After closing due to financial struggles, the former Irish Cultural and Heritage Center will reopen as the St. Brigid Center for Irish Arts and Culture before the end of 2026.
The Irish Cultural and Heritage Center of Wisconsin Inc. sold its building, 2133 W. Wisconsin Ave., to The Sunshine Foundation Inc. for $200,000 in September last year.
The foundation has been renovating the Irish Center and applied for a Class B tavern license and public entertainment license for the property on June 2.
The Sunshine Foundation purchased the building that is becoming the St. Brigid Center from the Irish Culture and Heritage Center in September 2025.
Sunshine Foundation president Joel Fleischman said the new center, including its public basement bar called “the Well,” will be open in the fourth quarter of this year, indicating there are still renovations to be made to the main bathrooms. Fleischman also is president and co-owner of Drexel Building Supply in Campbellsport.
Fleischman said the center would not have been able to reopen without fundraising from the Sunshine Foundation and other charitable donations.
“The Sunshine Foundation is our fuel,” Fleischman said.
According to the center’s website, the building will host weddings and receptions, corporate meetings, graduation parties, celebrations of life and dance recitals in its concert hall and smaller events spaces.
The building the St. Brigid Center is located in finished construction in 1888 to house Grand Avenue Congregational Church, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society.
The church is the site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s first recorded speaking event in Milwaukee. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
St. Brigid Center for Irish Arts and Culture building was constructed in 1887-1888 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: St. Brigid Center for Irish Arts and Culture to open by end of 2026
