| By Big Radio News Staff |
It could be a go for the Woodman’s Sports and Convention Center.
Gov. Tony Evers announces a $15 million investment in the proposed Woodman’s Sports and Convention Center in Janesville using American Rescue Plan Act funds.
According to a news release, the indoor athletic and conference center at Uptown Janesville would generate an estimated $13 million in new economic impact to the community and provide a regional venue for in-state athletic events.
Unless bids for the 130,000-square-foot Ice Arena and sports and convention hall would come in much higher, Evers’s funding is viewed as capstone funding that would essentially cover what’s been a $15 million funding gap for the project.
The city had asked the state for the $15 million last year, and the governor had signaled in February he wanted to award money for the Woodman’s Center project, initially through state building budget funds. Now, the project gap would be covered through Covid-19 pandemic relief funding.
The Democrat Governor calls the award part of a $36.6 million “investment” by the state into several building projects statewide that were previously rejected by members of the Wisconsin State Legislature in the the 2023-2025 Capital Budget process. The Woodman’s Center was one of those projects.
The city has not released a final estimated cost on the project, but an ad hoc city task force on the Woodman’s Center project had worked for months to trim the project’s price tag from over $60 million to just over $50.3 million, according to city and private consultants’ estimates earlier this year.
In a brief interview Big Radio broke on Friday, Janesville City Manager Kevin Lahner called the project the final, critical piece of funding the project needs to meet its budget.
Lahner says earlier city estimates of $50.3 million haven’t changed. The city will know the final price tag when it awards bids for the project. Lahner says bids could be awarded as early as January.
The main city council action for the Woodman’s Center project to go forward now would be a final vote on a bid.
Lahner says if the council approves the project, it’ll go forward starting this winter, possibly by February. That would begin with the demolition of the vacant, two-story former Sears building at the Uptown Janesville mall on the city’s northeast side.
The two-sheet ice arena and multi-use facility at the Woodman’s Center would replace the aging, single-sheet Janesville Ice Arena. It would be used by the Janesville Jets, a national, all-star youth developmental hockey franchise that’s locally owned. It also would be home for sports practices and for area youth and high school hockey.
Janesville Area Convention and Visitor’s Bureau Director Christine Rebout tells Big Radio that with Evers’s award, her agency believes it now can start more aggressively marketing the 20,000 feet of convention hall space that would be part of the Woodman’s Center. It would be the biggest space for conventions in Janesville.
Rebout has said the hope is it could cultivate and attract large-scale and mid-scale conferences and business summits.
The governor also announced $9.3 million for a new soccer stadium in Milwaukee, $7 million for the Green Bay National Railroad Museum, $5 million for the Bronzeville Center for the Arts, and $330,000 for Door County Peninsula Players Theatre upgrades.
The Friends of the Woodman’s Sports and Convention Center, a private stakeholder group, has privately raised $9 million for the public-private project, in large part from big-ticket donations for naming rights at the Ice Arena and its sports and convention spaces.
Check back at WCLO Radio and WCLO.com for more details on this developing story.
