The architects and the design team are working towards the next big milestone: the 75% design review. A big focus right now is identifying additional items to cut to get down to the overall project budget of $34.4M, and working through some of the tough decisions that need to be made.

On April 27, UW-Madison, CALS and industry leaders involved in the project met to explore the remaining budgetary challenges and various options to make things work. At that meeting, a number of possible project additions and project deductions were discussed, including each item’s budget implications. At that time, the equipment part of the budget was down to $7.5M total, with $2.225M on the Dairy Plant side and $5.3M on the CDR side. The goal is to reduce it further to $6.2M total.

The project’s Executive Committee is planning to convene in late May in order to be brought up to speed on things and start working through some of the decisions they may need to make. This committee was established last fall to make final decisions for the project, as needed, taking into consideration information, guidance and expertise provided by the design team, the architects, project stakeholders and others. The Executive Committee is comprised of six members: two representatives from the stakeholder community; one representative from the state Department of Administration; UW-Madison Vice Chancellor of Finance and Administration Laurent Heller; UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank; and CALS Dean Kate VandenBosch.

The next cost estimate for the project will take place at the 75% review. This is anticipated to happen sometime in June. There will also be a DATCP review around that time.

Compared to timeline projections shared back in December, the project is somewhere around six weeks behind schedule, and this may slip a bit more. Difficult decisions take time, and project leaders agree that It is more important to get things right than to stick to the original schedule.

Milestone date: Wednesday, April 27, 2017