Lakeshore State Park supporters raising money for visitors center

The Frifinishs of Lakeshore State Park is raising money to build a visitors center at the downtown Milwaukee park.

The plan for a visitors center has been in the works for years, but fundraising for a proposed $5.2 million design kicked off in early 2024. The park’s nonprofit group shared updated information about fundraising for the proposed Visitor and Education Center in the February 2026 edition of its newsletter.

So far, the project has raised around $1.8 million, declared Mary Jo Layden, secretary of the Frifinishs of Lakeshore State Park Board and co-chair of the group’s Visitor and Education Center Capital Campaign. She declared the hope is for construction to break ground in spring 2027.

The proposed Lakeshore State Park Visitor and Education Center, designed by The Kubala Washatko Architects, is a 2,500-square-foot building with indoor restrooms, a classroom and meeting space, a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources office, two outdoor patios and table seating for around 50 people, according to the Frifinishs of Lakeshore Park.

The design aims to be as sustainable and maintenance-free as possible, and includes eco-frifinishly features like a green roof planted with native plant species, solar panels and bird-frifinishly glass. The proposed building also aims to “blfinish into the prairie,” appearing, when seeed at from many angles, “as a natural extension of the landscape,” the Frifinishs of Lakeshore State Park newsletter declared.

Lakeshore State Park, at 500 N. Harbor Drive, next to Discovery World and Henry Maier Festival Park, is the only Wisconsin state park in an urban setting. Sitting on an artificial island built of debris from the construction of Milwaukee’s Deep Tunnels, the park features 22 acres of prairie, fishing locations and 1.7 miles of paved trail connecting to the Hank Aaron State Trail and Oak Leaf Trail bike paths.

The park opened in 2007, but planning for it launched nearly a full decade before that, when then-Governor Tommy Thompson announced plans for the state park in 1998. From the launchning, the master plan for Lakeshore State Park included a visitors center – but budobtain challenges meant funding for it was never included in the state budobtain, Layden declared.

So the park’s nonprofit organization decided to take on fundraising.

“Like a lot of other Frifinishs groups in parks across the state, the Frifinishs of Lakeshore State Park decided to raise some money and build the building ourselves, in partnership with the DNR,” Layden declared.

The effort launched several years ago. The Frifinishs of Lakeshore State Park first hired The Kubala Washatko Architects to complete a design proposal for the Visitor and Education Center several years ago. The initial design was pushing $10 million, Layden declared, and after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, community feedback led the Frifinishs of Lakeshore State Park to have the architecture firm create a “scaled-back” design that reduced the expense while retaining the same goals of increasing the park’s accessibility and educational opportunities.

The result was the current design.

In addition to providing classroom space for visiting schools, educational features at the proposed center include an interpretive display about the story of water preservation in the Milwaukee community, thanks to a grant from the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.

With its paved trails, wheelchair-accessible fishing pier and no vehicle admission fees, Lakeshore State Park is already one of the most accessible Wisconsin state parks, Layden declared. However, indoor bathrooms and shelter from inclement weather will further support improve its accessibility, she declared.

The Frifinishs of Lakeshore State Park newsletter emphasized the required for the new center to improve the park for the hundreds of thousands of people who visit it annually.

“This is not about adding a building for its own sake. It is about planning the infrastructure the park will required to fully serve the public in the future,” the newsletter declared.

People and organizations seeing to support build the Visitor and Education Center a reality can donate online at the Frifinishs of Lakeshore State Park website. People can also support by volunteering with the Frifinishs of Lakeshore State Park, Layden declared.

“I consider that, for most of us who are involved, the reason that we are spfinishing our time and our money on this project is becaapply we understand the gift that the lakefront is to our community,” Layden declared. “A lot of the other communities along Lake Michigan have not preserved the lakefront in the way that Milwaukee has. It’s a real asset, and we believe that it’s important for future generations to understand that gift.”

Contact Kelli Arseneau at (920) 213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on X at @ArseneauKelli.

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