The closure of six Universities of Wisconsin branch campuses has left their counties with an extensive, and expensive, problem: Finding a purpose for the buildings and land the UW system left behind.
What do you do with an abandoned planetarium? What becomes of a 200,000-square-foot building designed as an educational facility? How do you use the acres of land surrounding them?
The counties affected by branch closures are at various stages of answering such questions. Some are just starting. Fond du Lac County has a full-scale plan.
They’ll all, however, have access to some money to get their plans going: The state’s budget-writing committee this week unanimously approved grants of up to $2 million each for the counties affected by branch campus closures to aid in reimagining the physical footprint of the campuses.
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The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation will oversee the branch campus grant program. What started as a $6 million program, with Richland County being first in line because its campus closure came first, has grown to $20 million as five more of the UW system’s 13 branch campuses have either closed in the past year and a half or are slated for closure by next spring.
UW system President Jay Rothman cites declining enrollment, not the system’s financial woes, as the reason for closing campuses in Richland, Fond du Lac, Washington, Marinette and Waukesha counties and in the Fox Cities, where the campus has been governed by Outagamie and Winnebago counties.
All seven counties will have access to the state grants.
A robust plan
Of all of the counties, Fond du Lac County has the most robust plan to repurpose a campus, with the goal to generate more than $500,000 in revenue in 2025.
The plan, which will go to the county board for final approval Monday, includes relocating two county departments, Human Services and Land and Water Conservation, to the campus. The move would allow the county to sell off the conservation department’s building and bring in $400,000 in rental revenue each year, Fond du Lac County Executive Sam Kaufman said.
The main building, which features the commons, the library and the Prairie Theater, would turn into an event venue. The county expects to bring in about $88,600 a year from renting the space for conventions and using the theater for entertainment acts.
The gymnasium would become a new sports complex, with plans to add an outdoor rugby field.
Parcels on the north and south side of campus would be sold off to create new senior housing projects, meeting a few goals, Kaufman said. Not only would it increase the county’s housing stock, as seniors choose to downsize, but it would bring residents closer to the Human Services Department, where the county’s Aging and Disability Resource Center would be, and to the sports complex where they could access wellness programs.
“Since I’ve been in office, one of the things I’ve come to realize more and more is that we need to make a better attempt to attract a younger generation of families here to the county, or to keep those younger families here in the county,” Kaufman said. “We know there’s a housing shortage. People are not moving out of the houses right now, making homes less available. And so, we’re trying to now create the one target area that I think really would like to downsize in a way, and I think that’s seniors.”
Finally, the campus also would be home to a public safety building, where law enforcement can train on live scenarios such as bar, domestic violence in an apartment and jail situations, Kaufman said.
It’s expected to cost the county $1.2 million to renovate the campus, well below the $2 million grant limit from the state.
Getting going
In West Bend and Waukesha, county and city staff are working to determine use for the campuses going forward. For the Fox Cities campus, Outagamie and Winnebago counties will need to work together to determine a future for one of the few planetariums north of Milwaukee and a performing arts center, which brought in thousands of visitors a year.
Richland County has been working on a feasibility study to determine the current state of its campus buildings, some of which are behind on scheduled maintenance. And in Marinette, the city is interested in certain aspects of the campus, including Runnoe Park and some of the administrative buildings.
Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann said the UW system’s departure from the campus has put a financial burden on the county, but he hopes the state grant can spur new ideas, ideally through a county task force. Either way, ownership of the campus will need to be simplified by figuring out whether the city of West Bend or Washington County will fully take it.
“It really is the least that (the state) could do to help with this transition,” Schoemann said. “It was built as a school. It’s got things that you would expect. It’s got a theater, it’s got a gymnasium, it’s got chemistry rooms, and biology rooms, a cadaver. Those are all things that don’t really translate into a headquarters building or office space or certainly apartments.”
For many counties, the concern is absorbing maintenance costs, which the UW system has been sharing with the counties. In Richland, the county board warned that taking them on could cause an economic crisis; at Fox Cities, the maintenance costs top $250,000 annually.
“Two million dollars, I hope is not a parting gift from the state and that we will be able to continue to count on their support now and in the future,” Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson said. “Speaking for Outagamie, we’re not just going to spend (grant money) in a fire sale. We are going to make a spark, a prudent long-term investment that will reach out to the benefit of the entire community, to both counties.”
In a joint statement, Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, Sen. Joan Ballweg, R-Markesan, and Rep. Tony Kurtz, R-Wonewoc, said they were thrilled that legislation to help counties that lose branch campuses has made it through the lawmaking process. Marklein and Kurtz both have constituents in Richland County.
“Richland County has been working tirelessly to determine what the county will do with the buildings now that the campus is closed,” the joint statement said. “They have lots of ideas, but some of these ideas require investment and this grant will support the community in their efforts.”
Rep. Deb Andraca, D-Whitefish Bay, a member of the budget-writing committee, said during the meeting Tuesday that the committee should consider supporting the remaining branch campuses in the next budget cycle.
“I’d also like to make sure that we’re ensuring that our existing campuses are fully funded, that they are robust, because they drive our economy, and I’d like to see more support from this committee going forward and into the next budget,” Andraca said. “I appreciate what we’re doing here today in committee to help communities, but I think the health of the overall system is critically important as well to the campuses that are open.”