La Crosse Center prioritizing to-do list to stay within $40 million budget

Staff cut maintenance repairs from $18 million
to $14 million and want to cut that to $8 million. 

With around $40 million on the table for renovations and expansion, the La Crosse Center board is trying to prioritize.

The board has to decide what goes and what stays.

This week, building staff cut one priority list from $18 million down to $14 million, but members of the Center board think it could be even smaller.

Phil Addis suggests that a limit of $8 million be put on projects such as new roofing and electrical repairs.

At the same time, the board is talking about increasing the size of the Center expansion to better compete with other Wisconsin cities for convention business.

In the last couple of years, La Crosse built 400 new hotel rooms downtown in hopes of attracting more big tourism events.

That has, apparently, put pressure on the La Crosse Center to increase its expansion plans to keep up with the hotel growth.

The board has suggested building a large, second ballroom to attract more business.

Those members say the civic center should build for what the demand might be 10 to 15 years from now, to avoid coming back to La Crosse’s city hall in a few years, seeking money again.

The top limit for expansion costs now is set at $42 million, thought the initial to-do list had ballooned to around $75 million.

The Center is also still waiting on $5 million from the state that is dependent upon legislature completing the Wisconsin budget, which is nearly three weeks overdue.