Developing story
In the week's cover story by Teri Heiman, the organization of "downtown's principal power brokers" known as Downtown Madison Partners Inc., is profiled. "Earlier this month, DMPI and its parent organization, Downtown Madison Inc. (DMI) voted in favor of a convention center hotel facility proposed by Jerome Mullins and Warren Barberg on the south side of the Square. This apparent unity among the city's business leaders followed more than a year of intense infighting by partisans of various sites. Even now, the unity may be more apparent than real," writes Heiman. The business group is criticized for its lack of racial and gender diversity, as well as for its members caring more about their own personal interests than the overall healthy development of the downtown.
The group's president, Bill Belden, cites the publicly funded Manchester Place development as one of its major successes. However "Many of DMPI's initiatives have come to naught. The group spent six months studying Kenton Peters Lake Park Plaza proposal and found it to be financially unfeasible. It reached the same conclusion with regard to a major retail project on the Woolworth's block."
DMPI still exists as part of DMI. The convention center is eventually built on Lake Monona, not on the Square - at the site proposed for the dinged Kenton Peters' Lake Plaza shopping development. The Woolworth's block is now the site of the 100 Wisconsin Avenue condos.
