The Milwaukee Public Museum's striking "Future Museum" construction began in June and since work on the pilings was wrapped up, the building is now rising out of the ground.
If you drive past the site on the northeast corner of 6th Street and McKinley Avenue, you'll see that the foundations are set and the first floor columns and sheer walls have been completed.
Mortenson, the project's construction manager, has 42 trade partners working on the building, with 38 of those being Wisconsin based.
Workers are currently pouring concrete for the floor of the second level, and work is about half done on that. Concrete pouring for the museum's five floors will continue into spring.
Looking at the formwork for the concrete you can already spy the curves and lightwell of the unique building, designed by Ennead Architects and Kahler Slater.
Work has also begun on the parking structure to the north of the museum building.
Indigenous artist Mark Fischer is currently putting the finishing touches on his artwork that will be placed in the museum's outdoor plaza space. That work is being fabricated at the artist's Germantown studio.
According to museum sources, about 75-100 people are currently working on the site each day, but at peak times that number will rise to 250 and overall the project is expected to employ approximately 650-700 people.
Work to clear the 2.4-acre site of three building began in the summer of 2022 and continued the following spring. The third and final structure came down later in 2023, with final site clearance occurring earlier this year.
Groundbreaking ceremonies for the 200,000-square-foot museum were held in spring. The new museum is expected to open in early 2027.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
