Ex Greyhound Track Possible New School Site

The 126-acre dog track property has been shuttered since St. Croix Meadows Greyhound Racing Park in Wisconsin closed in 2001. The Hudson School District has created three proposed versions for the site– a four-year high school, three-year high school, and secondary school for grades eight and nine — are represented in the designs, which also lay out athletic fields, parking lots, wetlands and possible areas of future building expansion. All three maps include about 10 acres in the northwest corner of the site that would be sold to the city of Hudson or a private buyer to help offset the tax revenue lost if the district buys the property.



The Hudson track had 475 greyhound on site before it shut its doors in 2001. Fifty of the dogs were adopted locally through the track adoption program, and 225 were sent to race at the state’s two remaining tracks in Kenosha and Delavan. Left behind were 250 greyhound in need of homes. The State regulators implemented what they called the nation’s toughest greyhound adoption rules to prepare for the shutdown of the track. Scott Scepaniak, administrator of the Wisconsin Division of Gaming, said the regulations, which went into effect Aug. 1, were intended to give the state the tools it needs to ensure that retired greyhound go through legitimate adoption agencies to homes, rather than be diverted to research facilities or blood-donor programs. The rules required adoption groups to complete four-page applications, provide lists of all Wisconsin dogs they handle, keep records of all adoptions, obtain owners’ permission for adoptions, and open their files and premises to Wisconsin regulators.