What’s In the Building?
Some of the new building’s highlights include a coffeehouse, market, wintergarden, grill/entertainment venue, theater, student organization space, expanded meeting rooms, retail space, five performance stages, and six total food venues. Over 170 parking stalls also lie hidden underneath the building.
First Floor
First Floor
WINTERGARDEN: It is a multi-purpose space that not only provides seating for food service patrons, but also for studying, lounge space, impromptu meetings and the like. This space cannot feel like a cafeteria, an airport or a mall.
GRILL: It provides lunchtime and evening dining, is connected to the outdoor space and also hosts live music performances 3-4 nights a week. The Grill is a two-level space with a balcony viewing area for performances as well as pool tables and table games.
FOOD KIOSKS: Three distinct food offerings will add variety to the dining options in this area of campus.
ART GALLERY: Continuing and strengthening its commitment to the arts, the Union Art Gallery will have a high level of flexibility that can accommodate a variety of shows including digital art, large installations and other future shows of the 21st Century.
COFFEEHOUSE: This will be a place where people will want to read, study and hang out. It will host small performances such as acoustic shows and poetry slams. It may also offer pastries and other snack items.
Market: Will highlight the campus by serving Babcock ice cream and will also offer convenience items such as bottled drinks, pre-prepared sandwiches and salads and school supplies.
Second Floor
Second Floor
BADGER HALL: Badger Hall is a large event space that is divisible into smaller rooms to accommodate a variety of functions including; trade shows, weddings, presentations, concerts and lectures.
THEATER: Will provide a true home for the WUD film program and provide opportunities for panel discussions, conferences, lectures, meetings, small acoustic performances, film festivals and/or the Union Theater Travel Adventure Series.
STUDENT ORGANIZATION SPACE: Includes a lounge/reception area, WUD offices, advisors offices, student organizations and a meeting room. The suite will be an “open concept” area with private offices for the advisors.
Third Floor
Third Floor
Lower Level
Basemen
RECREATION CENTER: Includes bowling, concessions, a TV lounge, a climbing and bouldering wall as well as pool tables and other table games.
I have just a general comment. As long as you are building a new student center, it should be bigger in some respects than the Memorial Union, for instance when it comes to concerts. If the band puts on a spring concert, for instance, the concert hall should be larger than exists at Memorial. A concert can’t be given on the premise that the seating capacity is that of Union South COMBINED with Memorial. This may be rather obvious – or maybe not so. (BSEE 1957)
I have another comment. I hope there is not too much emphasis on the “student” input when it is the taxpayers and donators who will be paying mostly for the building. The student will be there probably four years whereas the people paying for the building will be around much longer. Also, did I really see a wind generator on the top of the building? RIDICULOUS! There isn’t that much wind in that area is there? And what an ugly distraction. Solar panels would be a much better “green” energy. I did like the smooth curve to the building as opposed to straight lines even though the curve will probably be more expensive.
The new south campus union does feature a large event space, Badger Hall, that is over twice the size of Memorial Union’s Great Hall. The Union Theater will remain as the Union’s primary auditorium space, though the new building will contain a 350 seat theater. Very large events like the UW Band’s spring concert continue to be hosted by area-type venues like the Kohl Center.
The Wisconsin Union Initiative is not funded by taxpayers. Rather, students are paying 60% of the cost with the remaining 40% coming from Union operating revenue. Thus, the heavy student involvement that has been a hallmark of this project is definitely warranted.
Vertical axis wind turbines are a unique feature currently being pursued. However, they will be included only if additional funding is secured. While they would not produce enough power to meet the building’s total demand, their presence would provide the area’s engineering students with a tremendous learning opportunity. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and most campus community members have thus far found great beauty in the wind turbine integration. Don’t worry – solar installations are also being explored, again depending on available funding.
Although solar installations and wind turbines may now depend of available funding, I truly believe that they are worth the initial cost. We obviously need to be conscious of spending but I think it is really important to look at environmentally friendly energy solutions. In the future we will find that the additional spending was worth it to the environment. If we are building a new Union we might as well build it so that ten years from now we are not stuck with an outdated and harmful way of producing power in the Union.
It sounds like this is definitely being considered; I just wanted to enforce the idea and add that many students like myself are concerned with the environment and would be proud to know that our money is going toward proactive energy sources.
This all looks great and I’m excited about the project. My one concern is this: Why will the new Union not feature any guest rooms? I feel that this is an integral feature of many great campus unions around the country (yea, the world perhaps
….the rooms at the Main Union are great, but it would be nice to have a few more places for visitors to the University, etc.
I’m pretty excited about this project. This end of campus is sorely lacking for recreational and eating spaces and it looks like this new space will address much of the need. A couple of questions:
1) What provisions have been made for foot and bike traffic to and from the building, i.e. will there be any pedestrian bridges over Johnson or Randall?
2) I find the snapshots of the design intriguing but hard to read. It would be more useful if we had access to the actual design drawings as well as those nifty 3-D renderings of the space. Is there a location where they can be downloaded at full scale?
I just noticed that their are no hotel rooms, was ths idea abandoned?
Also I think it would be a nice nod to history to name one of the large halls near Badger hall Dag Hammarskjold. I’d suggest the 1372 sq foot one next to the theatre.
Please keep in mind that the renderings above are from about a year ago. The plans have changed since then, also we rarely post the guestroom floor plans because they are honestly two floors with rows of rooms…not too exciting to look at. But the 60 rooms are definitely in the project http://www.union.wisc.edu/terraceviews/fall09/southcampus_highlights.html .
Ah, so there is a forth and fifth floor! Thanks for explaining that, it’s not obvious from the drawings.
What of the bowling alley, the construction camera shows what looks like pillar coming through the room, did you have to elimate some lanes?
The building will still have 8 lanes. Because of the building’s size and structure, there will be pillars throughout the building–this will separate some of the lanes out which I think is a good thing
Ah yes, I forgot the old building had the lanes divided in half by pillars. It looks like it’ll feel familiar at least. They are currently laying a floor in that space, am I right in thinking that there is a level of parking under the bowling alley and that the floor they’re about to lay is the alley itself?
In other words two basement levels in the public area and one in the private area?
Yes, there will be two basement levels. The lowest level is parking and the one above that has the recreation center as well as the area we have set aside if/when we have the funds to move the central kitchen ( currently at Memorial Union ) over to the new south campus Union. Directly above the recreation center is the “club” or “pub” so the climbing wall in the recreation center actually extends upward into that dining/entertainment space. Passing the construction site on my way home today, it does look like they are about to lay the floor of the area where the lanes will be.
The level with the recreation center and kitchen area does also have parking.
hello,
can you please post a better image of the first floor? the jpg there is currently too small and not all the small print can be read. also, i know it’s “boring” but other than the comments there’s no way to tell that there will be guest rooms or an entire floor of underground parking. diagrams of those would still be helpful, at least for those of us who are curious. thanks!
hello again,
another question that i have that i cannot seem to find an answer to is how bus and bike transportation will fit into the new union south.
i heard rumors that since the bus depot on bedford street will be closing, union south might become a place to catch the badger bus and possibly greyhound busses as well. does anyone have any information on that?
also, another unconfirmed rumor is that there will be a “bike workshop” in the new union south where you can bring in your bicycle to work on and have access to bike stands and tools. can you please let us all know if that is the case?
thank you! i really appreciate all the information you have out there right now, i’m just looking for more because i’m pretty excited about this project.
Roof is starting to go on the bowling alley now – November 4th….