A day after the Madison Common Council voted to retain the proposed Edgewater tax increment financing in the 2010 capital budget, a Mansion Hill neighborhood meeting was held Thursday to learn more about the potential impact of the historic hotel renovation.
Pete Ostlind, chair of Capitol Neighborhoods, Inc., said there have been a number of neighborhood meetings since the redevelopment of the Edgewater was proposed over a year ago, as well as countless meetings with the developer, city staff and alders.
Fred Mohs, a member of the Mansion Hill Neighborhood Association, said the MHNA was here to help, but that they just wanted to see some improvements to the proposed project.
""We started this neighborhood association back in the 1970s and we've made a lot of progress,"" he said. ""This is the only historic district like this we'll ever have. Having people take this seriously is tremendously important.""
""Nobody would even think about doing this in the Lincoln Park historic district in Chicago or the historic districts in Washington D.C. or Boston,"" he added. ""This becomes more and more valuable as the years go on, it tells the story of our city.""
Many of the neighborhood's concerns, Mohs said, have to do with maintaining the view, and the inadequate amount of parking being proposed by the developer, the Hammes Company.
""We're looking for solutions that can help the developer,"" he said. ""The lowered addition is good but the new tower is too overwhelmingly huge to be ready for primetime.""
Currently the Edgewater proposal needs approval from a variety of different city committees, including the Landmarks Commission, the Urban Design Commission, the Plan Commission, as well as final approval from the Common Council.
According to Bill Fruhling, the principal planner for the City of Madison, projects that are proposed within these historic boundaries require a certificate of appropriateness from the Landmarks Commission.
The zoning codes in which the hotel presently resides will also need to be redefined.
Matt Tucker, zoning administrator for the city, said the property would need to be rezoned from an R6H code, which has a 50-foot requirement on all buildings, into a planned development zone for any construction to take place.
