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A new source of pride
Miron holds to tight budget for Kress Center
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One of the first major construction tasks for Miron Construction Co. Inc. while building the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Kress Center was to install five, 130-foot steel trusses weighing between 90 tons and 110 tons. The trusses were installed into the floor of the arena and were needed to support the roof.
“We had two cranes in the hole to lift them into place,” said Alex Santos, senior project manager for Miron.
But the heavy lifting paled in comparison to the financial work that went into building the Kress Center.
The $32.5 million project started $250,000 beyond budget when it was bid, and with state officials watching every dollar closely, builders could either stay on budget or cut into their own compensation.
Miron’s first meetings with the construction team focused on value-added engineering and the realization they had no wiggle room on costs.
In the end, change orders totaled slightly more than 1 percent of the total project cost, Santos said, well below average for a project of its size.
The 234,607-square-foot Kress Center includes a 4,000-seat arena, work facilities for UW-Green Bay students and teams and is the home court for the university’s NCAA Division 1 women’s basketball team.
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Project Essentials Project
name: University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Kress Events Center
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The center, which replaced and expanded the Phoenix Sports Center, also will be used for graduation ceremonies, concerts and other campus events.
Students voted to tax themselves $15 million to pay for the facility. The George F. Kress Foundation also was a major donor for the center.
Santos said the weight room in the former center was one 20-foot-by-15-foot room, and the cardiovascular area was a converted racquetball court, he said.
“It’s hard to imagine the facility the college was using,” Santos said. “You had high schools in the state [that] put UW-Green Bay to shame with their facilities. It was a joke.”
The construction timetable went well, Santos said.
Despite unexpected delays and the daily budget crunch, Miron finished the project two months ahead of schedule.
“It’s nice to be involved in a project of that caliber that’s located in your backyard,” Santos said. “I went to events at the old arena. It’s like night and day.”
— Dustin Block