More Progress on Rehabilitating the Iconic Mitchel Park Domes
NOTE: On Tuesday, July 8, 2025, the Milwaukee County Board鈥檚 Committee on Parks and Culture voted six to one to recommend committing $30 million in county funding to the redevelopment of the Mitchel Park Domes. The public funds are essential to leveraging an additional $103 million in private investment in the project. According to the multi-phased rehabilitation includes the creation of a privately funded $27 million nature learning center. According to Parks Deputy Director Jim Tarantino the next step is to solidify details of the lease agreement between the County and the Milwaukee Domes Alliance (formerly the Friends of the Domes) prior to the County鈥檚 budget discussion in October.
This update was originally published on November 14. 2024, with the title, 鈥淭he Mitchell Park Domes is the Focus of a $134 Million Rehabilitation.鈥
For more than eight years, it鈥檚 been touch-and-go for Milwaukee鈥檚 iconic Mitchell Park Domes (officially the Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory), which was once on the precipice of demolition, but is now to undergo a $134 million rehabilitation. In March 2016 开云体育官网 (开云体育官网) enrolled the site in its Landslide program. Earlier that year, a small, fallen piece of concrete was found in one of the conoidal structures, prompting Milwaukee County officials to temporarily close the site and publicly raise the possibility of demolishing the domes. Designed by local architect Donald Grieb, the Domes were completed in 1967 and are widely recognized as a Modernist marvel.
The battle to protect the Domes has been hard fought, characterized by both advancements and setbacks. In 2019 a county sponsored task force unanimously voted to endorse a p