Aurora Health Care and Marquette University are ending their partnership on the university’s planned athletic performance research center in Milwaukee, the two organizations confirmed this week.
The Milwaukee-based health care system’s role in the project has been unclear since Marquette announced late last year that it was scaling back plans for the Athletic and Human Performance Research Center, moving it from a 10-acre site in downtown Milwaukee to a smaller site across North 12th Street from the Al McGuire Center.
“Our two great Milwaukee institutions have reached a mutual decision to end discussions on forming a partnership for the Athletic and Human Performance Research Center (AHPRC),” the organizations said in a joint statement this week. “As is the case oftentimes, the project has continued to evolve and we both agreed it wasn’t the right fit moving forward. The vision behind the AHPRC remains strong and the future facility will continue to move forward.
Early in 2017, Marquette announced Aurora Health Care would provide $40 million toward what was then planned as a 250,000- to 300,000-square-foot, $120 million facility on a downtown site bordered by 6th Street, 10th Street, West Michigan Street and the Marquette Interchange.
When Marquette announced in December plans to move the proposed facility to a parking lot at the southwest corner of West Wells and North 12th streets, the university declined to disclose how much money it had raised for the facility or what Aurora was committing to the project.
In a statement this week, the institutions said they plan to continue their partnership on other projects.
“As two strong community partners, Marquette and Aurora remain committed to working together on other opportunities to advance education and health and wellness services for the greater good of our region and those we are privileged to serve,” the statement said.
Marquette and Aurora work together through Near West Side Partners and Aurora hires on a significant number of the university’s graduates every year, the organization said.
