State funding secured for Falcon Center
The Wisconsin State Building Commission met in Madison Thursday and formally ensured funding for the new Falcon Center on the UW-River Falls campus. Now the UWRF Foundation is asking donors to help raise about $500,000 needed to meet its commitment to the $63.5 million project.
The Wisconsin State Building Commission met in Madison Thursday and formally ensured funding for the new Falcon Center on the UW-River Falls campus.
Now the UWRF Foundation is asking donors to help raise about $500,000 needed to meet its commitment to the $63.5 million project.
The foundation is obligated to raise $2 million and to date has raised more than $1.5 million
“In reaching this milestone, I want to thank the many faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends who have worked in a variety of ways to move the Falcon Center project forward for well over the past decade,” said Chancellor Dean Van Galen Friday. “It has been a very long journey, and our goal of a new facility that will support our students, campus, and community is within reach.”
Planning efforts for the new facility -- known until recently as the Health and Human Performance project -- began in 1999.
Campus Planner Dale Braun said the project concepts have been approved.
Over the next year, engineers and architects will work to produce inches-thick construction plan sheets and specifications the size of a few phone books.
Braun said this period is when details get specific -- from structural elements like door, window and wall sizes to the HVAC components, floor finishes and building hardware.
Crews will break ground in April next year and finish construction in January 2017.
The project includes construction of a new 162,300 square foot addition fitted onto the existing Hunt-Knowles Athletic Complex adjacent to Ramer Field.
The work also includes remodeling 14,670 square feet of the existing Hunt-Knowles building so it ties into the addition, as well as other improvements in the general area of the athletic complex.
The building addition will house classrooms, a human performance laboratory, a big gym, a dance studio, an auxiliary gym, offices, lockers, training rooms and other supporting spaces. The new addition will also have a 720-stall parking lot.
Donors may sponsor an athletic locker with a gift of $500. Recent graduates (2000-2012) can sponsor a locker for just $250.
Donors making gifts ranging from $10,000 to $500,000 can name almost any space in the building: from offices to study rooms, from locker rooms to classrooms, from the climbing wall to the Human Performance Lab.
The Falcon Center will already have the following named facilities: Don Page Arena, Bowen Court, Dr. Keith Wurtz Classroom, Greg and Donnette Wheelock Student Lounge, HealthPartners/Hudson Hospital Wellness Suite, Paul Dykstra Men's Hockey Locker Room and St. Croix Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine Athletic Training Room.
Fundraising efforts are also underway to name a classroom for Emogene Nelson.
Gifts of $3,000 or more ($1,000 per year for three years) ensure donor recognition on an Individual Donor Wall Plaque.
Donors making gifts of $500 or more will be recognized on the Donor Wall.
For more information, contact the UWRF Foundation at (715) 425-3505; toll free at (877) 258-6647.
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