Madison’s 1%’s Vision for Downtown (Part 1)

So many of the recent meetings about the Downtown Plan are during the day and I haven’t been able to make the meetings – so last night I checked in to the Economic Development Committee and got a really bizarre vision for the downtown. You gotta check this out.

Just based on what I heard at the meeting in about 1.5 hours, the vision of the downtown seems to be as follows:
– Fill in about 2.5 acres of Lake Monona so we can have concerts there
– Build a financial district with 20 – 25 story buildings or build a mid-town area that could serve as the financial district
– Line Lake Mendota with restaurants that they can drive their boats up to for breakfast.
– Attract Exxon-like corporate offices so we can have people who make $200,000 to $300,000 a year so they can drop $200 – 300 on a dinner on a regular basis.
– The city doesn’t run anything that is public, the private sector does.

The meeting was heavily staffed with
– Aaron Olver the Director of Economic Development
– Matt Mikolajewski from the Office of Business Resources
– Peggy Yessa from the Office of Business Resources
– Steve Cover, Director of Planning and Community and Economic Development
– Brad Murphy, Director of the Planning Department
– Bill Fruhling, Planner

In fact there was more staff than committee members. The committee members were
– Al Zimmerman, Manager – I&T Engineering at DANISCO, Inc.
– Julia Stone, Managing Partner at BizWerks
– Ed Clarke, President Downtown Madison Inc
– Sandi Torklidson, Owner of A Room of One’s Own Bookstore
– Alder Mark Clear, CEO, Co-founder, Principal at IMS

The audience was packed with lobbyists
– Kevin Little- Chamber of Commerce
– Mary Carbine – Downtown Business Improvement District
– Carole Schaeffer – Smart Growth Madison
– Susan Schmitz – Downtown Madison Inc

And other business people
– Curt Brink, Owner at Curt Vaughn Brink LLC (giggle, that’s what Linked In says)
– Larry Lichte, President Empire Realty Company
– Gary Peterson

John Boucher who is on the Economic Development Committee didn’t join them at the table, just sat in the audience. And me, perhaps the only person who actually lives downtown, as defined in the planning area, in the room out of 20 people.

GETTING STARTED
They spent about 25 minutes hearing from the lobbyists, electing their chair and vice chair (they literally flipped a coin to figure out who was the vice chair) and deciding how they would go through the plan. Susan Schmitz testified that Downtown Madison Inc had their own plan for the heights for downtown but it wasn’t ready yet. Mary Carbine from the BID said that they were working on their own recommendations about retail downtown, also not ready yet. Curt Brink pushed for taller buildings in the Mifflin St. Area. They were the three to speak.

DISCUSSION ON KEY ONE
Lake Monona side
Ed Clarke says that the plan includes a park shelter, boat area and expands the park, but that is modest. It should be 4 acres like it is in the federal plan and until we know what the plan looks like, let’s try to reestablish the 4 acres.

Julia Stone asks if they want to add a gazebo for concerts.

Al Zimmerman says that in order to maximize the views given the drive into the city, we want to maximize the space and target celebrating the lakes, they should identify a few key avenues of economic development to target, they should have an outdoor amphitheatre or concert type environment. If you reference the data on similar cities, he’s been to them all and they all have some sort of outdoor amphitheatre downtown, Austin has Town Lake or Ladybird Lake. It was an open field, now its something more sustainable and they created 3 or 4 concert venues and brought a lot of people downtown, we could expand Law Park and get something of that nature there.

Mark Clear asks if he is thinking of a band shell or Marcus Amphitheatre, or amphitheater in Millennium Park, that seats 5 – 10K people for a major concert.

Zimmerman says he wants to host larger shows, they don’t need seating but tiered land, 4 tiers and stages on the end and people come there and have a chili contest – that might create competition with Milwaukee, but that would be nice.

Clear is good with that. (I think he was referring to the competition with Milwaukee, not the ampitheatre)

Stone asks if they have info on environmental impact of filling in 1 to 4 acres of the lake.

Peggy Yessa says the Committee in the Environment didn’t like it, there is a multipage handout on what other committees have decided.

Bill Fruhling says they didn’t have any specific concerns, it was more the principle of the thing, they didn’t talk about mitigation, for them it was more of a matter of principle.

Clarke asks if they did not want to fill in any lake property.

Fruhling says that they didn’t think the lake edge should be hardened, that was as in depth of their discussions.

Clarke says he supports these ideas, they got permission to do it and the environmental regulations applied.

Stone asks what year that was.

Brad Murphy says 1990. Yessa adds it was when the Monona Terrace was going in.

Stone points out that the laws have probably changed since then. Thank you for being a voice of sanity and not just swallowing the talking points and regurgitating them.

Sandi Torklidson says that there are other ideas like putting John Nolen Drive underground, she knows it is expensive, but there are other options, all 4 acres don’t have to come from the lake front, could come from elsewhere.

Clear says that a project of the the scale in the plan would have a robust and lengthy process, their role is to look at board recommendation of what to shoot for.  Funny, this is the committee that whines about neighborhood plans when people put in there what they want to “shoot for”. They say the plans have to be economically feasible. But not, they are just ignoring that. Additionally, “robust and lengthy process” has me suspicious coming from Clear. My guess is if the plan is passed, he’ll take it as an ok to start implementing and shove it through like the Edgewater.

Clarke says that this was the number one recommendation from the community – more access to the lakes, it has a lot of support.

Clear says filling in lake wouldn’t have that support. And thank you Mark Clear for pointing out another bullshit talking point.

Torklidson says it is limited how much park we can add to the downtown, the lake is our park and we should look at it as that, this is one area we can expand.

Zimmerman says there are enough examples to show how that is done in a green way, Austin and Town Lake, it has no hard shore, its natural up to retaining wall, there is a natural path, there is a way to do that in the design process and still have a larger space.

Clarke asks if the expanded and enhanced park ideas allow for private sector involvement, does the board dock have to be run by the city?

Murphy says “absolutely”, the building hasn’t been designed and they haven’t decided what to do there, he personally would like to see a restaurant, maybe other private secure uses.

Zimmerman asks if they have any ideas about a mall section.

Clear asks about connections by land bridges on Wilson St and what is envisioned, are we looking at connections to residential and government or looking at changing those land uses.

Murphy says the later

Fruhling says there are two land bridges, one on east end, where water reservoir is, plan says to connect to retail and entertainment activity on Wilson St and that activity should be enhanced, there should be more of it, more active. Then go up King St. to the square. The other is closer to Monona Terrace, perhaps the SWIB site, but maybe not that site, it connects law park to core of downtown, the capital square area.

Clear says those are the two options for east?

Staff says no, that is both connections.

Zimmerman asks if there can be ground floor retail with residential above?

Fruhling says residential or commercial/office, but something active on ground floor.

Clear says that is already in the plan, don’t need to add the recommendation.

They were about to move on to the Lake Mendota Side but Stone asks how they are making decisions, is it consensus? Cuz she is not in consensus with their discussion on expanding to 1990 plan doesn’t feel it is necessary, sounds expensive to her.

Zimmerman asks what additional information would you need. I think she just disagrees.

Stone says what is size of lake vs. filling in, what is percentage?

Staff says “very small”, substantially less than 1%.

Aaron Olver googles it the fastest, says it 3,359 acres. Puts in a plug for his Sprint 3G service.

Stone asks what we are adding, park space?

Zimmerman says that they should clarify with Clarke by which I think he means DMI but it would be additional green space to have a major event, structure or whatever, but idea is to have a space set up that is sound enough to bring people together to have a Renaissance Fair, set up your booths, etc, and enjoy the lake, or have concert near the lake, like South by Southwest, bring something on to 4 or 5 acre plan.

Stone says well, yeah, maybe – but seems like the $18,000 median income people who live downtown won’t be attending, but people form suburbs with cars will be and and then they are back to parking issues.

Torklidson says that they want to have vision of something beyond the cost, a vision of the future of downtown as the population grows, even if coming from other venues, and other parts of the city. It doesn’t currently enhance the economics of downtown, that is what economic development does, it makes the lake fronts viable, its expensive to build and maintain but it will generate a lot of income from being there. So, it doesn’t have to be economically viable to be in the plan when they are making the plans.

Stones says in Seattle there is a giant container for ships and looks like crap so we need to be careful. She likes the idea of space downtown, still people don’t want to come here to park and won’t ride a bus downtown.

Clarke says he isn’t recommending it solely be as a concert venue, but that’s a great idea, he thinks about the development of Central Park in New York and when it was put together, people thought it was so freaking huge, what going to do with it? But people love it cuz its huge, it has a variety of venues, open fields, woods, skating, etc. Space we can have access to the lake and have some amenities or throw a blanket down and look at the water.

Clear says recommendation 1 – other than the word “limited” is ok, there is not any judgment about how much to fill or uses to be available, should we add “performance venue” to that?

Clarke says that they need to remove 1.34 acres will be added by the plan from the text, that has to go.

Zimmerman says large enough to house these kind of uses. He just got back from the Bahamas, at their harbor they had built they had an entire container section for it, there was a nice beautiful view of the Caribbean and then this big ugly container.

Stone says “but its good for economic development”. (I think that was sarcasm, not sure.)

Clear says we won’t be building a port. He says that should add “performance venue” and strike the amount of additional shoreline.

Zimmerman wants a statement that the land would be large enough to accommodate performance space but make it as natural as possible, so it naturally blends in.

Missed a bit. They discuss grammar mostly.

Yessa says can they can review the minutes at the next meeting to chekc the language.

Lake Mendota side
Zimmerman asks if they will includw any outdoor eating areas in areas 1 – 4.

Olver cracks that there are 4 new restaurants at the Edgewater.

Murphy says there are opportunities for some commercial uses, esp. by National Guardian Life, but its predominantly residential.

Zimmerman says that we need to look at an area where we can eat – he likes lakes and water but there are few places you can go and enjoy the lake, it would be nice to have unobstructed view areas, so they can dock a boat and have a cup of coffee, he would like to designate an area for development.

Clear says it can only happen in segment 2, that is the only place where there is existing commercial, 3 is residential, 4 is UW.

Olver says there are houses in James Madison Park that the city trying to dispose of, one of which has a commercial use. Quips about how you can only get breakfast there.

Olver says he doesn’t know if they have to designate which section.

Torklidson says it should say it is encouraged, even in residential area, housing unit could turn into restaurant.

Zimmerman 3rd ward in Milwaukee, nice use of area.

Stones says better than bus fumes on State ST.

Someone?? says on page 18, add to recommendation 3 and tie to 4, wants to be able to dock your boat and come up and “do that’.

Stone says that they can designate an area commercial, how much can we designate what goes in there? Besides say it is a good idea.

Zimmerman says they can make it a restaurant zone.

Clear says we don’t do that.

Zimmerman says that other cities do.

Stone says in terms of building – is there something specific – she thinks it is a good idea, doesn’t know how to make it happen.

Clarke says plan can require it, then corrects himself and says we could recommend – not mandate it.

I missed the motion.

Stone says if there is the pathway she is good with it.

Clarke says the pictures show docks in them.

Zimmerman says that he was at ward 3 in morning, 2/3 of people came from the boats, it is something we need to say.

Clarke moves to modify 3 – and encourage lakefront dining – passes

They joke that this could mean brown bag dining, including a park bench. Of course, we all know the minute a homeless person even thinks about sitting down the benches will need to be removed for “safety” issues.)

I’m going to have to stop here, I lost a bunch of my post earlier this morning thanks to our shitty host . . . and I’ll have to blog the rest later. Sorry. There’s some more good stuff in here, so I’ll make it a priority, look for part 2.