Dane County Board looks at multimillion dollar Alliant Energy Center redesign

Keely Arthur by Keely Arthur

The Dane County Board moved one step closer to green lighting a multi-million renovation of the Alliant Center campus, Thursday.

The County Board got comprehensive look at the design plan. This plan doesn’t call for a complete tear down of the Coliseum, but still brings major changes, including about 1,700 more jobs to our area.

“We’ve lost a lot of shows,” Dane County Board Chair Sharon Corrigan said

The Coliseum, a once state-of-the-art facility known for bringing in iconic acts, has lost its draw.

“Maybe five shows a year versus 20 a year not too long ago,” Corrigan said.

Dane County officials don’t want the Aliant Energy Center to be overlooked any longer.

“It’s a real opportunity, that we’d hate to miss,” Corrigan said.

Thursday night, Hunden Strategic Partners, presented their redesign of the campus.

The redevelopment includes a $100 million renovation of the Coliseum. It will keep the iconic shape and house the same number of seats, but modernize it.

“We would reconfigure the bowl so that the seating is better and do some of the kind of essential things that you need for loading and unloading, and the types of things that a big show is going to require,” Corrigan said.

It also calls for a major expansion of the exhibition hall. The entire campus will get a more village-like feel, with additional restaurants, hotels, and walkways.

“There would be many more resources for going to a meal, being able to walk around the whole campus and enjoy the whole campus more than just running into the expo hall and going into the event,” Corrigan said.

The current plan would cost taxpayers more than $200 million, but Corrigan said an update would be well worth it.

“We’d be able to draw a lot more visitors and that brings dollars to Madison and that means we are a much more vibrant community,” she said.

This redesign still needs to go through a number of approvals, but construction could begin in the next couple of years.

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