Alumni from UW-L are asked to sell science center project idea to state lawmakers

A call for help is going out to graduates of UW-La Crosse support completing the science center on campus.

Phase II of the Prairie Springs Science Center is in limbo, along with many other building projects, planned by across the state of Wisconsin.

UW-L marketing director Brad Quarberg is urging alumni around the state to tell their local legislators about Prairie Springs, which has been in a holding pattern for five years.

“We want to make sure that message is being heard in Madison, that this project needs to be completed in order for us to help the state achieve a number of its goals with ‘brain drain,’ reversing the brain drain,” Quarberg said.

Last month, the state building commission failed to pass a $2 billion capital budget that includes the proposed second building for Prairie Springs, with a tie vote — all four Republicans against and all four Democrats for it.

When Phase II was first included in the capital budget back in 2019, the project’s costs were about $83 million. Now the price tag has more than doubled to $182.5 million. Phase I was approved under then-Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the GOP-controlled state Legislator. It has been denied by the Legislature, since Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has taken over.

And the Legislature will make the final decision on the project once again.

Quarberg hopes that alumni will remember their experiences at the Cowley science building, which has been open almost 60 years.

“If they were on campus, they were probably in that building,” Quarberg said. “They know what that building is like, they know that the building is old, it’s probably much worse than any science building or science room that you’d have in a high school in Wisconsin.”