This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Alliant Energy Center Executive Director Kevin Scheibler.
The discussion focuses on a planned renovation project for the convention center. It’s located on a 164-acre campus in Dane County near the South Beltline, including a 100,000-square-foot exhibition hall, an arena with 10,000 seats and livestock spaces used for agricultural events.
“The oldest building was built in the ‘50s, the Coliseum was built in the ‘60s, and it hasn’t had really any major improvement to it over that time,” Scheibler said. “It really has outlived its useful life, and really needs some investment.”
The center last fall put out a request for proposal for the project and sought private investment, which resulted in a plan to invest $100 million from Frank Productions into the building to address infrastructure issues and “bring it up to speed” with new amenities and other upgrades.
Scheibler discusses the timeline for the project amid some ongoing negotiations with partners, expected to wrap up in May. After drafting the contract and getting local approval, he expects all of the legal framework will be finished by mid-summer, setting the stage for more in-depth engineering and design work over the coming year.
Construction is expected to begin in fall of 2027 and wrap up in late 2028 or early 2029.
“It is a pretty significant project, we’re not just going in and throwing some paint on the walls and changing some things around,” Scheibler said. “It’s going to be a complete overhaul to that building.”
He also previews some of the major gatherings happening at the Alliant Energy Center this summer and fall, including the Dane County Fair and World Dairy Expo in September and October.
“Which is the largest dairy-centric event in the world, brings people from all over several different countries here, there’s cattle from 48 of the United States plus Canada and Mexico,” he said, adding “from a business standpoint, it’s probably the most important show to most of the vendors that are here.”
Nearly doubling the size of the center’s exhibition hall will help meet the needs of major events like this, he noted.
Listen to the podcast below, sponsored by UW-Madison:
