The Madison Common Council worked well into the night Tuesday, voting 12 to 6 in favor of adopting a $200 million downtown redevelopment plan during a special session.
The final vote came after a nearly eight hour meeting, ending at about 3:15 a.m.
The Judge Doyle Square project, one of the largest proposals from the 2012 Downtown Plan to receive legislative action, includes a corporate headquarters for the biotechnology company Exact Sciences, as well as a 216-room hotel and retail space. The plan also will also add public and private parking space.
The city “seeks to increase property values, a lifeblood for future programs, add employment, and create opportunities for development,” said George Austin, director of the Judge Doyle Square project. “The city saw a significant opportunity to increase the tax base and employment, as well as retain and grow business, for the Monona Terrace Convention Center.”
City negotiators received four proposals in May for the redevelopment plan, which will replace the aging Government East parking garage and surrounding area on the 200 block of South Pinckney Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard. In July, the Common Council approved a measure to negotiate exclusively with JDS Development and Exact Sciences, who submitted the approved proposal.
The public will pay $67.1 million for the redevelopment overall, which is a part of the 2016 Capital Budget.
Exact Sciences currently employs about 200 people. The resolution requires the company to provide 400 jobs by 2019.
Amid doubts about the success of Exact Sciences, CEO Kevin Conroy emphasized the work his company does to combat cancer.
“We’re really one of the only companies focused on early detection of colon cancer,” said Conroy. “Everyone’s talking about drugs that will help win this war. It’s early detection that we need.”
Downtown Madison Inc. President Susan Schmitz voiced support for Judge Doyle Square, citing a need to bring revenue from outside Madison.
“Downtown Madison needs an economic development strategy to attract traded sector employers that provide goods and services that can be sent outside of Madison, thus bring new money in,” Schmitz said. “We can’t just shift local money around.”
Schmitz said 44 percent of the downtown workforce is in public administration and that “over time, it will not support the housing, retail, services and schools’ needs of the city.”
The developer still has to find a hotel operator in the coming months and complete a labor peace agreement it has been negotiating with Unite Here, a hotel labor union.
