Alliant Energy Center
Redevelopment by any other name.
On October 2, the day before the World Dairy Expo was set to start, I took a tour with Alliant Energy Center (“AEC”) Director Adam Heffron. I wanted to get a sense of what’s really going on at the AEC.
The site where the AEC is now was first used as an exhibition space in Dane County back in 1896. The Arena, which is still on the site, was built in 1954; the Coliseum was built in 1967; the Exhibition Hall was built in 1995; Willow Island was developed in 2002; the Pavilions were added in 2014. It officially became the Alliant Energy Center in 2000 when the naming rights were sold to Alliant Energy.
These original buildings are still in-use, but rapidly becoming obsolete. AEC is competing with facilities around the world that are bigger, more flexible, and have more amenities. COVID destroyed much of the life-blood of the AEC and what has come back, are bigger events with more flexible event needs - indoor and outdoor exhibition spaces; ready access to other parts of the city; gathering spaces.
The AEC is horribly single-mode for transportation - if you’ve ever tried to walk, bike, take a bus, or even a ride sharing service, you know how frustratingly car-centric it is. There are acres and acres of space that the neighborhood where it sits has no access to.
The County needs to re-tool the AEC for its current customers so we can keep world-class events like the World Dairy Expo. We need to re-imagine the AEC to attract new events. And we need to re-integrate the AEC into the community to make Dane County a more vibrant place.