Owners of the Cliffdweller Apartments took the first steps toward renovating the building when Peter R??tt, of the Isthmus Design, and Randy Page, from Architecture Madison, presented their design to the Madison Urban Design Commission Wednesday.
\This is very much in its preliminary stages. This is a very early step,"" said Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, the district where the Cliffdweller is located.
Some of the main changes that the lakeside Cliffdweller, 104 Iota St., hopes to make are softening the appearance of the apartment, making it more uniform with the surrounding buildings by adding a peaked roof and increasing incentives to rent the rooms without a lake view.
""The Cliffdweller is a pretty butt-ugly building, so anything that could be done to it would be an improvement,"" said Verveer, who also thinks remodeling would provide more housing options for UW-Madison students by adding more apartments and sprucing up those without lake views.
Under the tentative timetable, the apartments would be shut down for a year for construction, beginning in August 2002, with the remodeled apartments opening the following August.
""However, this is by no means a done deal,"" said Verveer, who plans to hold a neighborhood meeting to gauge residents' opinions.
At its meeting in the Madison Municipal Building, 215 Martin Luther King Blvd., the UDC encouraged the seven-story Cliffdweller to consider the Langdon Street area's thoughts before proceeding any further. Especially of concern is the housing co-op next to the Cliffdweller that would be blocked from the street by the proposed reconstruction.
""I think it's entirely inappropriate that we're seeing this before the neighborhood. I see the building coming out with all this masting and blocking [the co-op],"" said Ald. Steve Holtzman, District 19 and an UDC member.
Bob March, former UW-Madison professor and UDC member, was also concerned about the addition encroaching on the area.
""The courtyard area is already too small,"" said March, who lived in the Cliffdweller apartments for five years in the late 1970s.
Page said that the Cliffdweller is interested in what the neighborhood has to say.
""It was our intention to work with the neighbors in the future. We've already started talking with them,"" said Page, who hopes to have a meeting with the neighbors in the co-op.
Besides the UDC, the Cliffdweller has to have the approval of the Plan Commission and the Madison City Council.
