Can arena district be go-to gathering spot?
Businesses seek crowds during off-season
The Milwaukee Brewers were playing a home game. Bastille Days was in Cathedral Square. It was the perfect summer day for a trip down the river or to a beer garden. Still, around 20,000 people were filing into the plaza outside Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum.
Milwaukeeans filled the plaza and adjoining beer garden and hung over the balcony railings at Punch Bowl Social, the MECCA Sports Bar and Good City Brewing to get a glimpse of NBA Most Valuable Player Giannis Antetokounmpo.
As Antetokounmpo led thousands in chanting “M-V-P,” the vision for the arena and surrounding entertainment
block was, in many ways, realized.
“The overarching goal is to be Milwaukee’s gathering place,” said Michael Belot, senior vice president of Bucks Ventures and Development.
When there’s an event at Fiserv Forum, it is. More than when Milwaukee’s largest arena was the BMO Harris Bradley Center, people come downtown before events and stick around afterward to eat and drink. No more do people park their cars and head straight into the arena. Even people who don’t have a ticket inside are coming just to be a part of the excitement.
It’s not just the Bucks. The arena has between 150 and 200 scheduled events each year. Drink Wisconsinbly Pub had its busiest day the night country star Eric Church played Fiserv Forum.
For the businesses in the development, it’s a cycle of mad rushes and slow nights.
Walking through the plaza on a beautiful summer morning, there might be a couple of dozen people taking a free yoga class offered by the Bucks. At lunch, a few downtown workers might be outside at Good City Brewing. On a Monday evening when the beer garden plays “The Bachelorette,” fans scream at the mega screen.
To be sure, no matter how large a crowd arrives on an average Friday night, it will never resemble the fervor of the playoffs.
“There’s no place that has 18,000 people walking by 365 days a year,” Belot said. “The rest of the time the businesses need to stand on their own.”
After basketball season
Since the Bucks season ended, the new spots are figuring out what business as usual looks like when there are fewer events scheduled to draw 17,500 people to the $524 million arena.
The last spot in the block to open — MECCA — started serving food and drink just as the Bucks played a conference semifinals series against the Boston Celtics.
The restaurants and bars got used to being absolutely slammed. At Punch Bowl Social, that meant being at full capacity, around 1,100 people, a couple of hours before Bucks games.
Learning to manage volume — or lack of volume — has been a challenge, said Punch Bowl Social Regional Director of Operations Joe Schratz.
During this slow season, staff is cut nearly in half. On a weekend game day, Punch Bowl Social would have around 120 employees working. Now, he said, 60 employees might work on a Saturday night.
Schratz said the team was more worried about accommodating basketball crowds after its March opening, not planning ahead for summer programming. To literally drive people to the business, Punch Bowl Social set up a booth at Summerfest that gave away free Uber rides back to the entertainment block.
Schratz is starting to think about how to build out summer programming for next year. Adding a shuttle bus to and from Brewers games, Summerfest or other events around the city is one idea.
Beyond the actual sales, it’s about introducing brands to more people.
Drink Wisconsinbly, which sells a line of Badger State merchandise and launched its own brandy, is betting on increased exposure from the arena. So too is Good City Brewing, which sells its beers across the state in stores and bars.
The Bucks and surrounding bars and restaurants are all about hosting events — both public and private — to bring people to the area. Brewers and Green Bay Packers games are shown in the beer garden.
There are fitness classes, movies and children’s activities. The Bucks are introducing festivals like Chords & Curds and The Great American Lobster Fest. Morning Glory Art Fair will move to the plaza from the Marcus Center this year.
The operators determined that summer would be the slowest season for them. Most bars see slow months at the beginning of the year because of winter. But in the summer, the plaza is competing with Milwaukeeans’ other options for entertainment — festivals, beer gardens and free music series.
“We anticipated this when we developed a downtown business model that intentionally shifts towards more private events in the summer, particularly hosting weddings in our second-floor Good City Commons space,” said Good City’s David Dupee.
The brewer has hosted four weddings so far. The event space is booked nearly every Saturday from mid-September through November. Dupee said the brewery expects to book most every Saturday next summer, which includes the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Year-round destination?
The question is whether the development can become a new go-to yearround destination for entertainment in the city.
Milwaukee’s population is relatively stagnant, so bringing in customers to an area can mean taking business from someone else.
Operators of existing bars on Old World Third Street were uneasy when the concept was originally announced, said Stacie Callies, executive director of the business improvement district that includes Fiserv Forum.
“The idea of ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’ seems applicable in this situation — the Deer District and Fiserv Forum are attracting more people, which is helping drive traffic to the entire area,” Callies said in an email.
The new arena, no doubt, is starting to have a ripple effect on downtown entertainment and nightlife. The bars on Old World Third Street haven’t lost out to the new businesses a block away — many are busier because of the crowds drawn to the area.
Nathan Harris said business at Ugly’s increased more than 30% after the arena opened.
“That’s just from the ancillary impact of what’s happening,” said Harris, a partner in the bar. “There’s no doubt that there’s more bodies.”
With that increased business in mind, Ugly’s has closed to revamp its concept to take advantage of its location next to the entertainment block.
When the bar at 1125 N. Old World Third St. reopens the first week in September, the downstairs will be a northern Wisconsin-themed spot named Uncle Buck’s with new windows to show off its proximity to the alley that houses the beer garden and for people there to catch a peek inside.
“What I loved about it was the amount of people that are actually here,” said Michael Vitucci, a partner in the new bars, Uncle Buck’s and Red Star. “It’s amazing the volume of people. It is our goal to pluck people out of that crowd.”
Upstairs, in what will become Red Star, they’re making the beer garden part of the attraction. The windows are being expanded to three times their original size for a prime view of the 28foot screen and the crowds that will gather there. Whatever is playing at the beer garden will now be playing inside Red Star, which will charge guests extra for the best spots.
“It’s like we just bought a million-dollar television,” Vitucci said.
“(Years ago,) there were a constant number of people downtown that we all had to fight for,” Harris said. “As the arena and the team gets better and the events get livelier as you have more large-scale concerts, you’re seeing people come here from farther away on a regular basis.”
More to be done
But there’s still more to be done before the Bucks can have the truly transformational effect on downtown that they envisioned.
Lots remain open north of the arena and south, where the Bradley Center once stood. That development is what many say is necessary for the plaza to become a year-round destination.
Construction in those spaces is on hold until after Milwaukee hosts the 2020 Democratic National Convention. Fiserv Forum serves as the epicenter of activity. Definitive plans for the lots have not been released, but the businesses nearby have opinions on what needs to occupy that land to ensure a steady stream of potential customers.
A neighborhood environment with density and foot traffic is what the Bucks and those who bought into the vision desire. That means housing, offices and other business.
Tenants such as Drink Wisconsinbly think it can gain traction. The all-Wisconsin-all-the-time bar has a 25-year agreement to its spot on the southern end of the block. Drink Wisconsinbly closed its Walker’s Point bar to move into the high-profile real estate.
“Next year is going to be a lot different than this year,” said John Casanova, president of Wisconsinbly Holdings. “In five years compared to this year is going to be a lot different. I mean I can’t emphasize enough that we’re from the standpoint that we’ve barely scratched the surface of what we can do there.”
Sarah Hauer can be reached at shauer@journalsentinel.com or on Instagram @HauerSarah and Twitter @SarahHauer. Subscribe to her weekly newsletter Be MKE at jsonline.com/bemke.