Construction begins on FPC Live's Deer District music venue in Milwaukee
After over a year of delays, Madison promoter FPC Live's Deer District music venue is suddenly starting construction.
Joel Plant, CEO of FPC Live parent company Frank Productions, told the Journal Sentinel Thursday morning that the company was forgoing a ceremonial groundbreaking to begin construction right away, to stay on a planned timeline for an early fall 2025 opening.
"We accelerated everything that we could," Plant said. "There's a piledriver on site. … The goal is to get as much of the foundation into the ground the week before the RNC."
The Republican National Convention will be anchored adjacent to the construction site at Fiserv Forum July 15 to 18. Plant said construction on the venue will cease a couple of weeks prior to the convention and start up again in late July.
The estimated cost of the building is $65 million, Plant said Thursday. That's higher than the projected $50 million cost when initially announced as a potential Third Ward venue back in 2021 on land owned by Summerfest parent company Milwaukee World Festival Inc., adjacent to Maier Festival Park.
The following May, following some pushback from condo owners in the area and other critics, the two organizations announced a mutual decision to scrap those plans, with Frank and the Milwaukee Bucks announcing new plans that month to build a venue on a portion of Bucks-owned land that previously had been the site of the Bradley Center.
That proposed venue — which was to include a 4,000-person capacity room, and an 800-person capacity room — received all necessary city government approvals in late 2022. But due to rising construction costs, Frank Productions downsized the venue, scrapping the smaller club at the complex in favor of a single stage in a 4,500-person-capacity, ballroom-style room, prompting a new wave of approvals. That process was completed late last year.
While a groundbreaking ceremony was skipped, Plant on Thursday said a "vertical ceremony" is planned when that part of the construction project begins this summer.
Plant said Thursday that a name for the Deer District venue has yet to be determined, but the company has had discussions with potential naming rights sponsors, and those discussions will pick up again in the coming weeks.
Plant also said they installed monitoring equipment at historic Turner Hall across the street following concerns from the nonprofit that owns the building, and that the project's construction team of Miron and JCP is in touch with an engineer representing Turner Hall regarding any potential impact from construction.
Following the latest Deer District venue approvals, reports surfaced that Potawatomi Casino Hotel was considering constructing its own $200 million, 6,000-person capacity music venue. This year, Potawatomi is getting into the big concert business with a temporary outdoor venue. One show, with Snoop Dogg June 15, has been announced, with permits filed with the city for other potential events this summer.
"We think it's great," Plant said Thursday about Potawatomi's potential new permanent concert venue. "We have said from the start more is better. Milwaukee deserves these investments. … Milwaukee is an underserved music market."
Live Nation, the world's largest concert company, owns a stake in FPC Live and a majority stake in Frank Productions. Last week, the Department of Justice, 29 states and District of Columbia sued Live Nation, which also owns ticketing giant Ticketmaster, alleging it monopolized the live event industry.
Plant wouldn't comment on the lawsuit Thursday but said that construction of the Deer District venue would continue as planned.
Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or [email protected]. Follow him on X at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Construction begins for Deer District music venue in Milwaukee