Local News
UW-L’s 104-year-old Wittich Hall clears hurdle for $25-million renovation
Building will be challenge to preserve its history.
Wittich Hall is the second-oldest building at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. It was built in 1916.
Soon, however, if everything goes right, it will be the home of the College of Business Administration after a $25-million renovation.
At a meeting Thursday at UW-Milwaukee, the UW Board of Regents approved the project.
“Now it goes to the state building commission, which we hope will be approved in late summer,” UW-L facilities director Doug Pearson said. “We’ll finish design and hopefully bid the project and start construction in the summer of 2018.”
The project, which plans to be completed by 2020, will be a challenge, considering the building’s history.
The firm in charge aims to memorialize a suspended running track on the third floor, preserve Maple wood floors in the building’s two gymnasiums, expose the building’s steel trusses and open up the original 1916 skylights covered in 1970, according to a press release.
It will also include HVAC and electrical work, as well as complying with ADA guidelines. The money will be funded through university program revenue.
The new CBA home will include:
- Five CBA departments: Accountancy, Economics, Finance, Management and Marketing *
- CBA dean’s office
- Small Business Development Center
- 81 private offices
- 38 work stations
- 1 large meeting room that can be subdivided or seat 90-100 people lecture style
- 3 meeting rooms for 16-24 people
- 5 meeting rooms for 6-8 people
- Informal meeting and study spaces
- Instructional spaces and more
-Information Systems is the only CBA department not moving into the building. It will remain in Wing Technology Center..
