt and I [and] told us exactly what the study was going to say. So the question is, was the study ever really done?”
At the April meeting Hunden’s Matthew Avila and Hans Detlefsen explained that their proposed project would cost $325 to $455 million and recommended using public financing for construction. Public financing makes the project more affordable than private sector financing as the Wisconsin Center District can sell tax exempt bonds to fund construction.
Thus, the $325 to $455 million needed to construct the hotel would be paid back by hotel revenue and the existing county tax revenues on hotel rooms, restaurant and car rentals used to support the District. Though public financing is typically only used on projects that can repay themselves over time, if the hotel fails to be solvent, the burden to pay back the debt will fall on taxpayers; the county will still be responsible for the original debt and the Wisconsin Center District will be responsible for supporting an insolvent hotel. Without hotel revenue, the county would be responsible for finding new revenue streams to pay back the hotel debt.
Whose Downtown?
Additionally, by razing the Miller High Life Theatre, the project would demolish another building that contributes to Milwaukee’s rich streetscape, makes it walkable and encourages Milwaukeeans to be Downtown. In recent decades, the west side of Downtown has been reshaped by the demolition of smaller, historic spaces in favor of large single use office space and parking—from the Randolph block, to the Hotel Antlers building and the four square blocks demolished for the Baird center and the Ruess Federal plaza that replaced the 400 block of Wisconsin Avenue. These spaces, though often in poor shape on the eve of their demolition, provided smaller commercial spaces that allowed for a broader range of economic backgrounds to own and patronize Downtown businesses. The Baird Center and other large office spaces—though no doubt useful for city tax rolls—are large, big business-oriented spaces, often geared toward a single class of white-collar workers.
Small buildings are easily adaptable. Large convention and arena spaces are not. What happens to tax revenue and Downtown if conventions become less common, if large events do not choose Milwaukee? “I think having the diversity of businesses is important … I mean you need these smaller, unique venues that are more accessible for people,” said Ferrante. “So you’re taking that away on the business end. Then you’re also taking away the diversity of the clientele downtown.”
On the other hand, an anonymous local real estate professional stated the case for a convention hotel, explaining “Conventioneers tend to be from out of town and spend money in town that otherwise isn’t coming to Milwaukee. If a convention goes to Cleveland, it’s gone. [Miller High Life] Theater money tends to be more local. If not spent at the theater, it likely stays in the community—just spent differently on other discretionary goods and services.”
But he also emphasized that ideally the hotel would be built without the loss of Miller High Life as it is also a revenue producer. “More convention business is good for the city,” he explained. “Probably the ideal would be a new convention hotel and keeping the Theater fully booked.”
There are lots of unknowns with this project, a project that Hunden eagerly advertises as a winner for the local economy, but even some supporters of the convention hotel are skeptical. “Would it dramatically improve the economic performance of existing hotels? Unclear,” said Bauman.
Tale of two markets: Baltimore and Columbus
As Milwaukee looks to create a convention hotel likely through public financing, it is important to consider two stories—one of moderate success, the other of abject failure—in convention hotel use.
In 2006 the city of Baltimore began financing of just over $300 million to construct a hotel that would be owned by the city via the Baltimore Development Corporation and operated by a private hotel group adjacent to its convention center. The Baltimore Development is a quasi-government organization, similar to the Wisconsin Center District with the ability to use tax-exempt bonds to fund construction. The Corporation has a board entirely appointed by the Mayor.
In 2006, hopes were high and consultant Robert Swerdling promised the city would reap profits via hotel revenue which would be paid into the city’s general fund. The hotel opened in 2008, smack into the 2008 financial crisis. Instead of paying into Baltimore’s general fund, the city has spent $143.7 million on keeping the hotel out of foreclosure on top of the $301 million initially borrowed.
The city has explored options to sell the hotel, but given its debt it is unlikely to find any suitors. The Baltimore Banner reported that “Before the shovels hit the ground, supporters said a new hotel was needed to drive business at the city’s Convention Center. Critics warned it was too risky.”
The Hunden report seems to drive the same conclusion, that new hotel space is needed to fill the gap to promote more convention business, which would thus drive the economy. By contrast, Columbus offers almost the opposite, one of moderate, incremental success.
According to the Hunden report, the convention center has been successful; amongst a group of seven convention hotels in the Midwest and South, Hunden reported that average room rates increased $7 a night after convention hotel construction and expansion. Additionally, Hunden listed two events that Milwaukee’s Baird Center lost to Columbus’s convention center; a Kubota Tractor Corp. meeting and the American Academy of Forensic Sciences 2029 conference.
These events were chalked up to a combined $9.7 million economic impact according to Experience Columbus and Hunden. Columbus built a 532 room, publicly owned Hilton hotel in 2012 and added on a 463-room tower in 2022. This hotel space is all owned by the Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority.
The Authority is funded via a 4% county hotel tax and additional .9% city of Columbus tax on hotel rooms. Like the Wisconsin Center and Baltimore Development Corporation, it is a quasi-government organization with an 11-member board appointed by the Franklin County Commissioners, City of Columbus and suburban mayors. The Authority carries $432.5 million in debt for the construction which they expect to be paid off by 2042 and 2051 respectively.
Thus, both Baltimore and Columbus offer cases of failure and moderate success. These are two case studies that highlight two of the many possibilities for Milwaukee; there are many unknowns in this project. There is a possibility to raise revenues for the city and county via tax revenue in increased convention center spending and tourism. There is also a possibility that the convention hotel opens and does not fulfill expectations and the weight falls on taxpayers.
The underlying question is: what Milwaukee should be borrowing money to fund? Will this project repay itself and increase revenue in a meaningful way to tackle the city and county’s costs? Will this hotel’s construction support Milwaukee’s and the county’s citizens via its purported tax revenue increase? These questions and answers remain to be seen as Milwaukee’s budgetary and infrastructure problems are multifaceted and years in the making, one that simple increases in revenue will not solve overnight.
The question is one that will weigh on the Wisconsin Center Board: is this a project worth pursuing? Is this worth tearing down the landmark Miller High Life Theatre? Will this help Milwaukee city and county?
