Madison College has formally announced it will not further pursue a project to build a multi-sport facility that would include a softball four-plex, baseball and soccer venues at the Truax campus.

Earlier this month Tim Casper, the Assistant Vice President of Budget and Public Affairs, made the announcement Madison College had not received enough funding to begin the construction of the complex. According to Keith Cornille, the Vice President of Student Development, a charitable organization approached Madison College a few months ago proposing to build the complex.

The proposed project would have cost approximately $17 million, which was more than they could come up with.

“The project was not going to come on the backs of students or taxpayers,” said Cornille, about the failure to fund the project.

Had this project succeeded, it would have positively impacted Madison sports, from the intercollegiate level to intramural and recreational athletics, school officials said. Athletic Director Steve Hauser said there could have been multiple uses for this facility, and not just for Madison College Athletics.

“Unfortunately, numerous college and high school student-athletes as well as youth and families in our community will not benefit from the proposed complex,” Hauser said in a press release. “I cannot explain how disappointed I am.”

Had the college received enough funding, the athletic complex would have been constructed where the baseball field is now. The original idea was to have the complex go up by the geothermal station, but the only area with enough space was where the baseball field is now, and even then, they would have had to remove a couple of acres of trees to make room for the whole complex.

Both Cornille and Hauser said there are no further plans to push the project forward and they don’t foresee it coming up in the near future. Their reasoning was that it would simply be too expensive without the private funding. Since they were approached by the charitable organization, and not the other way around, it would be up to the organization if they wanted to try again. However, both of them expressed that they would have loved to have it.