The opening of Fiserv Forum
No milestone, both on and off the court, ranks higher in shaping the current existence of the Bucks’ franchise throughout the calendar year than the grand opening of their state-of-the-art arena, Fiserv Forum.
The journey between the mere concept of the building a few years ago to the finished product that all Bucks fans have started to experience this season was unsurprisingly a long and winding one defined by many twists and turns.
Stemming from the gradual decline of the Bucks’ old home, the BMO Harris Bradley Center, the league sent a mandate to the Bucks’ organization that a new arena was required to keeping the Bucks in the city of Milwaukee. If that couldn’t be arranged, the Bucks as we knew them would have been relocated elsewhere.
That ultimatum certainly impacted the selling of the team back in the spring of 2014 when former Bucks owner and U.S Senator, Herb Kohl, donated $100 million of his own funds to the construction of the venue as a parting gift. Along with that, the team’s current majority ownership group consisting of Wes Edens, Jamie Dinan and Marc Lasry contributed another $150 million to go towards construction as well.
That left the remaining $250 million to fund the then-$500 million project to be secured via public funding, which set off a firestorm of debate over whether funding a stadium for a private enterprise was the right tactic for the state.
After plenty of back and forth between city and state officials throughout the spring and early summer of 2015, the Wisconsin Senate approved the remaining funding for what became Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2015. The State Assembly, Governor Scott Walker and the Milwaukee City Council followed suit in the following couple of months, cementing the project and ensuring the Bucks would stay in Wisconsin for the years to come.
Without all those parties, this current renaissance the Bucks have enjoyed to finish out this latter part of the 2010’s would have all been lost to time. The same could certainly be said for Milwaukee in general as the development for both the arena and surrounding entertainment district have helped jumpstart plenty of economic development throughout regions of the city.
The process of building Fiserv Forum was definitely an arduous one, but the various milestones and the time lapse of the arena’s construction that all Bucks fans took in over the last few years served as an apt visual metaphor of the team’s rise on the court as well.