Madison-based FPC Live broke ground this week on its new concert venue to be built along State Street just south of the Fiserv Forum in the Deer District.
Joel Plant, CEO of FPC Live parent company Frank Productions, said said this week that there would not be an official groundbreaking ceremony in advance of construction of the music venue, which has a capacity of 4,500.
Plant said the company wanted to get moving immediately on construction. "to stay on a planned timeline" for an early fall 2025 opening.
"We accelerated everything that we could," Plant is quoted in an email from FPC Live. "There's a piledriver on site. … The goal is to get as much of the foundation into the ground the week before the RNC."
The project had originally planned for the Third Ward, but after neighborhood opposition, FPC shifted focus in spring 2022 to the Deer District where the former Bradley Center site remained vacant.
In September 2022, FPC released renderings and announced that Miron Construction Co., Inc. and JCP Construction will build the new facility.
Miron also built FPC's 2,500-person The Sylvee concert hall in Madison.
Initially, the facility was to have two venues, but now, according to FPC, it will be, "a single-stage, ballroom-style venue with general admission, standing room areas as well as reserved seating and premium seating experiences."
In November 2023, the Milwaukee Common Council approved the scaled-back plan, which dropped the idea of including a second, 800-seat venue.
The company expects the new hall to host about 55-60 events annually.
In addition to The Sylvee, Frank Productions operates The Orpheum Theater, High Noon Saloon and Majestic Theare in Madison, as well as venues in Columbia, Missouri, and Charleston, South Carolina.
FPC Live is a joint venture between Frank Productions and Live Nation.
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.
