Madison School and Community Recreation prepares to unveil biggest facility yet

Work progresses in the lobby of Madison School Community and Recreation's new 30,000-square-foot facility on Madison's Far West Side ahead of its opening next month. "It will be the first time that we've had a facility of this size," said Diana Miller, MSCR supervisor of sports and aquatics.

MSCR's new location at 7333 West Towne Way will replace its former Hoyt School and Odana Road locations.

MSCR's new West Towne Way location will have art rooms, including a dedicated pottery studio, as well as dance studios, multipurpose areas, two fitness spaces and office space.

Flooring work progresses in a small studio of Madison School and Community Recreation's newest location in a former Stein Mart storefront, which will sport large rooms with equipment tailored to the needs of the more than 80,000 community members MSCR serves.

The gymnasium of MSCR's new Far West Side location will also accommodate volleyball.

The design and construction in MSCR's new facility cost roughly $3.5 million, said Diana Miller, supervisor of sports and aquatics.

Work progresses in a small studio at the new MSCR location.

Work progresses in a ceramics studio at the new Far West Side MSCR location.

Madison School and Community Recreation is preparing to open its largest facility yet on the city's Far West Side.

Ahead of its June 19 soft opening, flooring, audio and visual elements, and furnishings are some of the finishing touches being put into MSCR's new 30,000-square-foot facility at 7333 West Towne Way, a former Stein Mart.

For years, MSCR's activities, programs, and equipment were hindered by its dependence on available school space, with daytime classes and after-school sports taking precedence. Now, it has an entire building.

Since the facility began as a large storefront, MSCR and its contractors were greenlit by the building's landlord to design larger rooms, with equipment specifically tailored to the needs of the more than 80,000 community members MSCR serves. MSCR worked with the Iconica architecture firm and Daniels Construction, both based in Madison.

"This is our largest facility, obviously our newest," said Diana Miller, MSCR supervisor of sports and aquatics. "It will be the first time that we’ve had a facility of this size."

Where other MSCR locations are equipped with "one or two" fitness spaces in total, the West Towne Way location boasts dance studios, art rooms including a dedicated pottery studio, multipurpose areas, two fitness spaces and office space.

Design considerations included electricity in the floor for sewing machines and soldering stations, special areas for chemical mixing and kiln firing in the pottery studio, and spaces in the gym flooring for the placement of a volleyball net. With a 20-year lease ahead, Miller says MSCR was really able to stretch its legs in the space, reflective of the growth and development she's seen in MSCR.

"MSCR will turn 100 in 2026, and over the last few years, we’ve really developed into what do we do well," said Miller. "I am really excited to see all of the people come in and use this space."

While construction started in December, plans for the new space began to take shape in 2020. With funds from MSCR's operating budget, officials began to plan their departure from the former Hoyt School as well as an Odana Road location, both of which had outgrown the "robust" programming, operations manager Mary Roth said.

"We have really robust older adult fitness programs that typically have really long waiting lists," she said. Beyond exercise programming, Hoyt says other forms of recreation had run out of room to grow. A pottery studio, for instance, was "just bursting at the seams."

"We’re really hoping to be able to better serve our existing customers in facilities that are appropriate for their uses and also be able to provide more programming," Roth said.

The design and construction in the new facility came out to roughly $3.5 million, Roth said.

Some other highlights of the new facility include several large fitness-specific spaces, a new pottery studio, a gym space and multiple courts for pickleball, volleyball and basketball.

The gym alone, said Roth, offers a world of new opportunities.

"Potentially one of the most exciting things is the new space does have a small gym space," she said. "Typically we have not had access to any sort of gym space during the days for adult programming or younger child, like preschool-age programming."

With a "soft opening" period throughout the summer, Roth says she looks forward to a fuller activity calendar for the space in the fall, as the new facility takes on programs from the Hoyt and Odana locations.

"Our goals really are to build out a space where we’re able to offer a wide variety of programming to people of all ages and interests in the community," she said.

[Editor's Note: This article has been updated to include the names of the architectural firm and contractors who worked with MSCR on this facility, Iconica and Daniels Construction, respectively.]

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