{"id":8744,"date":"2022-11-21T09:35:59","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T15:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=8744"},"modified":"2022-11-21T09:35:59","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T15:35:59","slug":"american-players-theatre-credits-uw-platteville-senior-design-team-with-renovation-project","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/american-players-theatre-credits-uw-platteville-senior-design-team-with-renovation-project\/","title":{"rendered":"American Players Theatre credits UW-Platteville senior design team with renovation project"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
American Players Theatre, photo by Hannah Jo Anderson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2020, four University of Wisconsin-Platteville senior design\u00a0civil engineering<\/a>\u00a0students were tasked with the project of solving the parking lot concerns at the\u00a0American Players Theatre<\/a>\u00a0(APT) in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Together Ryan Henning, Drew Archie, Keegan Flynn and Josh Hendrickson presented their findings to the company, not realizing a couple years later APT would be receiving a nearly $1 million Tourism Capital Investment Grant from the state to embark on those parking lot improvements.<\/p>\n

The announcement came in February of 2022, from the\u00a0governor\u2019s office<\/a>\u00a0that APT would receive a $971,360 grant to, \u201cexpand and revitalize the theatre parking lot by replacing insufficient lighting with new LED lighting, expanding the parking lot to accommodate an additional 75 cars, installing a swale to manage storm water runoff and paving the portion of the lot that accommodates accessible parking.\u201d\u00a0Cari Stebbins, operations manager at APT said she was in disbelief when hearing the news.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe state made a grant program available for shovel ready projects. We would not have been shovel ready without the senior design project,\u201d said Stebbins. \u201cWe used that as our baseline and expanded upon that to apply for the grant. We are thrilled. This is a dream project. I\u2019m not sure we would have been able to do it without the support of the UW-Platteville students and their work, the state and this grant.\u201d<\/p>\n

APT broke ground on Oct. 18. According to Stebbins, APT hopes to have the majority of the project completed by their 2023 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incredible to see a project concept come to fruition,\u201d said Henning, a 2020 UW-Platteville graduate, who also served as the\u00a0senior design<\/a>\u00a0team project manager. \u201cOne of the best parts of working with the senior design team is that, while in school, we had the opportunity to take a real-world problem, develop solutions and provide a professional recommendation to APT. And, now because of this grant, the project can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henning is a project manager at\u00a0WDS Construction<\/a>\u00a0in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, and still recalls working with his senior design team to find the main cause of what was deteriorating the parking lot. He said the group had four objectives: improve safety, increase the number of parking stalls, improve stormwater management and provide a cost estimate. The group was able to pinpoint a solution, it came down to a watershed analysis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe watershed steered us toward the problem,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce we had that correctly identified, we needed to determine how we could address it and show APT the importance of looking at the parking lot in a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time of the project, Carrie Van Hallgren served as APT\u2019s managing director. During her tenure with the company, she said the rain mixing in with the gravel parking lot caused challenging problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe grant would have never been possible without the work of the students,\u201d said Van Hallgren. \u201cIt’s a great example of the state, public higher education and non-profit groups working together to solve problems. APT has a huge economic impact on Southwest Wisconsin. It\u2019s the largest outdoor theatre in the state and one of the largest in the country. We welcome 100,000 people to the theatre each year. Improving the parking will make it a better experience for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

The collaboration between UW-Platteville and APT was a beneficial experience for Henning; he discussed how the hands-on experience prepared him for his professional career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned the importance of critical problem-solving skills,\u201d he said. \u201cWorking at WDS, my job isn\u2019t to fix the issue in front of me, it\u2019s to dig in, determine what\u2019s causing the issue and develop options for addressing the cause of the problem. I\u2019m excited that APT is able to take the solution the senior design team created and make it a reality for their facility. It\u2019s going to fix a big issue. It\u2019s going to be beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

As construction gets underway at APT, Stebbins is appreciative of the relationship she formed with the senior design team and the university.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe students were very professional. It was informative in ways I was not expecting. For example, they told us we had 50 acres of watershed coming through our parking lot which we were not aware of \u2013 they had good ideas and were collaborative. It was an eye-opening experience to know our property in a different way,\u201d said Stebbins. \u201cIt was a fantastic experience for us. I would like to engage with UW-Platteville with other projects in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Written by Ruth Wendlandt<\/p>\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/www.uwplatt.edu\/news\/american-players-theatre-credits-uw-platteville-senior-design-team-renovation-project<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2020, four University of Wisconsin-Platteville senior design\u00a0civil engineering\u00a0students were tasked with the project of solving the parking lot concerns at the\u00a0American Players Theatre\u00a0(APT) in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Together Ryan Henning, Drew Archie, Keegan Flynn and Josh Hendrickson presented their findings to the company, not realizing a couple years later APT would be receiving a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":8746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[93],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-8744","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-platteville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/8744","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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=8744"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=8744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}