VIROQUA, Wis. – On Thursday, City of Viroqua officials and the WPA Bath House Task Force held “mortar removal” ceremony to officially kick off a construction project that will transform the former WPA Bath House into the Viroqua Welcome Center. The project has been years in the making and a number of key players that helped make the project happen talked about the long path to bring the project to reality, and all the pieces that had to come together.
The former bath house has been sitting in a dilapidated state for years since the former city outdoor pool closed around 2005. The building served as the entrance and changing facility for the cities outdoor pool until the pool closed. The city council over the years considered several alternative uses for the site including moving the bath house and making the site a parking lot, using it as a site for a new city hall, and at one point considered the possibility of making it the center for splash pad and green space.
City Alderperson Cyndy Hubbard has championed the possibilities for the building longer than anyone, and introduce the key players on the project at Thursday’s ceremony.
“The pool closed many years ago,” said Hubbard. “Since then, this building has been vacant, looking for a purpose. In 2022 the city said we’ve got to decide something. We can either tear it down or do something with it. The Historic Preservation Commission said, let us see if we can come up with something. So we said, what purposes, what need can this building fill in the downtown area in Viroqua? We said, well, we’ve become a tourist destination. We need a more visible information center. We need downtown public restrooms. We’re the center of a county with 50 plus miles of recreational trails. We could be a trailhead. People are always saying we need more meeting spaces. We could have some small meeting spaces. How about offices? Maybe we can have some offices even. And a few months after that, we started thinking, you know, the chamber, this might be a really good place for the broker chamber. And they agreed. So this is going to be the Viroqua Welcome Center and home of the Viroqua Chamber.”
Hubbard said coming up with a plan was only part of the process, now they had to raise the money to get the plan done.
“So now we had this plan back in 2022 early 23, but now we have to pay for it,” said Hubbard. “So we formed the WPA Bath House Task Force. These are the people surrounding me here who’ve worked so hard for two and a half plus years for us to be at this moment. I’ve got Randy Skinner, Steve Willis, Aaron Aslin, Karen Innis, Jean Driscoll and Christina Dollhaussen. So you guys have worked very hard. I thank you very much. So we reached out to the community through the generous donations and pledges of our community, plus the WEDC (Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation), we reached out for the CDI grant, the Community Development Investment grant. Plus we reached out to Vernon County for their Community Development Grant. Plus the city allocated funds. All those combined together got us to the point where we are today. Plus we had the help of our city administrator, who made sure we did everything right, filled out all the forms right and forget something we definitely needed his guidance. Thank you, Nate Torres and everybody, really, many of you here are very important reason we are here today, so I’d like to us all to give ourselves a round of applause.”
Steve Willis is the City Council President and also a member of the task force, and said the project would not have made it to construction without many people who made it a reality.
“Since I’ve moved here, it’s been kind of like the question the community, what is this building?” said Willis. “Now we are well on our way to making it into a destination for visitors and community members alike. It’s going to have something for everyone, and also, hopefully it’ll be a little bit more visible for the chamber, where people, when they say, hey, the chamber is on the historic building on rock Avenue, they’ll know exactly where it is. Big thanks to Missy Hughes for being here too from the WEDC, we appreciate everything you’ve done for us as well. Sue Noble (Vernon Economic Development Association) actually helped us out in the very beginning, helped get this crew in line. So without Sue’s determination that we could do this, she never had a doubt in our plan, and she just kind of helped us get the plan going. So really appreciate everything that Sue’s done for us as well and community members. But really big thanks to the team. It’s been a long but short journey to get to this point, and I am really glad it’s here. And we’ve had a lot of fun and laughs and tears along the way, but here we are. So we couldn’t do without everyone here. So I appreciate you all.”
Interim Viroqua Chamber Director Aaron Aslin said he is looking forward to making the building the home for the Chamber.
“It’s wonderful to see everybody here for this historic day,” said Aslin. “We are really excited to have probably one of the most beautiful offices in Viroqua. This building, which could have been a parking lot, will continue to stand for another century, and then as the chamber, we get to represent our membership, the community members and tourists coming to our area. We get to welcome them here, really bridging the past of Viroqua. Places that have a lot of memories, for many people here, with the future of Viroqua. People that will come here and see where we came from, what Viroqua has to offer the community. What Vernon County offers to the community, and what we bring all together. And I couldn’t think of a better place to do it than at this lovely building. I want to just say it would not have been possible the Chamber was a supporter, but it would not have been possible without the hard work of every single member of this Task Force, and especially like to say Cyndy being an absolute Little Engine That Could that would not stop chugging along. So thank you very much for including us in this project.”
Project architect Marc Zettler said when he first evaluated the building it appeared to be in bad shape with the roof completely removed, but the WPA projects were built to last and this building was no different.
“After looking at it, I saw that the stone walls were in very good condition despite all of the years of deferred maintenance,” said Zettler. “And came to the opinion that, yes, this is this place is worth saving. And so basically, with the WPA, these buildings were built to last. They were built by the community for the community. They were labor intensive on purpose. This was part of the New Deal during the Great Depression to put people back to work. And so that’s why we have walls that are a foot and a half thick. With this building, solid stone. It’s not going anywhere. The biggest thing was to find out what to put into the building. How are we going to breathe life back into this building? And Cindy and the task force and the Chamber got together and came up with the Baroque Welcome Center, which is an excellent use for this property. And I came back in 2024 came up with a design as the task force was hard at work doing the hardest part of this project, which was the fundraising. And here we are at this exciting day. This is going to be a great project. I am considering it a privilege to work on your great building of this community. Thank you for that honor, and I will echo the words of the National Trust, this place matters.”
WEDC Secretary and CEO Missy Hughes said this project is a great example of how the partnerships with the city, the state and the whole community can work to create projects the benefit the whole community.
“I live here in Viroqua,” said Hugh. “And I’m so proud to be able to be here today celebrating this amazing work that the leaders of Viroqua have done to bring together this project. I just want to say a little bit about the Community Development Investment (CDI) grant, which I would not be talking about without the hard work of Randy Skinner here. So the Community Development Investment grant is a grant that WEDC has to support projects that communities come to us and say, we want to accomplish. This isn’t somebody in Madison or the state saying, let’s do this project. It’s the community saying we have this idea. We’ve come together. We’ve gathered resources for this. We need just a little bit more to make this project happen. Can you help us? We’re so excited at WEDC able to step in and support these kinds of projects that, again, the community has come together and said, this is our priority. This is what we want to accomplish. So congratulations. I’m thrilled to be able to be here to help WEDC support this program. Thank you so much.”
$795,000 has been raised as of April 2025. The City of Viroqua allocated $238,000 for the project, the WEDC awarded the project a CDI (Community Development Investment) Grant of $250,000, the project received the Vernon County Community Development Grant for $10,000, and through generous donations and pledges from the community the task force has raised $297,000. To make a donation or pledge you can go to Viroqua Welcome Center website.
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