Curling Club Slides to New Home With a Vision

The move to a new and larger building at the Ozaukee County Fairgrounds in Cedarburg next year is definitely vision driven, according to club President Mark Conrardy.

“We’re very excited about the project; you don’t get a chance to do something like this very often in the history of a curling club,” Conrardy said.

The Ozaukee County Board on July 6 approved a 50-year lease on a 28,000-square-foot building at the county Fairgrounds to be constructed by October 2012 — just in time for the Curling Club’s season, which runs from October to March. The building will be used as an exhibit hall for the annual Ozaukee County Fair and other community events during the club’s off season.

Curling involves teams of four pushing 42-pound granite stones across ice playing fields into target areas, known as "homes," according to the Milwaukee Curling Club's website.

The approval for the new location for the club did not come easy, Conrardy said. It’s been a three year process which required the Club to raise $1 million in cash as a down payment. Another $200,000 will be due when the building opens.

Donations so far for the building have come from individual club members and members of other clubs around the country. The Milwaukee Curling Club is now preparing to open up donations to the general public.

“Hopefully we can raise more money and that will pare down our long term debt,” says Conrardy.

The remaining balance on the estimated $3.8 million fairground building will be paid with annual rents of $50,000.

The reason for the move, according to Conrardy, is because of the all the major upgrades and refurbishing needed to the club’s current home at the Ozaukee County Country Club in Mequon. The move to Ozaukee County happened 40 years ago when a fire destroyed the club’s Milwaukee facility. A member at that time belonged to the Ozaukee County Country Club so the Milwaukee Curling Club moved its operation north.  

At 166 years old, the Milwaukee Curling Club is the oldest curling organization in the United States.

Both Conrardy and his wife, Kelly, live in Cedarburg and have been members of the Milwaukee Curling Club, which has had a membership of 170 for ten years now. In fact, Kelly has been curling for nearly 30 years and actually introduced her husband to the sport when they first met. Both believe the move to the fairgrounds in Cedarburg will do great things for both the sport and the surrounding area.

“The new building will continue to exemplify the community aspect we all love about Cedarburg and give a wonderful platform to expand the curling community in Ozaukee County,” Kelly Conrardy.

“We’re expecting the membership to go up being in a very visible area and being right in the center of town between Cedarburg and Grafton.” Conrardy said.

The Milwaukee Curling Club’s new building is part of a much larger project to renovate the entire Ozaukee County Fairgrounds. While the entire fairgrounds project won’t be finished by next year, according to Conrardy several of the smaller buildings could be up for the 2012 County Fair taking place the first week of August.

The Ozaukee County Board is meeting on August 3, and Conrardy said that at that time the board will vote on which bond quote to approve so the money for the project can be released to begin bids and construction on the building.