The Madison Plan Commission approved the construction of a rooftop terrace pool and additional balconies on buildings in the Langdon Street National Historic District Monday. The commission also considered but did not approve the demolition of two smaller Howard Street apartment buildings.
The 633 North Henry St. apartment would have a pool on a slightly raised platform in a glass enclosure that staff said “maintains the architectural character of the building” and “provides an enhanced outdoor amenity for the project,” according to commissioner Tim Parks.
Proposal representative Jay Randy Bruce said, “We felt that providing an additional rooftop amenity for residents was important.”
Developers will also add balconies to the lake-facing side of an existing apartment building located at 104 Iota Court.
Ald. Ledell Zellers, District 2, expressed concern about development pushing closer to the lake.
“There is the desire by a number of lakefront property owners to continually ... creep closer to the lake by whatever means,” Zellers said.
Commissioner Eric Sundquist agreed with Zellers but said, “It’s outweighed by the improvement to the project and the better amount of open space.”
The commission ultimately approved the construction of the balconies.
The commission also considered the demolition of 622 Howard Place, which is a six-unit building, as well as 632 Howard Place, which is a 13-unit building. Developers would replace the two buildings with a new 33-unit building, also in Zellers’ district.
Rebecca Anderson, owner of multiple Laketown Apartment buildings, said she has done work to repair the apartments, but repairs to the infrastructure would be too expensive.
“Doing [repairs to] old buildings is quite expensive. We’re getting to a point where we can’t even find parts anymore.” Anderson said.
Zellers was concerned about using poor maintenance of a building as a reason for demolition. “This is about diversity of character of the buildings,” Zellers concluded.
The committee did not approve demolition of the Howard Street buildings.
