Building commission to take up Evers’ capital budget Wednesday

The Wisconsin State Building Commission is planning to meet on Wednesday to take up Gov. Tony Evers‘ proposed capital budget, which calls for setting aside $2.4 billion for a new engineering building at UW-Madison, a state office building in Milwaukee and various other projects.

The Building Commission’s consideration of the capital budget is the first formal step toward the official adoption of the spending proposal, which was released by Evers in February.

Among other things, the governor’s plans call for spending about $1 billion on University of Wisconsin System projects — a similar amount to what he had proposed spending in his previous two-year budget request. These projects include a $150 million engineering building at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a $116.7 million project at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and a $96.2 million library at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Also included is $42 million for a new juvenile corrections center in Milwaukee County. The project would replace the scandal-plagued Lincoln Hills-Copper Lake juvenile schools in northern Wisconsin.

The budget proposal also would put $100 million into energy-conservation projects — the most proposed for that purpose since the 2011-2013 biennial budget.

 New Milwaukee state office building 

Evers’ budget would separately set aside $163 million for the construction of a new state office building on Milwaukee’s near west side.

It’s the second time Evers has sought money for the project after Republican lawmakers stripped bonding for iys construction from the last biennial budget.

The plans also call for a 200,000-square-foot building and parking structure on a site at the southwest corner of North 27th Street and West Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee. The building would become home to functions now carried out at various other Milwaukee offices and would house 600 employees. The building commission voted in February to approve spending $2 million to acquire the site for the project.

Milwaukee museum project 

The capital budget would put $40 million toward a $240 million project to move the Milwaukee Public Museum and the Betty Brinn Children’s Museum to a new site in the city’s downtown.

The public museum would be rebranded as the Wisconsin Museum of Nature and Culture and would share a 2.5-acre site with the children’s museum at West McKinley Avenue and North 6th Street, on the west side of downtown Milwaukee. Museum officials sought $65 million from the state for the project.

Officials recently announced Mortenson C0nstruction and Butler-based ALLCON will be the general contractors on the project. The work is expected to get underway next year.

New Madison site for Wisconsin Historical Society Museum 

Evers also wants to set aside $4 million to pay for early design work for a project to develop a space for the Wisconsin Historical Society Museum and a state office building.

The museum would occupy a site on East Washington Avenue where an outdated state office building now sits, moving from its current location on Capitol square.

The museum was originally to move to another site on Capitol square. Instead, it will occupy the site of a state building, called GEF 1, that now houses the state Department of Workforce Development. The project is expected to cost about $120 million

In most budget years, the State Building Commission will send whatever projects it has considered on to the state’s Joint Finance Committee for approval. That did not happen in 2019, though. Instead, Republican lawmakers on the building commission decided to vote down each of the governor’s spending proposals. Later, the Joint Finance Committee cut Evers’ capital budget to $1.9 billion without following the advice the building commission. Follow @natebeck9