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The Milwaukee Brewers privately commissioned a study of heating and air-conditioning their stadium but kept it secret for more than a year, Milwaukee Magazine has learned.
That study shows that heating the ballpark would boost operating costs by more than half a million dollars a year, a figure that would rise with the number of winter events.
Seemingly everyone was taken by surprise when Republican legislators first publicly revealed a $25 million plan to outfit American Family Field to handle concerts and other winter events. That news came at a Sept. 18 news conference, when the lawmakers unveiled it as part of a much larger package to pay for renovations at the ballpark.
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The winterization cost wasn’t part of two other studies commissioned by the Brewers and the state to figure out what it would take to extend the life of the stadium. Nor was it part of a plan that Gov. Tony Evers previously advocated to use part of the state’s budget surplus to fund renovations.
Stadium district board chair Tim Sheehy told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the team had never discussed the winterization idea with his board, even though the district is the ballpark’s majority owner and the Brewers’ landlord.
Lawmakers released a Brewers memo that outlined what work would be needed to heat the stadium, but it didn’t detail the basis of the $25 million estimate.
When Milwaukee Magazine recently asked if any studies supported the estimate, the team referred questions to the legislation’s authors. The office of Sen. Dan Feyen (R-Fond du Lac), the package’s Senate sponsor, then released — apparently for the first time — a September 2022 study from the consulting firm of Grumman/Butkus Associates.
The date of the study indicates that the Brewers had details on winterization in hand for a full year before the September 2023 news conference.
That study, commissioned by the Brewers, estimates that heating AmFam Field would cost $19.5 million. Maintaining a constant winter indoor temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit — to ensure that pipes don’t freeze — would increase operating expenses by $520,000 a year, the study projects. Raising the indoor temperature to 68 degrees, when the outside temperature is as low as 10 degrees below zero, would add another $25,000 for each event, the study estimates.
Discussion on the renovation project did not include the possibility of air-conditioning AmFam Field, which has a retractable roof.
But it was part of the Grumman/Butkus study, which projects that air-conditioning the ballpark would cost $39.6 million and that adding both heating and air-conditioning as part of the same project would cost $48 million. Keeping the indoor temperature down to 78 degrees Fahrenheit on an 89-degree day would add $20,000 in operating costs for each event, the study projects.
Lawmakers factored in $25 million for winterization as part of the package to provide $501 million in taxpayer funds for the $673.6 million renovation project. Evers is expected to sign the legislation soon.
