Madison Development News

[hybridy]

Originally Posted by brewerfan386

Do you know if the Diocese has plans to rebuild on that site (or at all)?

Eventually they plan to rebuild a cathedral on the site. The archdiocese is currently focusing its efforts on redeveloping st Paul's on state st.

[araman0]

Investors save Edgewater, offer developer millions the city refused to give

DEAN MOSIMAN | Wisconsin State Journal | dmosiman@madison.com | 608-252-6141

Developer Robert Dunn is forging ahead with a $98 million rebirth of the historic Edgewater hotel, but with no public financial assistance and a new investment by a group including philanthropists W. Jerome Frautschi and Pleasant Rowland.

Dunn, resurrecting the most controversial, polarizing development project in years, intends to follow plans approved by the city two years ago and break ground this fall.

Continued...

[Folks3000]

I'm new to this site, not quite sure how to post photos I've taken of developments projects. Couldn't upload mine so I'll use some on this site to help recap, hope nobody minds!

Anyhow, I'll try to give a run-down on projects around the Downtown and near-core areas:

-Ground has just been broken a few days ago on a 9-story hotel project on West Johnson by the old Casa Bianca (sp?), they are putting up some tunnels to walk through on the sidewalks. (Quite fun to walk through I might add!) One house is already demolished, two others and the former restaurant will be soon as well. Should be a Hampton Inn I believe. Approved in 2009, was on hold due to tight financing.


-Clearing the former site of Rafael's Cathedral is finished, across the street another project called Capital West condos is about to restart. They had originally approved an 11-story condo tower, but with the hot rental market in Madison (partially driven by a growing economy but a hard housing financing market) they decided to make it luxury apartments and go ahead with the project. Not sure if it will be 11-stories as approved though.

-5 story apartment renovation on Webster just east of the capitol is ongoing, was a four story building that caught fire awhile back. Looks great, fifth story is being built now.


-Madison College Culinary building is going through the city process yet, will be built on Wisconsin Avenue. Don't know tentative schedule yet.


-5 story student apartment building just off of Langdon behind Acacia looks to be almost finished. Not sure if it will be rented out in time for fall semester though.


-The low vacancy rate is raising some projects from the dead, like one approved a few years back at the corner of Old University and Princeton. Looks to be a 4 story building replacing an existing multi-family housing structure. The old structure is demolished and site clearing is ongoing.

-St. Francis church is moved to its final location, and the base of the church is being rebuilt beneath it. Construction on the bottom of the 8-story student apartment building is beginning with retaining walls being put up. Should be a nice addition to the east campus area.

-Developer is looking for demolition permits next to the Double-Tree on West Johnson, looks two be the start of a two phase student housing building. The first I believe to be a shorter 3/4 story building, followed by a proposed 12 story apartment building on the rest of the site. Landmarks will take it up soon.

-4 or 5 story apartment building at the corner of the bike path and West Wilson street just broke ground a week ago. Pilings are being driven in and retaining walls put up, site is currently being excavated. Not sure if this is geared toward young professionals or students, its location could go either way.


-5 story luxury apartment building on Lilliard Court next to the Tobacco lofts schedules to break ground any day now, I believe everything is in line.


-5 story mixed use building on Livingston near Willy Street ready for ground breaking, haven't been over by it in awhile so perhaps it already has. I believe a Woman's Touch is supposed to be moving into it once it is built if I'm not mistaken.

-5 story high end apartment building is also being proposed at the corner of Bedford and Doty, at least I think that is about where, I'm not 100%. Unclear when intended construction will occur, still going through UDC.

-Planning for Judge Doyle Square is ongoing, which includes renovating the Government East ramp and Madison Municipal building and creating a large mixed use project with retail, a hotel, possible residential, and office. This is likely a few years away yet. Will help give Menona Terrace convention center an edge, since it is always short on hotel rooms in the immediate area. Project will likely include a skywalk to the Hilton and Menona Terrace.

-4-story mixed use building on Monroe Street diagonal from Monroe Commons looks to be getting its cladding, should be open within a month.

-4-story mixed use building known as Gorman Commons getting the finishing touches on the corner of Monroe and Glenway. Looks like a great addition to the neighborhood.

-4-story apartment building in the mid-Monroe area near Knickerbacker Street is just about finished, nice infill.

-6 story apartment building on the corner of Highland and Old University just finished, saw people moving in about a week ago. Looks great!

-8 story apartment building on Dayton near Union South scheduled to break ground soon, will be student housing.

-6 story apartment building on Dayton and Brooks, geared towards students, should be breaking ground soon too. There was a fight between the University and the developer but they decided the academic use of the property was too far off to worry about it.

-5 story mixed use building on South Park Street on the Ideal Body Shop site going through UDC right now. Neighborhood wants it brought down to 4 stories, some city staff want it 6 on the Park Street frontage, will be interesting to see where it ends up. Building will be for both students and non-students according to developer.


-4 story Wingra Clinic coming along on the corner of South Park Street and Fish Hatchery road, looks like some steel structure is starting to be put up. Should be a nice revitalization from that area and Bancroft Dairy looks to be demolished. Sites nearby up for sale as mixed use buildings. Seems to signify a type of nail in the coffin for Madison's agricultural past as Dane County continues to urbanize.


-4 story UW health facility at the University Crossings redevelopment site is going up, haven't seen it get cladding yet, but haven't walked over there in some time. The whole area is torn up, 5 or 6 story apartment building also approved for the site. Should be a really cool area in a few years.


-14 story mixed use building going through UDC for West Johnson Street near the Overture Center. Will include an 8 story part for student apartments, a 14 story part for regular apartments, the offices for Madison's fire department, and ground floor retail and commercial space. Haven't seen any renderings besides massing, so looking forward to getting some pictures of design next time it goes to UDC!

-100 Block of State Street approved by UDC, construction should start in the fall. Decided to save some of the older buildings. Should look great and bring in some much needed office space downtown.

-Central library renovations coming along, new concrete being poured. Should look great in conjunction with the new 100 Block of State Street project and the possible new Museum for that area.


-2 new building and 1 addition to Madison College's Truax campus coming along nicely. One is a new public health school I think, not sure what the others consist of.

-12 story mixed use building on East Washington and Livingston broke ground a little over a month ago, pilings have been driven in, concrete is being poured for the foundation. Can't wait to watch this go up. Leasing for August 2013 I believe.


-4 story apartment building on Winnebago Drive north of Shenck's Corner in the works, not sure when groundbreaking will occur.

-Other two sites on East Washington undergoing planning stages. I know one developer is re-examining their project, and ULI is going to move forward with their employment concept later this year or early next. Sad it only looks to be 4 stories, but anything is better than what is there now. City is moving to demolish and clear properties in October or November to aid the redevelopment.

-City sent out RFPs for the Union Corner's site, so in the next month we should get some ideas of what will eventually be built there. I think we are beginning to see a rebirth of the long neglected East side. It will be nice to watch these urban neighborhoods grow, since most of the others have too much association with students and campus, it will be great for Madison to have some urban areas geared more towards non-students as well. The city is really changing.

-On campus, the large WIMR phase II is wrapping up, and the UW Hospital is looking for a 2 story expansion of the American Family Children's hospital and a new building structure to be built between Phase II and III of WIMR. Construction of school of nursing is underway, foundation being laid. New Lakeshore dorm almost completed, as well as second new lakeshore dorm recently broke ground. Retrofit of Charter Street Heating a Cooling plant still ongoing, and expansion of West Cogenerational plant to occur in the fall. The former site of Brother's Bar and that block on University scheduled to be demolished in fall to make way for Music Performance Facility, still having funds raised for it. Will be a grass lot in the interim. 700-800 blocks of State Street (thought by most to be a part of campus, but actually public right of way) will be redone in the coming years. Hope it looks as nice as the New East Campus Mall. New Gordon Commons is finishing up as well as the hockey expansion to the Kohl Center. Expansion of the north part of Camp Randall stadium is ongoing now.



-St. Paul's Catholic Center will be rebuilt in the coming years, but there are still off in terms of fundraising for now. At least 2 years away.

-Edgewater Hotel has raised its own financing, should break ground October 26th, be done by late spring 2014. Will include 9-story tower and semi-public plaza on Lake Mendota. Looks like a great addition, and a new signature location for Madison. It should further the long term project of putting a lakefront path along Lake Mendota.


Epic is of course continuing its large expansion in Verona, and driving around there is lots of new suburban construction as well. You can tell Madison's economy is really beginning to heat up. Since the housing crash most of the construction had been on campus, or campus related activity, I think we'll finally see alot more private sector driven growth. Can't wait to return to the "skyline of construction cranes" that the city usually is! I did my best to put together the exhaustive list but there are so many new projects coming in, and old ones raising from the dead from the apartment boom, that it is hard to keep track of them all, but I hope you guys enjoy! If anyone knows how to put pictures up from a file let me know, I have lots of pictures of current construction of these projects that I'd love to share. Thanks guys!

[atrain5371]

I'm glad the edgewater project is back. Even better that taxpayers don't have to pay for it. Hopefully they go through with the Mendota walkway from the edgewater to the memorial union terrace.

[looksee]

Originally Posted by Folks3000

I'm new to this site, not quite sure how to post photos I've taken of developments projects. ...If anyone knows how to put pictures up from a file let me know, I have lots of pictures of current construction of these projects that I'd love to share. Thanks guys!

Welcome. You have really been keeping a close eye on developments in town.

Posting photos is pretty easy.
First, upload them to a posting site, e.g Photobucket.com or Flickr.com (Google around to find what suits you). Register and follow their instructions.
Then, just insert the uploaded photos' url's into our image link (but preview first; finding the actual image url on the posting site may take some practice).
That's it.

If your photographs can in any way complement what you've already achieved, we're in for quite a show.

[Badgers77]

In my opinion, imgur is the best photo hosting site. Make sure to make an account or save the deletion links if you want to remove them eventually.

The website is www.imgur.com. Or you can check out the websites looksee suggested.

Do you have any pictures of the energy institute? I've been wondering how thats been going.

Also, I'm a little bummed the Hampton people chose such a cookie cutter design for that Casa Bianca site.

[hybridy]

here is a recent rendering of the 9-story hampton inn mentioned above. very underwhelming indeed

[araman0]

That looks like 10 floors. I do like the glass corner of the building. Hampton Inns are supposed to be an economy hotel so I'm actually glad that it looks as good as it does in this photo.

Also Folks3000, welcome to the forum. What a great first post! I'm glad you made the list because it shows just how much is going on in this city, and also made me aware of some projects I had forgotten about or wasn't aware of. Looking forward to construction pics of these projects if you have any.

[BorisMolotov]

Now that I finally have a decent phone, I'll try to take construction pics as I can. I pass a lot of these projects on a near daily basis but pictures speak a lot louder than words.

[Folks3000]

Unfortunately my camera is fairly old so the pics may be underwhelming in quality but I went through and took some out. I think next time it is nice out and I have time I will take a few of each project to post, but here are a few from over the last few months, some are not as current as I'd have liked. Also the 5 story mixed use building near the corner of Willy Street and Livingston has actually broken ground, currently a large hole in the ground with nothing in it yet.

Here are some of the ongoing mixed use building on East Washington, the 12 story "Constellation."















Here are a few of the St. Francis redevelopment project and 8 story apartment building. The church is now in its permanent location, I'll try to get a picture of it soon.

[Folks3000]

Here are a few of the ongoing upgrades to the Charter Street Power Plant, they demolished the old smokestack, it looks quite a bit more modern now. I've been told the university left in space for biomass to be added in the future, should a new funding source ever arise.





Upgrades to the smaller east side power plant, not sure what the upgrade actually is, perhaps natural gas conversion as well, this pic is a month or so old.



Crane being put up at Camp Randall, again a few months old.



Apartment behind Acacia off of Langdon, taken in May.



Two buildings at the Madison College Truax Campus, a few months back. The nicest technical college campus I've seen, not that I've seen many I suppose.





Random apartment building on Allen Boulevard.



Mixed use 6 story building on Highland and Old University

[Folks3000]

The Gorman Commons project on the corner of Monroe and Glenway





9/10 story Hampton Inn breaking ground on West Johnson on the Casa Bianca site, sorry my first rendering was old.





One of the last chunks of East Campus Mall almost done and the new Gordon Commons.



Demolition of the Bancroft Dairy Site and the site of a new 4 story clinic.





Central Library Renovations



New apartment building along the bike path and West Wilson.





Demolition of old apartment building on Old University and Princeton to make way for redevelopment.



Epic expansion in Verona



University Crossings project



Block 100 drawings





Also I thought I'd have one of the Energy Institute but I do not. I'll get one soon for sure! It is funny I always take pictures like this of everything, glad I found some people who will enjoy them as much as I do.

[looksee]

Originally Posted by looksee

Posting photos is pretty easy.
First, upload them to a posting site, e.g Photobucket.com or Flickr.com (Google around to find what suits you). Register and follow their instructions.
Then, just insert the uploaded photos' url's into our image link (but preview first; finding the actual image url on the posting site may take some practice).
That's it.

Should have added one more point:

Reduce the image to a manageable size, maybe a maximum of 800 pixels wide. There should be an edit function in the posting site that let's you easily do this.
Makes it a lot easier to view pics and also conserves bandwidth.
(If, after re-sizing, your photos keep their exact same URLs, they'll reappear here in their trimmer versions without any more effort from you).

Anyhow, keep up the good work.

[araman0]

Thanks again Folks3000. I'm impressed that you were able to document all the ongoing projects so well, especially if you're not working for the city in any way.

It would be neat to plot these all in Google Maps to get a visual for where construction projects are happening and possibly to track their progress. If there is any interest in this I can work on doing so.

[Folks3000]

Funny you say that I keep a map at work. I'm a university student but I have a research job in the summer. We are doing an analysis of infrastructure, environmental, health, and transportation costs correlated with population density and dwelling units per acre, and we use arcGIS software, so I keep a ton of maps, some just for fun.



This doesn't include some of the outlying districts projects. If I zoom out too far the core projects get too small to see. If you want me to color code them for type of building, or for planning vs actual construction let me know. Or post from a wider angle to see all projects. I noticed the 14 story building at State and Johnson (In planning) was not included in the map yet. I made it too long ago.

[atrain5371]

Nice pictures.

The city received 5 proposals for the union corners site on the east side.

[araman0]

Folks3000, what do the size of the circles represent?

I've heard of arcGIS and would love to learn how to use it. I'd be interested to see some of your other maps.

[Folks3000]

The sizes of the circles were subjective, but generally showed larger vs smaller projects, sometimes they just were used to fill a geographic area. That map was a little old, I have an active-vs-inactive construction map as well so I took a moment to update it with current projects. Red circles are in the planning stage or not yet being built, green circles are active projects. Sizes again show a rough size of project, but aren't to be taken too seriously. Keep in mind this includes odd things like power plant capacity additions as well as regular construction projects, and does not include some smaller projects. (In general only includes projects large enough to go through the Urban Design Commission.)




For the research we used a f*ree version of ArcGIS. You can find it by searching ArcGIS Explorer. It was useful for making maps, measuring areas etc. Easy to use, works like an advanced version of Google Earth, I recommend it.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by Folks3000

-2 new building and 1 addition to Madison College's Truax campus coming along nicely. One is a new public health school I think, not sure what the others consist of.

I'm pretty sure it's a Public Safety building. MATC has both Law Enforcement and Fire Protection Services programs.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by atrain5371

Nice pictures.

The city received 5 proposals for the union corners site on the east side.

Here's some of the deets:
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/loc...9bb2963f4.html