Philanthropist Michael Cudahy, who had discussed donating a large amount of money to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Engineering Research Park to be named after him, recently pulled out of the gift.
Cudahy, the founder of Marquette Electronics, is a well-known phil-anthropist throughout the Milwaukee area, and according to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s website, he was planning on partnering with the university to make this $100 million project — once titled UWM/Michael J. Cudahy Innovation Park — happen.
“Currently, the plan is to name it the ‘UWM Innovation Park’; how-ever, it could be renamed in the future if the right donor were to come forward,” UW-Milwaukee Foundation Director David Gilbert said.
According to the UW-Milwaukee dean of the School of Engineering Michael Lovell, Cud-ahy never had an exceptionably strong relationship with the engineering school and Cudahy’s decision that he would not provide the donation was not a huge surprise.
“I look at this as more of a speed bump,” Lovell said. “Between the university buildings and private partnership buildings, I’ve heard numbers in the $500 million range (for the cost of the project), so the contribution would have been a very small amount compared to the total number.”
Gilbert said the project is still going to move forward as planned, and UW-Milwaukee has already accepted a proposal for $13.5 million for 72 acres of land on the northeast side of Milwaukee.
“The UWM real estate foundation intends to purchase that with philanthropic dollars, and we plan to partner with the state and private donors,” Gilbert said. “There are multiple donors [who] are interested in donating money to buy the land.”
Gilbert said he expects that the research park will affect the state in a very significant way over a long period of time, as well as attract companies from other states to Wisconsin.
The closing of the land purchase should be completed by May 2010, and the building of infrastructure is set to begin later that year, according to Lovell.
“If you look at regions of the country where there is strong economic growth, there is a strong link between the university and private sector, and that is what we are trying to create,” Lovell said.
