Madison’s Historic Municipal Building: City Offices or “Bold”, “Creative” Private Venture (and other problems with the Judge Doyle Square project) (Sorry, this audio is unsavable . . . )
The Judge Doyle Square project, that plan to bring the city and Monona Terrace another hotel with at least 250 rooms, is a month ahead of schedule and moving toward a possible conflict at Common Council over whether the Municipal Building is “primarily” for city offices, as indicated in the Request for Proposals (RFP) approved by the committee on Tuesday. After introduction at the July 2 Council meeting, the RFP will go to the Board of Estimates and be back at Council for approval on July 16. This is good news for developer candidates, who cite the possibility of rising interest rates as a reason to hurry and emphasize that delays could derail the project. It is bad news, though, for citizens who might like more of an opportunity to weigh in on a project that has already been expensive, could end up costing a fortune, and has the largely unaddressed potential for negative consequences.
The Committee talked at length about the use of the word “primarily” in the RFP. They say this is to allow flexibility for negotiating the use of private space within the public building. Alder Clear, who is not on the committee, joined others at the table to disparage the idea of keeping the municipal building public. At least two members of the committee agreed with him, the theme of this agreement being that Madison “deserves the creativity.” (Although appearances and google searches are not everything, I wouldn’t say this committee is representative of Madisonians.) In response, Alder Bidar-Sielaff noted that renovation of city offices within the building is already in motion and amending the RFP would have to occur on the Council floor.
She also pointed to the “community value in continuing to have a grand building as the place where the city does business.”
The building, completed in 1929, was originally a courthouse as well as a post office and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Supporters of eliminating city offices in the municipal building argued that the project needs to be “bold” and “creative” (which means “private”). This sentiment was also advanced by the president of the Greater Madison Convention & Visitors Bureau, in her remarks during public comment.
Alder Clear seemed especially concerned that the RFP would rule out one of the two developers remaining from the committee’s process of examining qualifications.
Based on Bob Dunn’s presentation on May 31, it is evident that the Hammes Company (of Edgewater fame — remember when they said they needed tax incremental financing to do that project but then really didn’t?), partnering with a Los Angeles-based realty company, would like the municipal building to be a hotel food court. Only being able to take over the municipal building completely will allow the project to be more than a hotel, which Dunn believes is what we need. He promised a “destination anchor” that will generate “new visits” and compared the project to those in places such as Los Angeles and Las Vegas (to be fair, there were a great many more glitzy, expensive projects in other places shown on May 31). Paraphrasing, this means that the city is really for people who don’t live here, especially convention-goers who might be enticed to spend money. Dunn, however, has apparently heard about the RFP language but has not indicated that Hammes will withdraw.
Committee member Sandi Torkildson challenged the argument that a creative design can only be achieved with more space, and said that we can demand just as much creativity with a “smaller footprint”. She noted that if the architects are as good as they say they are, this should not be a problem.
Besides adding “primarily” to the language about the use of the municipal building for city offices, the committee also added language about sustainable practices and green building to the RFP. This seemed to be at least somewhat in response to my public comment, in which I questioned the wisdom of investing in a business that uses water so heavily when our aquifer is threatened by so much industrial contamination already. Alder Bidar-Sielaff and others on the committee noted that it is now common practice for hotels to make daily clean towels and sheets optional (which does really mollify me- resource use is an expression of collective values). Contamination from construction by the lake is also an issue. The permissible amount of discharge annually from every acre of contstruction sites is a staggering 7.5 tons. The Yahara Watershed had already been identified with PCB hotspots near Monona Terrace and the Brittingham Shelter as of 2006, and Lake Wingra has been added to the DNR’s list of impaired waters. There is no way to calculate this kind of cost against the perceived benefit of a development like this.
As the RFP continues on the fast track, historic preservationists and people concerned with the local environment and especially water should take note. So should those concerned about having a say. A very major commitment of public resources such as this should be vetted more democratically by the people of this city. That resource commitment includes those already spent (see Brenda’s earlier blogpost, “Catching Up on Judge Doyle Square”), those still in line to be spent and the request for public subsidy that is undoubtedly coming. We deserve to have a conversation about the opportunity cost of using our resources in this way, at a time when many people struggle to meet basic needs.
–Sue Pastor
