The Hidden Costs of Demolishing the Domes

by Virginia Small

Aug. 04, 2023

3:31 p.m.

Photo: Visit Milwaukee

The Desert Dome at the Mitchell Park Domes

Multitudes visit the Mitchell Park Domes for holiday gatherings, ritual celebrations and milestones. The Domes also serve as a popular venue for educational, corporate and tourist events, and for weddings, proms and other special occasions. For example, AIA Wisconsin, the statewide chapter of the American Institute of Architects, will hold its 2023 Design Awards Gala there on Friday, September 15.

Shelby DeGroote, AIA Wisconsin’s events coordinator, said in an email, “We intentionally selected the Domes … as an architecturally significant structure, being the only one of its kind in the world, but also to highlight the controversy surrounding the fate of the beloved community establishment.” The event will also benefit Wisconsin Architects Foundation, AIA’s nonprofit branch. Tickets e.givesmart.com/events/xUG can be obtained until September 7, including for nonmembers. The event will include a discussion about the future of the Domes.

Both elected officials and county staff have increasingly hedged on continuing stewardship of the much-loved civic treasure. Last September, the county’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Task Force rejected a proposal by four supervisors to spend $19 million to repair the Domes’ long-neglected glazing system, the glass and aluminum shell that covers the three conical domes’ underlying concrete structure. The figure was based on a 2019 preliminary estimate by architecture and engineering consultant ZS LLC.

Last fall, James Tarantino, deputy director of parks, recreation and culture, called the Domes “an unsolvable math problem.” A new Milwaukee County Parks’ website warns style-conscious readers: “The Domes are iconic, but dated.”

In July 2020, newly elected County Executive David Crowley told Milwaukee Magazine: “We have to do everything we can to preserve our Domes. I remember going to our Domes when I was a little kid, but also that’s who hosted our prom when I went to Bay View High School. I want to make sure that future generations can enjoy the Domes.” Then last fall, Crowley reversed that position and said, “Demolition [of the Domes] should be considered.”

Crowley also vetoed a county board resolution directing staff to file for listing the Domes on the National Register of Historic Places, the program administered under federal law by the National Park Service. Listing on the National Register of Historic Places can open the door to some types of preservation-related funding, but also places restrictions on what can be done structurally to the Domes.

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In August 2019, the Domes Task Force, after meeting for nearly three years, recommended saving and restoring the three Domes and making improvements to Mitchell Park. The board of county supervisors voted to endorse the plan.

Tarantino told the county board’s Committee on Parks and Culture on July 18that consultant Husch Blackwell had “poked holes in the plan” proposed by ArtsMarket LLC, work commissioned by the Domes Task Force. The parks department has now decided to ditch those recommendations out of hand because they were “too complicated.” Parks staff are instead starting over with their own efforts to “move toward a shared vision” for Mitchell Park.

Dawn McCarthy, who served on the Domes Task Force, said that “while the 2022 Husch Blackwell report to the county identified problems with the finance stacking as drafted in Phase III, they also provided next steps to reframe the Task Force’s proposal into a viable plan for the future of the Domes.”

Tarantino told supervisors that some potential donors, anonymously interviewed by a fund-raising consulting firm, are not much interested in “saving the Domes.” He said that these philanthropists would rather fund “a compelling new project” in Mitchell Park. Tarantino offered this teaser bombshell during a preliminary report about various options for the Domes. In any case, Milwaukee County officials are charged with stewardship of the Domes—not private donors.

Tarantino tried to spin images of a better-than-ever park—one unencumbered by the Domes. He spoke about building upon the “iconic nature” of the beloved Domes: “They are an important part of Milwaukee’s culture, our skyline, our park system, but they could also serve as a catalyst to a broader fundraising campaign to fund other improvements.” Besides, he said, some donors consider the Domes merely “iconic, but not historic.” In other words, the Domes are being painted as recognizable but not important.

Tarantino pitched a gauzy fantasy that people’s memories of the Domes, or maybe something riffing off of them, could somehow replace what is often called a “magical” oasis. It recalled former County Executive Chris Abele’s repeated floating of Domes demolition as a “realistic option.” Abele referred to the Domes as “kitschy” in a 2016 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article. Over time, Abele suggested many ways to replace them, including with an outdoor amphitheater, and by moving its plants to the zoo.

When pressed by supervisors, Tarantino said that maybe one Dome could be spared.

A previous Milwaukee County report called the Domes, “a jewel of the Milwaukee County Parks infrastructure” and a “must-see and must-experience destination for SE Wisconsin residents and visitors.” Thousands of people of all ages and backgrounds have shared their lived experiences about why they value the Domes—during public hearings and on other platforms.

The Domes were named to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2016 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places®. In March 2017 they were designated as a National Treasure by the nonprofit organization. In 2016, The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) included the Domes in its Landslide program of ‘threatened cultural landscapes.”

Many costs associated with demolishing the Domes are not fully quantifiable or included when viewed solely through a monetary lens. Emma Rudd, executive director of the Milwaukee Preservation Alliance, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the protection and stewardship of built heritage, said by phone that demolition would have a ripple-effect impact, from “economic, social, environmental, and educational, to civic, cultural, and even public health.” Harms created by erasing a significant cultural heritage site would play out over time, according to urban planning experts.

Milwaukee County has not invested in maintaining the Domes. Yet, it will cost at least $10 to $15 million to demolish them, by a 2019 estimate. It’s an incongruous absurdity that barely gets mentioned.

Demolition of a building is often “one of the least-environmentally-sustainable options,” according to Rudd. “It’s not a foreign concept that the greenest building is one that is already built,” she said. Environmentalists consider and calculate “embodied energy, which is the cumulated investments of materials and energy in existing buildings, combined with the carbon inputs required to destroy a building and haul away its contents.” She added that it usually takes decades to recoup the energy costs and other investments required to replace an existing building, even when replaced with a new, “green building.” Thus, those “sunk costs” must be added to the outright demolition costs, she said.

The Domes have been an economic anchor of the Clarke Square neighborhood since 1963 when the first of the trio was opened. The conservatory serves as both a neighborhood asset and a community-wide treasure.

Both Mitchell Park and the Domes have languished following decades-long disinvestment by Milwaukee County. Disparities between parks in under-resourced versus affluent neighborhoods in Milwaukee County, documented for decades, have enabled an inequitable “two-tier system” of parks. “Demolishing the Domes will aggravate those inequities,” said Rudd.

The Domes house plants from tropical, desert and other climates in what a youngster called “a zoo for plants.” The Domes’ “world-class plant collection” is valued at $3.2 million, according to Friends of the Domes. Many plants are long lived and some reportedly are “threatened” species. The tropical dome is also home to many birds and fish.

Architect Donald L. Grieb designed the 85-foot-high, patented beehive-shape specifically to accommodate plants taller than could grow in traditional domed glasshouses. Complete demolition, or keeping a token Dome, will likely result in the outright loss of most or many of those plants.

Christa Beal Diefenbach, executive director of Friends of the Domes, stresses the Domes’ therapeutic value by “providing year-round access to nature as an incredibly healing resource. “It’s also essential as an urban conservatory,” she said, A recent FOD newsletter recounts Domes’ neighbor Juanita Ramos’ daily reliance on the conservatory following a serious injury and related trauma. “The Domes healed my mind and my body … having nature inside, indoors, that is what healed me. Once your mind starts to heal, your body can heal, too,” said Ramos.

Many attendees at public hearings have described how the Domes help them to survive winter and to counter Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). County residents without the means for winter getaways will especially be burdened by demolition of the Domes. Most major cities have a horticultural conservatory. Chicago has two: in Garfield and Lincoln parks.

Demolishing the Domes will deprive both residents and visitors of a unique place of respite and opportunities to experience and learn about plants. Milwaukee County’s only other public horticultural resources are Boerner Botanical Gardens and Wehr Nature Center. Both are located in Hales Corners and are not accessible by public transit.

Emblematic civic landmarks are complex in their appeal. Like lightning in a bottle, they cannot simply be conjured on demand. Cities lucky enough to have such powerfully resonant places do well to appreciate and care for them.

Local historian John Gurda has called the Domes “a symbol of Milwaukee’s optimism.” Thus, Milwaukee’s Domes demolition drumbeat strains credulity. Would St. Louis ax its “Arch”? Would Seattle’s tear down its Space Needle? Would New Orleans bulldoze Bourbon Street? Would anyone in Paris dream of trashing the Eiffel Tower?

Post-demolition, the Domes’ glaring absence would be experienced endlessly in myriad ways—as both fact and symbol. Historians would have a field day dissecting the sad saga and its stubborn repercussions.

A long-time major local donor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “What disturbs me most is that when we came here 40 years ago, the Domes were revered as a symbol of civic pride. What has happened that now there is no political will to care for them, to keep them?”

This philanthropic couple was never interviewed regarding a potential gift to save the Domes, despite having been significant donors over decades to many local parks-related and environmental projects. They had previously expressed interest in contributing to a campaign to revitalize the Domes.

Walter Wilson, a retired principal architect for Milwaukee County, said in 2016 that “the conservatory and its South Side neighborhood are interdependent.” “Why would anyone want to give up something that’s truly a defining feature of Milwaukee?” Wilson asked in an Urban Milwaukee article. A member of the National Organization for Minority Architects (NOMA), he is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).

Wilson said that the Domes debate also reflects larger urban-planning issues playing out in Milwaukee. “Look where the Domes are located … they are in a neighborhood that gives some people pause,” because it is home to more low-income residents than some other neighborhoods. Sup. Juan Miguel Martinez told Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service in May that he wants any effort to address the future of The Domes to include a plan on how to return Mitchell Park to prominence. “I want Mitchell Park to be what it used to be, and that was a great park.”

Sup. Sheldon Wasserman, the parks committee chair, said on July 18 that he looks forward to making a decision soon about the Domes. “We want a solution done … by the end of this term, so that we never have to deal with this again.”

An order to demolish the Domes would have to be signed by the county executive.

If the Domes are destroyed, it will be an inescapably high-profile and protracted spectacle. Does County Executive David Crowley want to be forever known as the politician who doomed the Domes?

The parks department will present its full report on their Domes study Tuesday, September 12 at 9 a.m. before the Committee on Parks and Culture at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, Room 203R and online (accessible through the County Legislative Information Center). They will provide cost estimates for several options regarding the Domes. Members of the public may attend. and request to speak or submit comments.

Milwaukee County launched a website in late July focused on “The Future of Mitchell Park.” It downplays the historically significant Domes and tries to shift the focus to Mitchell Park. Readers are invited to submit input, while being cautioned that, “Time and progress march on.”

Other related websites include “The Future of the Domes” milwaukeedomes.org/about-the-domes/the-future-of-the-domes hosted by Friends of the Domes, and a “Save Our Domes” site hosted by Milwaukee Preservation Alliance.

Virginia Small is an award-winning journalist and lifelong writer. She has served as a senior editor for a national magazine, a staff reporter and cultural reviewer for several newspapers, and a contributor to many national and regional publications.

Aug. 04, 2023

3:31 p.m.