Vacant Dr. Filiberto And Carmen Murguia School Campus Building In The Southside Demolished

The Dr. Filiberto and Carmen Murguia vacant school campus has been demolished at the 1600 S. 36 Street, according to City of Milwaukee records.

By H. Nelson Goodson 

Hispanic News Network U.S.A.

June 1, 2026

Milwaukee, Wisconsin - According to City of Milwaukee property assessment records, the vacant Dr. Filiberto and Carmen Murguia Campus (previously a charter school) property was bought by the United Community Center (UCC) in 2023 for $1,300,000, and in March of 2026, both the UCC and D&H Demolition applied for a permit to raze the school and day care vacant building. It has taken at least 3 months to completely demolished the condemned building.

The UCC has not announced any major development project for the property at the 1600 block of S. 36 Street (formerly the Dr. Filiberto and Carmen Murguia Campus) in the Southside.

The campus building had previous owners, in 2010, the Centro Hispano (Council for the Spanish Speaking Inc. - also known as the Spanish Center) renamed the school building as the Filiberto and Carmen Murguia Campus after its former Director Filiberto Murguia, 78, retired. (HNNUSA article link: http://hispanicnewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2010/10/spanish-center-renames-high-school.html)

In 2003, when Dr. Murguia retired from the Centro Hispano, he left a $5,000,000 operating budget. But by 2015 to 2017, when Toni Rivera-Joachin was the executive director, the Centro Hispano lost several major federal funding sources, which led to laying off more than 88 employees, which the Centro Hispano would never recover and it eventually closed operations. (HNNUSA article link: http://hispanicnewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-dr-filiberto-carmen-murguia-campus.html)

Another unfortunate situation where a community as a whole allows a non-profit organization to eventually cease to exist and the loss of community services become a thing of the past, which tragically affects the community it served.

The end of the Dr. Filiberto and Carmen Murguia legacy was inevitable due to those that followed failed to maintain federal funding sources to keep the Centro Hispano and its services afloat.

Sign of the times!