Wisconsin Veterans Museum secures key funding for new building

The Wisconsin Veterans Museum is moving ahead with plans to rebuild and expand on Capitol Square in Madison.

Last week, the State Building Commission approved $9 million for the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs to purchase the building currently leased by the museum at 30 West Mifflin St.

Museum Director Chris Kolakowski said the museum has outgrown the space it’s occupied since 1993.

Detailed plans of the new facility’s design are not yet public, but Kolakowski said “the rest of the project will flow” from the initial state-funded $9 million purchase of the property. Organizers hope that within two years, the existing structure, originally built as a department store in 1948, will be razed to make way for the new museum.

The full project is expected to cost between $120 and $130 million. Kolakowski said the museum plans to request $100 million from Wisconsin’s next biennial budget, and is relying on the museum’s foundation to raise between $40 and $50 million dollars as well.

Wisconsin Veterans Museum Foundation President Dan Checki said the $9 million doubles as an important symbol for private donors.

“This opening has allowed us to go to other potential donors with a firm plan in hand that demonstrates the state is behind the building of the new museum,” Checki said.

Those donors already include Madison philanthropist W. Jerome Frautschi, who pledged $10 million toward the project last May. Checki says the foundation will focus on soliciting large philanthropic donations first, then pivot to raising small sums from individuals interested in helping the project.

A storehouse of memories

The museum collects mementos and artifacts donated by Wisconsin veterans and their families. These include everything from Civil War battle flags of Wisconsin regiments to a dress sewn by an Eau Claire woman from the nylon parachute that saved her husband’s life.

Due to space constraints, only 3 percent of the large collection is currently on display. Because of those limitations, only about 13 percent of exhibit space is focused on Wisconsin’s post-WWII military history.

“All those tremendous stories of Wisconsin veterans in the last 80 years — we just haven’t really had the space to do them justice. And we will with the new facility,” Kolakowski said.

He said the new building is a “once-in-a-generation” project that will house the museum “not just for now and the next 10 years, but for now and the next 30 to 50 years.” He added that while some elements of the new museum will be familiar to long-time visitors, it will be a chance to “reimagine” how Wisconsin veterans’ stories are told.

“We’ve got that long tradition of taking care of Wisconsin veterans’ stories, telling them with respect and taking care of them for future generations,” Kolakowski said, himself a descendant of Wisconsin veterans dating back to the Civil War. “There are a lot of people in the state who have trusted their family memories with us. And that’s a responsibility we take seriously.”

The museum plans to break ground on new construction in 2027.