MADISON – If you go down Monroe Street just east of Camp Randall Stadium, you’ll see the largest capital project in the history of the University of Wisconsin athletic department taking shape.
Phase 1 of the Kellner Family Athletic Facility is enclosed and inside key pieces of the project are taking shape.
Badgers athletic director Chris McIntosh said the project is “on track, on time, on budget.”
In order to make room for the $285 million building, the Shell, which housed UW’s indoor track, was torn down in Aug. 2024. During the initial planning it wasn’t certain what all the new facility would house for the track and field program beyond a 305-yard track.
What will fit into the space for that sport became clearer as construction progressed,
“The track looks incredible,” McIntosh said Feb. 9. “We were able to incorporate all of the field events for track into here as a training facility. That was one of the questions that we were unable to answer on the front end.”
Now that the structure that will house the practice field and indoor track is standing what is most notable is its shear size. The building dwarfs the McClain Center, which has been UW’s indoor football facility since 1988 and is located behind the new building.
Phase 1 of the project is scheduled to be completed and open in July. That portion of the project will include 120 yards of field, a 305-meter track, office space and under-field parking.
“We’re excited later this summer to be able to step into that part of the building and to use it,” McIntosh said. “The next phase will be more disruptive to our day-to-day operation. I think we have a good plan.”
The trickier part of the project begins in April when the McClain Center is demolished. On that site a student-athlete support facility will be built that includes new locker rooms, a weight training facility, a sports medicine center and a dining hall.
That construction will take place on a small footprint of land that will be even tighter due to construction projects that will be happening simultaneously to other buildings in that area.
The project is scheduled to be finished in July 2027 and will serve in some capacity each of the department’s 23 teams.
“Generally speaking, the project’s been great,” McIntosh said. “We’ll get a taste of the new digs here this summer, and then before long, we’ll go through some transition period where every nook and cranny around here will be utilized. It’s not new to us.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin’s football indoor practice facility ‘on track, on time, on budget’
Reporting by Mark Stewart, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
