Hunzinger is so proud to have been part of the Milwaukee Art Museum team and we are so humbled to have received the Wisconsin Commercial Real Estate Women’s (WCREW) Judges’ Choice Impact award for the construction and design of the Milwaukee Art Museum East Addition and Gallery Renovations.
Lead Architect Jim Shields and Milwaukee art Museum CFO Jane Wochos accepted the award on behalf of the team at WCREW’s Annual Showcase Awards Dinner held at Discovery World on Milwaukee’s beautiful lakefront. The successful project team reunited to attend the award banquet that was very well attended by architects, developers, attorneys and real estate professionals.
Founded in 1998, WCREW helps women in all disciplines of the commercial real estate industry achieve success by providing opportunities to learn, lead, network, and do business together.
The WCREW Judges’ Choice Impact:
The project: Recently, the Milwaukee Art Museum completed its new east addition along with the complete renovation of the older Saarinen and Kahler buildings housing 30,000 works of art in over 125,000 square feet of galleries. This historic $34 million project was a public private partnership between Milwaukee County and the Art Museum. Never in the history of the Art Museum had a renovation of this scope been attempted. In addition to relocating 30,000 works of art, significant public/private project coordination challenges required careful timing of repairs, seismic monitoring of the work site, and complex staging of reinstalling the art relative to construction in order to minimize the period during which the Museum’s galleries would be closed. The 16,000 square feet of new east addition finally repaired the deteriorated east elevations of the Kahler addition built in the mid 1970’s.
The impact: For decades the Milwaukee Art Museum has dealt with deferred maintenance and deteriorating conditions in the galleries including water leaks, buckled floors, and a contaminated HVAC system. The improvements at the Art Museum finally present its world-class collection in a world class facility. The new east addition provides entry and access to the Museum directly from the Lake walk for the first time in decades. The presentation of the collection in the remodeled galleries received very positive reviews including the New York Times. Most importantly, the community now experiences a world class Museum.
Self-performing Construction Manager Hunzinger Construction Company
Project Designers HGA Architects
