Grand Theatre Plans Stalled

posted by Ross Melnick on March 10, 2003 at 5:12 am

MILWAUKEE, WI — This was sent in from contributor Jim Rankin:

The former WARNER (now THE GRAND) in Milwaukee that was supposed to be converted by the Milwaukee Symphony into a secondary concert hall (the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts is their prime venue) … will not now come to be. [See below Journal Sentinel for more information.]

The new addition to our Art Center has received national acclaim for its innovative – if not revolutionary – design, but in the process they went so far over budget (280%!) that all the local charitable dollars have been soaked up, and with about $50 million said to be needeed in adapting the former GRAND and adding a parking structure of some sort, there just are not enough dollars out there for the foreseeable future for the Symphony to do the GRAND.

The present owner of the land under the theatre says that Marcus Entertainment still has 20 years to go on its lease, and that he fully intends to keep them at maintaining the long dark theatre so that it does not deteriorate. He seems sincere in that. Since there will, of course, be no formal announcement of the Symphony’s change in plans for the GRAND, the story [below] will have to suffice.

If you would like to advertise this as an opportunity for someone to place themselves in the Mid-West in the finest of Rapp & Rapp’s medium scale works, please use this to do so! I don’t forsee anyone else locally stepping forward to take on this 2700-seat movie house which now has been ‘un-divided’ so that it is again a single auditorium, in contrast to its last years since 1973 as a so-called “Twin.”

Read the Journal-Sentinel story

Thanks to Jim Rankin for the update! Any takers?