The Madison Trust for Historic Preservation released a statement Wednesday announcing its official opposition to the current proposal for an addition to the Edgewater Hotel, saying it had an inappropriate scale for the Mansion Hill Historic District.
""We would like to be able to support an addition to the Edgewater Hotel that restores the original 1947 hotel building, improves the failed public space of the 1974 addition and respects the guidelines for new construction in the Mansion Hill Historic District,"" Jason Tish, executive director for MTHP, said in an e-mail.
MTHP is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1974 to help ""preserve the architectural and historical heritage of the greater Madison area through advocacy and education,"" according to MTHP's mission statement.
According to Tish, the developer behind the remodeling of the Edgewater, Hammes Company, wants an exception to be made in the language of the Landmarks Ordinance that is used to provide guidance for new construction in any of the city's historic districts.
""They are requesting that their proposed addition to the hotel [considered ‘new construction'] be exempted from the requirement that it be ‘visually compatible with the buildings and environment with which it visually relates,'"" Tish said.
Tish also said the requirement was specifically added into the ordinance to prevent new construction from being too large, tall or imposing compared to the rest of the neighborhood in the respective historic district.
According to MTHP's website, downtown Madison has 34 properties on the National Register of Historic Places, as well as three national historic districts. It also has more than 140 land marked properties.
The Landmarks Commission meets next Monday at 4:45 p.m. in room 300 of the Madison Municipal Building to decide whether a certificate of appropriateness for the Edgewater remodeling will be granted.
