For several years, the future of Milwaukee’s Mitchell Park Domes has looked pretty bleak. The horticultural conservatory lost out on $19 million in federal funding in 2022—a would-have-been lifeline for the near-doomed domed structures which suffer from deferred maintenance. Today, the future looks rosier: a proposal, recently unveiled by nonprofit Friends of the Domes, seeks to update the facility and expand its programming.
Friends of the Domes presented its vision, “Domes Reimagined,” to the Milwaukee County Committee on Parks and Culture at a meeting last week. It charted out new projects and new revenue models for the historic site. Friends of the Domes and the Milwaukee County Parks System presently split the operations of the Mitchell Park Domes. To realize “Domes Reimagined,” Friends of the Domes has enlisted the help of local a real estate developer, the Alexander Company, and local architecture practice TKWA.
Mitchell Park Domes were designed by Milwaukee architect Donald L. Grieb. Grieb’s “beehive-shaped conoidal glass domes” were completed in 1967. The trio—consisting of Desert Dome, Floral Show Dome, and Tropical Dome—follows up on a previous design for a glass conservatory from the late 19th century that was modeled after London’s Crystal Palace. This predecessor was demolished when visitor numbers declined in the 1940s and 1950s—a fate not dissimilar to what the Mitchell Park Domes face today. Last year, Milwaukee County’s Parks and Culture weighed four options for the historic site: demolish, repair, restore, or maintain a single dome and build a new conservatory.
Under the revitalization scheme, the living museum’s outdated layout and mechanical systems would receive a long-overdue upgrade. New pathways will be added to better connect the domes to the underutilized Mitchell Park surrounding the site. Other proposed ideas call for a children’s garden, cafe, expanded gift shop, and a new nature learning center. Friends of the Domes hope that these expanded offerings will result in added revenue streams for the site, which currently relies on ticket sales.
The idea is that the new learning center, depicted in visuals as a boxy glass pavilion, could play host to education programs and be rented out for events while other concepts like the children’s garden and cafe center improve the visitor experience and encourage patrons to stay, linger, and play at the venues longer.
“There are no vanity projects included in this plan,” Christa Beall Diefenbach, executive director of Friends of the Domes, said. “Every aspect achieves two goals: improved visitor experience and greater revenue.”
To date, Friends of the Domes has polished initial ideas to revamp and improve the Mitchell Park Domes. The nonprofit has drafted cost estimates that lay out how much it anticipates it would cost to implement its ideas, over the course of two phases. The first phase—which involves reglazing and repairing all three three domes, enhancing the park, and making mechanical upgrades—totals just over $107 million. Phase two, primarily focused on the construction of the nature learning center, would total $26 million, by their estimates.
The nonprofit has also hired fundraising counsel and started a campaign to fundraise. It is working with a government relations firm to help secure funding from State and Federal sources. It hopes to have the domes added to the National Register of Historic Places and obtain a long-term lease of the site. Both these things would allow the organization to apply for tax credits to fund the project for years to come.
Renovating the Mitchell Park Domes and its campus is no fast endeavor. In its presentation last week, Friends of the Domes laid out a schedule that puts the start of construction for phase one projects in 2026 , with phase two happening in 2030. In the meantime the organization is focused on its fundraising campaign and lobbying more local support.
