Milwaukee Symphony's new home will be called the Bradley Symphony Center

The Milwaukee Symphony will call its new performance space Bradley Symphony Center, in honor of the late philanthropists Harry and Peg Bradley.

Also, the 1,650-seat concert hall inside that space will be called the Allen-Bradley Hall, in tribute to the people who worked for Milwaukee-based Allen-Bradley Co., which was sold to Rockwell International in 1985.

David and Julia Uihlein, Lynde Uihlein, and The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation have given a combined total of $52 million to the symphony’s project of transforming the former Warner Grand Theatre on West Wisconsin Avenue into its new performing home.

Siblings David and Lynde Uihlein are grandchildren of Harry and Peg Bradley. Their mother, Jane Bradley Pettit, was Harry and Peg's daughter. The Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation has also contributed to the symphony project.

"On behalf of my wife Julia, my sister Lynde, and our extended families, we are thrilled the Bradley Symphony Center will honor Harry and Peg's legacy by being a home for future generations of thinkers and creators," David Uihlein said in a statement released by the Milwaukee Symphony.

"It's time to honor the men and women of the Allen-Bradley Company," David Uihlein said in a phone interview, explaining the name being given to the concert hall itself.

Founded in 1903, the company grew to be a global giant in automation — and created a local landmark with the four-faced clock that towers over South Second Street.

"We are honored to name the MSO's new performance home after the Bradley family, whose tremendous impact on the MSO and Milwaukee is immeasurable," Milwaukee Symphony president Mark Niehaus said in a statement released by the MSO.

A movie theater's transformation

In addition to transforming the movie theater itself into a concert hall, the symphony is renovating the accompanying 12-story Art Deco office tower and is building a two-story glass addition as a lobby and event space.

Milwaukee architectural firm Kahler Slater is leading the project, with Fond du Lac's C.D. Smith Construction Inc. overseeing the complex construction effort. Because federal and state historic preservation tax credits of more than $18 million are crucial to the project, crews moved the theater's 625-ton wall back about 35 feet in August to accommodate the larger stage the symphony needs.

Symphony officials say the project is on track for its scheduled opening in the fall. The MSO plans to show the new space at 212 W. Wisconsin Ave. to the public during Doors Open 2020, which will be Sept. 26-27.

To date, the campaign has raised more than $129 million toward its $139 million goal. About $90 million of that total is for construction and building costs. The rest is for related initiatives, including increasing the MSO endowment fund.

Symphony project could revitalize stretch of Wisconsin Avenue

The naming gift means that the Bradley family name will once again be on a major Milwaukee landmark.

The BMO Harris Bradley Center, which closed in 2018, was initially named the Bradley Center in honor of Harry Bradley, thanks to a gift from his daughter Jane Bradley Pettit and her husband Lloyd Pettit.

The symphony center's new name "is a great reminder of the tremendous impact the Bradley family has had on Milwaukee and Wisconsin," said Rick Graber, president of the Bradley Foundation.

Graber believes the new symphony home "will go a long way toward reinvigorating West Wisconsin Avenue, which people in our community have been trying to figure out for a long time." He said the Bradley Foundation's gift is the largest contribution it has made to a single project in its history.

David Uihlein also sees the Bradley Symphony Center as a possible stimulant to the revival of its neighborhood.

"I think that we're going to have a little bit of a renaissance down there; you see it with Grand Avenue already," he said, referring to the conversion of the former retail center into The Avenue, a mix of apartments, offices and 3rd Street Market Hall, a food hall with around two dozen local vendors.

"I'm hoping for that big convention hotel between Fourth and Fifth (streets)," Uihlein said. "This may help.

"From the lake to Marquette, this is our ceremonial street," he said of Wisconsin Avenue. "It needs to be the central focus for the city."

Uihlein, a retired architect, has a strong interest in historical preservation. When he took a hardhat tour of the symphony site, he saw that the theater lobby "is spectacularly Art Deco."

But inside the structure is "this crazy mix of Beaux Arts, Rococo, Baroque; it's just what the famous Rapp and Rapp brothers did with a lot of their theaters. This was the palace where the people of the Depression could come and forget their troubles and enjoy a 25-cent movie.

"It's just too perfect a place not to have it be accessible to the public," he said.

Uihlein said he has been helping raise money for the symphony project since late 2014. "I'm all in on this," he said. "I kind of pushed all my other philanthropy to the side."

He emphasized that the work is not done yet. "We have money to raise, we have to continue to raise endowment funds for the symphony," he said.

Through the remainder of the current season, the Milwaukee Symphony performs at the Marcus Performing Arts Center's Uihlein Hall, with some concerts at the Pabst Theater.

The primary reason the MSO embarked on this project was to be able to control scheduling and play more dates in its own venue, especially during potentially lucrative holiday periods.

Contact Jim Higgins at jim.higgins@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @jhiggy.

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