UW-Madison

The University of Wisconsin athletic department wants to spend nearly $300 million for a new indoor football practice facility next to Camp Randall Stadium that it hopes will make it more competitive in recruiting.

The long-studied project, included in the Board of Regents’ capital budget request for the 2023-25 biennium Thursday, would demolish the Camp Randall Sports Center — known as the Shell — and move its indoor track into the adjacent McClain Center.

Jason King has seen the transformation of the newest space at Camp Randall Stadium from high-level concept in a facility master plan five years ago to weeks away from completion in a tight construction window.

Now King, a senior associate athletic director at the University of Wisconsin, is picturing what the new facilities created in the 105-year-old stadium’s south end zone can bring to the department.

UW-Madison will begin demolishing two century-old buildings this week to make way for its new School of Computer, Data and Information Sciences. 

The Old Heating Plant, also known as the Service Annex, was built in 1908 in a neo-classical style; the Service Building next door followed shortly in 1910, according to "The Buildings of the University of Wisconsin," a 1997 book by Jim Feldman. The pair of buildings stand on University Avenue between North Orchard Street and North Charter Street.

A UW-Madison student housing cooperative whose building the university has slated for demolition will likely look off campus for a new place to live because the two parties are seemingly at an impasse.

The Zoe Bayliss Women's Cooperative has leased space at 915 W. Johnson St. from UW-Madison since the 1950s and is one of the last student housing co-ops in the state. As Downtown rents rise, the co-op is also one of the few affordable housing options left for UW-Madison students.

Sign up for the Morning Update and Madison Life email newsletters

With significant financial support from Marv and Jeff Levy, two brothers and alumni at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the George L. Mosse Humanities building will soon be called Irving and Dorothy Levy Hall. 

The few dozen UW-Madison students living in one of the state’s last student housing cooperatives are pleading with the university for a solution to their destined-to-be-demolished building.

The university plans to tear down Zoe Bayliss Women’s Cooperative sometime after the 2022-23 school year to make room for a new academic building.