{"id":111,"date":"2012-11-02T20:51:31","date_gmt":"2012-11-03T01:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uwpowerswi.com\/?p=111"},"modified":"2015-04-22T13:41:39","modified_gmt":"2015-04-22T18:41:39","slug":"uw-system-regents-pass-confluence-project-resolution","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/uw-system-regents-pass-confluence-project-resolution\/","title":{"rendered":"The Confluence Project: A bold public-private partnership"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire is part of a public-private partnership project that, as the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram opined following its announcement, \u201cif realized will be a game-changer that will transform downtown Eau Claire forever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Confluence Project includes construction of a new arts center to be shared by the community and UW-Eau Claire, a commercial\/retail complex, and university student housing at the confluence of the Chippewa and Eau Claire rivers in downtown Eau Claire. The property, located less than a mile from campus, was acquired by Haymarket Concepts LLC, which is a partnership between Marcom LLC (Commonweal Development Corp. and Market &amp; Johnson Inc.) and Blugold Real Estate LLC, a subsidiary of the UW-Eau Claire Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>As envisioned, The Confluence Project\u2019s public-private partnership will plan and construct a community arts center of approximately 150,000 square feet that will serve the Eau Claire Regional Arts Council (ECRAC), community performing and fine arts organizations, and the university.<\/p>\n<p>Preliminary plans for the community arts center include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Three distinct performance spaces: a 1,200- to 1,500-seat theater to replace downtown Eau Claire\u2019s obsolete State Theatre; a 450-seat theater to replace UW-Eau Claire\u2019s aging Kjer Theatre; and a 250-seat black box-style venue<\/li>\n<li>Scene and costume shops<\/li>\n<li>Dressing rooms and other \u201cback-of-house\u201d operations<\/li>\n<li>Fine arts studios, gallery space and dance studio space<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Classrooms and rehearsal rooms<\/li>\n<li>Offices for ECRAC, community arts organizations, and select university faculty and staff in the fine and performing arts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The performance spaces would be designed for maximum flexibility to accommodate a wide range of acts, including major touring Broadway-style productions that currently cannot be effectively staged in any existing venue in Eau Claire.<\/p>\n<p>The mixed-use project would include commercial and retail space, parking and apartment-style housing for approximately 300 university students. The housing would serve as a living-learning community for upper-division music, theater and art students.<\/p>\n<p>Based on concept drawings currently available, the estimated cost of the community arts center is $50 million, and the current estimated cost of the mixed-use development project is $33 million. The project would be financed through a variety of private, philanthropic, state and local funding sources. The university is seeking UW System Board of Regents approval of $25 million in state-supported bonding for its portion of the arts center and $30 million in program-supported bonding for the student housing project.<\/p>\n<p>The Confluence Project is consistent with the UW-Eau Claire 20-year Campus Master Plan, which includes partnering with the community to create a shared arts facility and develop an off-campus apartment-style residence hall in close proximity to campus. Both the Eau Claire City Council and the Board of Regents have unanimously passed resolutions supporting the project but have also identified a number of conditions that must be addressed before funding is approved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire is part of a public-private partnership project that, as the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram opined following its announcement, \u201cif realized will be a game-changer that will transform downtown Eau Claire forever.\u201d The Confluence Project includes construction of a new arts center to be shared by the community and UW-Eau Claire, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":2656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","institution":[96],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-111","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-eau-claire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}