Money woes hurt Spot 4MKE
Sponsor struggled to raise funds for downtown lot
When The Spot 4MKE’s supporters recently announced the project’s suspension, they tied that decision to a possible sale of the downtown site for commercial development.
However, city documents, obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel through an open records request, focus on project sponsor Creative Alliance Milwaukee’s inability to raise funds to continue doing events and other activities on part of the cityowned parking lot along W. Wisconsin Ave., between N. 4th and N. 5th streets.
Alliance President Maggie Jacobus, in a Dec. 18 email to Department of City Development officials and others, recommended her nonprofit group be paid $100,000 annually to manage the project for it to continue.
In the alternative, Jacobus said a larger organization or developer could take over the project. The Creative Alliance should then receive a $50,000 exit fee for “the rights to the concept, the name, the brand, the relationships, the leases, etc.,” she wrote.
The alliance needs sustained and adequate funding “to move this successful project to the next level,” Jacobus said in her memo.
Neither suggestion, nor additional pleas from the alliance, resulted in the group obtaining money. And, by early February, the decision was made to suspend the project.
Jacobus said Friday that the funding and development issues are intertwined. Uncertainty about the alliance having long-term control of the site affects fundraising efforts, she said.
“There’s a chicken and egg nuance to this project,” Jacobus said.
Meanwhile, there is interest from sponsors to help revive The Spot 4MKE elsewhere, Jacobus said.
However, the public records show unhappiness among sponsors of The Spot 4MKE, which during its short run brought public art, food vendors and outdoor events to the site near the Wisconsin Center convention facility and Grand Avenue mall.
The alliance’s fundraising challenges became apparent in December and January, around six months after The Spot 4MKE was launched.
“I remain very concerned with (the alliance’s) ability to do this,” Stephen Chernof wrote in a Jan. 14 email to city Development Commissioner Richard “Rocky” Marcoux.
Chernof, who declined to comment for this article, is an attorney and chair of Wisconsin Avenue Milwaukee Development Corp., a nonprofit group that leads efforts to improve W. Wisconsin Ave. That group, funded by
businesses, paid the Creative Alliance $15,000 to bring activity to the parking lot, a longtime downtown dead zone.
Also, two March 9 emails to Chernof and Marcoux, who also declined to comment, from Julia Taylor, Greater Milwaukee Committee president, referenced negative comments about The Spot 4MKE from Philip Winn, vice president of the Project for Public Spaces.
That New York-based group in April 2015 said it was providing in-kind support, with an estimated value of $100,000, for The Spot 4MKE. That was combined with a $100,000 grant to the Creative Alliance from Southwest Airlines Inc. and the alliance’s in-kind services, valued at $75,000.
Those funds were spent bringing art, performers, vendors and other activities to the lot. In doing so, supporters hoped to enliven the larger area along W. Wisconsin Ave., where development has lagged.
But, according to Taylor’s emails, Winn said the Creative Alliance’s project “was not a well developed and executed program.”
Taylor also wrote about the need to help the Project for Public Spaces save face “without feeling like they had a disaster on their hands.”
“I did ask PPS if they were interested in other sites and continuing to be engaged and Phil (Winn) was pretty clear, they were not,” Taylor wrote. “They just want a happy ending or at least a non-embarrasing (sic) one.”
In an interview, Winn said Taylor misunderstood his comments about The Spot 4MKE.
Winn and Project for Public Spaces President Fred Kent spoke with Jacobus, city officials and others on March 23 and said they remain interested in Milwaukee. Winn said The Spot 4MKE could be done at another W. Wisconsin Ave. location.
“We see this project as quite successful,” Winn said.
But, he said, Project for Public Spaces didn’t foresee short-term commercial development pressures at the
The Spot 4MKE City-owned parking lot city-owned site when the group agreed last year to help The Spot 4MKE.
An attempt to transform a parking lot into a public gathering space is challenging, Winn said.
“It was a very new place,” he said. “And I think these things take time.”
JSOnline.com’s Land & Space blog broke the news on March 11 that the project was on hold.
That was related to fundraising trouble, according to Milwaukee Downtown Business Improvement District records.
However, Chernof said in March that the main reason the project had stalled was because of questions about the site’s development potential. Jacobus said the alliance wasn’t raising funds because the city wouldn’t relocal new the group’s lease, which expires April 30.
The parking lot is the site of three failed hotel proposals dating to the late 1990s. But Department of City Development officials said there is now increased development potential in the site, which they say was a factor in the decision to not renew the Creative Alliance lease.
An alliance statement issued after the Land & Space blog post said the project served as a successful template for activating other underused downtown parcels.
The statement, which included quotes from Marcoux, Jacobus, Chernof and Kent, also said The Spot 4MKE could be done at another location if funds could be raised.
That plan involves using shipping containers as a relatively inexpensive way to house vendors selling various items. Such shipping container marketplaces have been done in Cleveland, Denver and other cities.
Expanding The Spot 4MKE to include the marketplace, along with power to provide lights, Internet capability and perhaps a coffee hut, would cost around $250,000 to $300,000, according to Creative Alliance.
That estimate includes the $100,000 in annual baseline funding that Jacobus sought in December, which would pay for events, artist programs, insurance and other costs.
By winter, The Spot 4MKE was inactive. It had featured public art and picnic tables, and last summer and fall hosted events, including a karaoke session, dance performances, jugglers, children’s play time and food trucks.
However, those activities were often disrupted by windy conditions, Jacobus said.
That’s what led Creative Alliance to pursue the shipping container marketplace, which would both house activities and serve as a wind block.
But to do that marketplace, the alliance needs a location with more long-term control than what city officials were willing to provide at last year’s site, Jacobus said.
And the alliance, which doesn’t have a large staff, needs outside support if The Spot 4MKE is to be revived, she said.
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