University of Wisconsin officials spoke to the Madison Joint Southeast Campus Area Committee at its meeting Monday night about the future of Ogg Hall, delaying its demolition until the fall of 2007.
Paul Evans, director of University Housing, said Ogg Hall was slated to be demolished in 2006 under the preliminary objectives of the UW East Campus Plan. But a delay in the construction of replacement housing has moved the demolition date of Ogg Hall back a year.
The UW East Campus Plan includes the construction of two housing buildings, which make up for the 1,000-bed loss resulting from the demolition of Ogg Hall.
“We can’t demolish Ogg Hall until we have replacement beds,” Fish said.
Evans said a Dayton Street housing development was “moved back a little” and would not be ready until 2007, a year after the original planned opening day of 2006.
“The two housing projects were supposed to open on the same year,” Evans said.
Al Fish, UW vice chancellor of Facilities, Planning and Management, made a presentation to the committee for the passage of the abstract designs for the North Park Street Development, which will house approximately 400 beds in a student dormitory, and have a 340-stall parking garage, a new campus visitor’s center and a 130,000-square-foot office area. Fish asked the committee to put the vote for the North Park Street Development component of the East Campus Plan on the committee’s next meeting in April.
If approved through the city, UW Board of Regents and the State Building Commission, Fish said the groundbreaking for the North Park Street Development would start this October. The land is presently owned by a combination of private owners and UW, and UW would lease the part of privately owned land for the following 30 years. The first year’s lease is estimated at $2.53 million.
An old garage, the Cornerstone Church and the UW car-fleet parking lot currently sit on the plot of land, which measures roughly 2.5 acres.
In the meeting, Fish explained the reasoning behind building the new housing to replace Ogg and an additional dormitory where University Square presently stands, saying it would effectively add hundreds of rooms to University Housing. Fish said the new residence halls are not to replace private housing, but to provide a niche for incoming freshman to stay in University Housing.
“We know we’re going to rely on private housing for a vast majority of students,” Fish said. Fish provided several graphs showing that 22 percent of freshmen do not currently live in University Housing, and the cutoff date for filing for a spot in the dorms moved up from May to February in 2003. Fish also added that many out-of-state students do not get accepted into the dormitories because Wisconsin residents get first dibs on housing.
Ogg Hall opened in 1965, making it one of the newest dorms at UW. Evans said remodeling the towers would cost “lots of millions” of dollars, where the new and “better” dorms could be built at a comparable cost.
The East Campus Plan, unveiled in the fall of 2003, proposes a major facelift to the UW campus. In addition from the new residence halls and office building that would replace the Peterson Building, the creation of an arts district and the demolition of the Humanities Building are also in the multimillion-dollar plan.
