By Frank J. Diekmann
Long before Cupertino, Calif., had its “spaceship,” the nickname given Apple’s circular, futuristic headquarters, 2,100 miles away in Madison, Wis., there was another structure equally famous to locals, the “Round Building.” But not for long.
That was never its official name, but more of a colloquial and obvious term for the local landmark on Mineral Point Road on the west side of town that sits front and center on the CUNA Mutual/CUNA headquarters campus. Even people who didn’t know this midwestern capital city was the long-time home to the U.S. credit union movement (before CUNA mainly decamped for Washington) knew of the round building and the two distinctive long rows of poles that flanked it, crested by flags representing all the countries where credit unions were operating, like the Mad City’s own miniature United Nations.
Now, the round building—officially known as the “International Commons”-- is coming full circle and is being torn down. And those flags in front of which so many visitors––maybe even you but especially CU representatives from outside the U.S.–have taken everything from Polaroids to Instagrams that now fill CU photo archives around the world? They’ve flown for the last time, too.
A New Gateway
CUNA Mutual is replacing the round building, also known informally to employees as the 5810 building, with a new structure that is to open in 2022. The new construction is a five-story, 230,000-square-foot rectangle that is to house a customer center, dining center, an auditorium, meeting spaces of various sizes and underground parking.
“The new building will be the gateway to our Madison campus,” spokesperson Phil Tschudy said in a statement.
The demolition of the round building is part of a broader overhaul of the CUNA Mutual campus, which will now have additional green space. According to the company, it has been gathering employee feedback as part of its Workplace Evolution survey and other informational sessions and workshops for the past two years, all of which has contributed to the new building’s design and functionality.
In 1981 when the round building opened, Ronald Reagan was in his first term as president, Lady Diana married Prince Charles, and if you had any reason to have a computer on your desk—and why would you?—you would have had a cup of coffee or three while inserting floppy disks to boot-up MS-DOS, which had just been released for the first time by Microsoft.
1981 was also the first year the word “Internet” was used. It’s now ubiquitous, and CUNA Mutual noted in announcing its new facility that technology in the workplace has evolved to teams that are empowered with more autonomy to drive innovation and to be more collaborative and agile, and space needs to physically reflect the evolution in how people work.
Features of New Campus
According to CUNA Mutual, when the campus redesign/remodel is complete it will include:
- Meeting rooms that provide an inclusive experience with technology that allows staff across the organization to participate equitably
- Dozens of collaboration spaces to support innovative solutioning and flexible teamwork
- A new large meeting space with state-of-the-art technology for hosting employee and community events
- A new dining space offering a variety of quick and healthy menu items
- A new branch office for Summit Credit Union
- Sustainable practices that will be incorporated into both the design and construction of the new building and the demolition of the current building. Materials from the current building and surrounding landscaping will be reused elsewhere on campus, donated or recycled wherever possible
- Convenient underground parking that will reduce surface parking
Moving Around
The new building is just the latest for the company, which has grown far beyond the basic loan insurance product and the ethos of “the debt shall die with the debtor” that were its core when the company started during the Depression.
CUNA Mutual was first housed in an Italianate home built in 1863 that would be renamed Raiffeisen House in honor of the CU pioneer when it moved in in 1935, according to MadisonPreservation.org. By 1939 it had quickly outgrown that space and had taken its file cabinets over to what was to be a temporary building that was larger–but that would also turn out to not be so temporary, thanks to World War II.
In 1950, the company was packing up again, this time for a move to a new two-story building called Filene House, a big enough deal that President Harry Truman was on hand for the dedication. Yet that building, too, only made it to the end of Truman’s presidency, and in 1960 CUNA Mutual was relocating to new digs once again, this time into its current space on Mineral Point Road in facilities that would expand several times. In 1980, CUNA’s headquarters opened, housed in similar architecture facing CUNA Mutual, with the International Commons building a focal anchor between them.
Today, CUNA Mutual has approximately 1,700 of its employees in Madison and the company, which now has employees working out of facilities in numerous other markets, said it has no plans to leave Bucky Badger behind.
Back Where We Started
Since shuttering the building, CUNA Mutual has donated 502 pieces of furniture to nonprofit groups, schools and libraries along with 28 kitchen appliances and lots of serving, baking and dining dishes. It repurposed another 461 pieces of furniture for use elsewhere on its campus, according to the company. The empty building also provided a unique opportunity for the Madison Police and Fire Departments to conduct training exercises in late April.
Now, the round building is all set to join those photo archives of credit union history, and it seems to be going out while living up to its nickname. It opened the same year the AIDS virus was being identified and it is closing as a coronavirus ravages the country.
And then there’s one other thing that also won’t change. Local nonprofit groups have long been able to use space in the round building to meet or host events, and CUNA Mutual said they will continue to be able to do so at no charge when the new structure opens.
So it seems what goes around, comes around.
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief of CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info or @FrankCUToday.