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Building Union South

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by Pedro Oliveira Jr.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Every Monday, a group of University of Wisconsin of students and staff meets for about three hours to work on a building project.

They sketch rooms, use models to place blocks and see how the building would look, and discuss topics ranging from sustainability to what kinds of programming the building would house and support.

So far they have talked about the possibility of a ballroom dance space, a terrace, study areas, a climbing wall or whatever comes to their minds. It looks like the Union South building project is open to endless possibilities.

The design committee, responsible for coming up with the new Union South concept, is a group of nine students and six non-students, including Union staff, UW alumni and faculty. Wisconsin Union President John Barnhardt, a UW senior, chairs the committee.

The Union opened an online survey asking the student body for input on what kind of services they would like to see in the new Union South.

According to Marc Kennedy, Wisconsin Union communications director, UW Ballroom Dance Association seems to be one of the most excited student groups at this point.

UWMBDA’s The ballroom dance association’s leadership has urged its members to complete the online survey and specifically ask for more dance space, because they have said the 16,000 square feet of event space the new Union will most likely have will not be enough for their purposes.

For Wisconsin Union involvement coordinator David Christopher, a UW senior, this is an opportunity for students to make the new Union their own because the current Union South, built in the 1970s, was more of a template.

This time, those involved are building the Union from ground up.

“Everybody is still kind of learning on how to get folks involved,” Christopher said. “It’s interesting to see people get genuinely interested and involved.”

The group has come a long way from six student focus groups with more than 50 participants brainstorming back in fall 2005. Now, there are 16 design advisory groups, each one assigned a different part of the project.

The DAGs include building support and operations, food service and retail, indoor and outdoor recreation and others.

According to Barnhardt, the project is currently in its broad scope model, where members of the committees decide what they want to see in the Union. By the end of summer, the project will move on to design stages, when architects will put the pieces together and sketch the actual looks of the building.

That sketch, Barnhardt said, will be taken to UW and UW System architects, the state division of facilities and Union Council by October 2008. If approved, Union South occupants would move out by the end of the year, and construction starts would start next January.

The architecture will be developed by Milwaukee-based Workshop Architects, and most students and staff involved in the project seem excited about their work so far.

“I am very, very pleased,” Union Director Mark Guthier said of the team of architects, which normally comes to Madison Mondays and Tuesdays. “They are very intuitive of students and how they think and interact, and they meet students at times and make themselves available.”

Workshop Architects has also worked on other student unions across the country, including some other schools in the UW System and at Iowa State University.

If the project remains on schedule, Guthier added, the new building would open during spring 2011, and would be home to that year’s National Science Olympiads.

“It really is a historic time for students on the campus,” Guthier said. “I hope that large numbers of the student body would be excited too about this project.”

Financing the project

While having the opportunity to design and participate in constructing the new Union South seems to be an enticing idea, the question remains over how the project will be funded.

The overall cost of building a new union will be approximately $67 million, and about $64 million will come from segregated fees.

For students, the cost has been $48 per semester in segregated fees since last semester, which should remain at this price until the end of the 2008-2009 academic year. After that, students will pay $96 in seg fees per semester for the next 30 years.

The segregated fees costs were approved through a 2006 campuswide referendum, and according to UW graduate student and former Union president Shayna Hetzel, the cost could go down if Union staff collects enough money from private fundraising.

There will also be 270-spot underground parking lot costing $8.1 million and guest rooms costing $6.5 million. Those will be covered by UW Transportation Services and the Union budget, respectively.

Guthier said the Union has already budgeted for the loss of revenue from Union South by increasing size and scope of other delis across campus.

“We are trying as much as possible to keep as many revenue streams coming,” Guthier added. “We are able to put a budget forward that actually was in a better financial position than the one we put this year.”

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Anonymous (March 10, 2008 @ 3:18pm):

Actually, there's no question as to how the project will be funded. As usual, the students are going to be robbed blind.

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