Many in the South Milwaukee area visit Grant Park and walk the Seven Bridges Trail to unwind.
7 Bridges Record Lounge hopes to help people unwind a different way – with classic vinyl.
Tyler Colby entered South Milwaukee’s “Space Race” contest through Renew Towns. Many entrepreneurs submitted business plans to the contest with the hopes of winning a year of free rent of a South Milwaukee storefront. The community voted on its favorites but the final winners were selected by a panel of judges.
“I feel so lucky with the whole thing,” Colby said, calling this contest to help motivate small business innovation “an incredible thing.”
Six finalists attended an event at the Bucyrus Club in South Milwaukee on April 9 where the winners would be selected. Colby said he was shocked when his name was called as the winner of one of two available spaces.
Colby said both locations are wonderful with a lot of potential, but he thinks his space at 1003 Milwaukee Ave. is best for the lounge. He said the second space at 1009 Milwaukee Ave. is better for the other winner, GNOME Restaurant, since it has outdoor dining potential.
Turntables, coffee and live music
No date has been set for the lounge to open as Colby is still drawing up architectural plans to transform the blank slate space.
7 Bridges Record Lounge could offer multiple turntable spaces where people can sit together and listen to their own records or pull from a large library built by the community. Colby plans to make some of his collection available, too.
Other than these more personal listening spaces, Colby hopes to offer live music events. He’s also planning to offer coffee.
Colby is also working to get a few grants from the City of South Milwaukee including an ADA grant and façade grant to make the space the best it can be.
“We want to make sure no corners are cut,” he said.
Hearing about the contest and finding out he won
Colby said it was a fun experience participating in the contest, which he heard about through South Milwaukee’s Economic Development Manager Ericka Lang.
Renew Towns held a few meetings to introduce the contest to residents and discuss how to participate, such as best practices for creating a pitch video, which was required. Colby said he attended one of the meetings and was overwhelmed at variety of ideas pitched.
While this contest gave him a great start, Colby said he’d planned to open the lounge at some point anyway.
“If the Space Race hadn’t gone through, I would’ve tried to make this happen,” he said, noting it was a dream of his to own a record shop.
Lounge melding a love of vinyl and a connection with nature
Colby has been interested in vinyl records since grade school, enjoying vintage vinyl well into high school along with a core group of friends. His dad also had a collection of vinyl records.
He is attracted to vinyl because it’s “something to hold on to” and the sound is very nice. Colby also said the community around vinyl is great and very engaged.
While his day job is in data architecture, Colby has an artistic side as a pianist, he plays guitar and played in bands in the past.
This space also links into his love of nature. Colby said he visits the Seven Bridges Trail at least once a day, sometimes multiple times. He hopes to offer the same relaxing vibe in his lounge.
“I’m going to be having a lot of fun with this,” Colby said. “Life is too short and music is too fun.”
Contact Erik at erik.hanley@jrn.com. Follow his Facebook page, The Redheadliner Erik S. Hanley, and follow him on X @Redheadliner.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Contest winner bringing new vinyl record lounge to South Milwaukee
Reporting by Erik S. Hanley, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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