Paulius Musteikis
After 119 years on North Carroll Street, the Steensland House is set to be moved to Gorham Street to make way for new development.
The Steensland house has stood at 315 N. Carroll St. for 119 years. But in a few days, the three-story Queen Anne-style brick house is scheduled to be set on wheels, pivoted 90 degrees, and nudged to a new home, just a little east on the same block, behind Bethel Lutheran Church.
The house will have a view that was never enjoyed by Sophia Steensland or her husband, Halle, a Madison banker, entrepreneur, and vice consul to Sweden and Norway. He was also a philanthropist; in 1904 he donated $10,000 to Madison — more than $237,000 in 2015 dollars — for a stone bridge over the Yahara River on East Washington Avenue near First Street.
The Steensland Bridge was replaced in 2007 by a modern mock-Prairie Style structure. But unlike the bridge, the Steensland house will survive in a new setting where its front porch will look across West Gorham Street, toward the Art Moderne Quisling Terrace apartments. Times change.
Like the Steensland home, historic preservation in Madison is itself pivoting and moving in a new direction. A revised landmarks ordinance is being readied, a citywide preservation plan will soon be launched, the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation has been reorganized and is under new leadership, and Gov. Scott Walker proposes limiting historic tax credits, preservationists’ most useful economic tool. The future of our history — the future of our character — is in transition.
“People know Madison basically for State Street,” says Sam Breidenbach, the Trust’s new president. “If you go traveling to New York and you say you’re from Madison, they say, ‘Oh, State Street! Or Langdon Street! I love those areas.’
“They don’t say, ‘Oh, East Towne! West Towne!’”
Madison is rich with historic treasures, including 100 structures on the National Register of Historic Places and five local historic districts. These neighborhoods include much of the city’s most valuable land, which makes them recurring battlegrounds over development.
“The city of Madison is growing rapidly,” says Natalie Erdman, the city’s interim director of Planning and Community and Economic Development. “We’re becoming a bigger city, and looking at preservation and how we value and protect historic assets is an important ongoing process.”
Katherine Cornwell, director of the planning division, agrees. “We are in an auspicious moment: we’ve hit the 250,000 population mark,” she says. “City growth tends to accelerate at this tipping point, and we’ve only gotten a taste of what’s to come.”
Our landmarks ordinance was spurred by what happened to an elegant house that once stood on East Gilman Street.
“The best house in Madison” is what Frank Lloyd Wright called the home of William F. Vilas at 12 E. Gilman. Vilas was a U.S. senator, a lieutenant colonel in the Civil War, and he served in the cabinet of President Grover Cleveland, who visited him in Madison. He also gave us Henry Vilas Park, naming it for his son.
His mansion was demolished in 1963 to make way for the headquarters of National Guardian Life, which later sold the rear of the former Vilas estate for Edgewater’s expansion.
The Vilas demolition set off controversy that festered for a decade. In 1971, when another historic Madison home was demolished, to make way for a Burger King on University Avenue, community outrage led Mayor William Dyke to spearhead creation of the landmarks ordinance and Landmarks Commission.
A few years later, the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation formed. “We just celebrated our 40th anniversary last year,” says former president Vicki Siekert. “The start of the trust was generally with a younger generation of people who were beginning to buy residences, and bought some of the older property in Madison because it was cheap at that time. They wanted to learn how to restore their own homes. They did a lot of work on ‘landmarking’ houses and buildings in that early time, the 1970s and the early ’80s.”
Since then, the city has designated more than 160 structures as landmarks. And it has established five historic districts: First Settlement, southeast of the Capitol; Mansion Hill, northwest of the Capitol; Marquette Bungalows, two blocks near Lapham-Marquette Elementary School; Third Lake Ridge, roughly from Williamson Street south, between Blair Street and the Yahara; and University Heights, west of Camp Randall.
The Landmarks Commission governs development within these districts. We also have 14 national historic districts, some of which duplicate local districts, occasionally with different boundaries. (Inclusion in a national district confers only potential tax benefits to owners; development and even demolition are not forbidden.) Langdon Street is in its own national historic district; a local district has been proposed, though that effort lags. Part of the Hoyt neighborhood has also been proposed as a local historic district.
Bethel Lutheran announced plans to move the Steensland home in 2012, to make way for construction of an expanded community space and a parking garage. Getting approval to move the house was no small task. “While the actual move of the Steensland house can be measured in feet, it has been a long journey for the congregation,” says Bethel Pastor Scot Sorensen.
Once moved, the house will be renovated for student apartments.
City preservation planner Amy Scanlon would rather see an historic building moved than torn down, but finds the practice problematic.
“Relocating landmark buildings, or buildings in historic districts, is not good practice because it negatively affects the integrity and significance of the building and is only slightly better than demolition,” she says.
While the Landmarks Commission approved moving the Steensland house, it sometimes rejects proposals — often to the exasperation of developers. In recent years, developers have twice appealed commission decisions to the Common Council.
Both cases involved Mansion Hill. One, the Edgewater renovation and expansion, was subsequently approved by the council in 2010. The other, a Steve Brown Apartments development on West Gilman Street, requiring one home to be demolished and another relocated, was turned down by the council a little more than a year ago.
Because of these fights, some call the process broken.
Ald. Paul Skidmore believes that, at the very least, the Landmarks Commission suffers from “mission creep,” taking on issues outside its purview. Worse, he says, good projects go by the wayside because the process is abused.
“I’m advancing and proposing balance in all things,” says Skidmore, a landscape architect who previously served as chair of the historic preservation design review commission in Stevens Point. “There should be a landmarks ordinance [in Madison]. There should be a Landmarks Commission. I’m not saying, ‘Make it go away.’ I’m saying there are extremes.”
The primary distinction between the various stakeholders “is their vision for the role of historic districts in our city,” observes Jeff Vercauteren, an attorney at Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek. He’s a lobbyist for Apex Property Management Inc., Hovde Properties, Mullins Group, Steve Brown Apartments and Urban Land Interests.
Vercauteren is also president of Capitol Neighborhoods Inc., a downtown umbrella organization for the Bassett, First Settlement, James Madison Park, Mansion Hill and Mifflin West neighborhoods. He’s recused himself from speaking about preservation matters on their behalf. However, he does speak for others; asked for comment on preservation matters, Susan Schmitz, president of Downtown Madison Inc., deferred to Vercauteren.
“Certain stakeholders essentially view historic districts as museums, with each individual building being an exhibit in the museum,” he says. “Other stakeholders recognize that historic districts are part of the evolving urban fabric and cultural landscape of our city. Cities grow, change and develop over time, and historic districts evolve as part of a healthy, vibrant city.”
The definition of an historic district as “evolving” may sound like an oxymoron to some. Scanlon says the ordinance is trying to preserve both the valuable parts and the whole of historic districts. “The buildings included in the districts are not necessarily significant individually — like a landmark — but are significant to each other in the collection,” she says. “In other words, each building needs its neighbor to make a cohesive collection.”
She adds, “The landmarks ordinance specifically addresses the significance and integrity of each historic district with different standards for each district.”
Growth can be unchecked — like free-for-all sprawl at the edges of cities — or it can be planned.
“At this point, we are still ahead of the curve, we can adopt a proactive posture toward growth,” says Cornwell. “Preservation is not something that happens effectively in reaction to a development proposal. We are actively developing strategies for housing, transportation and economic development. A comprehensive plan for historic preservation is an essential component of this mix.”
The city has set aside $250,000 for such a plan, which is expected to take two years to complete.
Meanwhile, the existing landmarks ordinance is not being revised so much as recreated. People on both sides attending meetings of the Ad Hoc Landmarks Ordinance Review Committee say the process is going well.
Vercauteren says the committee has addressed issues such as the “powers and duties of the Landmarks Commission, the standards for the designation of new landmarks and historic districts, the maintenance obligations for owners of landmarks and properties in historic districts, the standards for granting a certificate of appropriateness for a proposal in a historic district, and the standards for an appeal to the Common Council.”
Heavy lifting remains. Next up for consideration will be at least 14 definitions such as “visual relatedness,” the standard for determining whether building proposals are appropriate in landmark districts. Frustration with this criterion by developers, in part, lead to the city revisiting the ordinance.
Stu Levitan, chairman of the Landmarks Commission, found the original standard unambiguous, but says the committee has further clarified it.
“Is the proposed development, either in terms of design or scale and massing, appropriate?” he says. “I don’t think it’s that complicated.”
The Madison Trust is concerned about any changes to the appeals process. In the past, a broad and unspecific “greater good of the city” has been argued as criteria for overruling the Landmarks Commission.
Scanlon has “not a clue” when the ordinance might go to the council for approval. The deadline has been extended to July.
Eric Tadsen
Mary Virginia Way, right, helped reorganize the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation, from a grassroots to professional organization. Sam Breidenbach, left, is the group’s new president.
The Trust’s new president, Breidenbach, is a residential contractor who’s been on the board since 2010. Former president Mary Virginia Way departed to join the Minnesota Historical Society, after leading a reorganization to move the grassroots group toward a more professional model. Responsibilities have been streamlined, and there’s renewed emphasis on fundraising and “social capital.”
“Preservation, as you might know, has a reputation of being a little obstructionist,” explains Way. “So one of the things we wanted to do was to have people get to know us on a personal level, and let it be known that we are in fact reasonable people who like to enjoy our built environment.”
One thing the Trust definitely does not like is Gov. Walker’s proposed cap on preservation tax credits.
The federal government offers a preservation tax credit program. It’s a stimulus program, generally returning more value than it costs. To owners of historic commercial properties, the government returns 20% of the cost of rehabilitation.
Wisconsin began its own rebate program — in the form of tax credits — in 1989, starting with a rate of 5%. The legislature doubled that amount in 2013, and doubled it again in 2014, to the current 20%.
In the governor’s proposed budget, tax credits of 20% will still be provided, but they’ll be capped at $10 million total for the entire state. Developers will compete for the credits based on economic benefits such as job creation. In the statewide preservation community, it’s assumed that only the largest developers will be able to successfully compete.
“Of the 34 states with historic tax credit programs, most have higher overall caps or no caps at all,” according to a statement from the Milwaukee Preservation Alliance. “In the Midwest, for example, the average overall cap is more than $52 million a year.”
“There are many people who are boiling over” about this, Scanlon says. “This is not just a preservation issue. This is an economic development issue. It’s really deep and it’s really unfortunate. Milwaukee is going to be hit very hard. Madison in a lesser way.”
One casualty could be the Garver Feed Mill renovation project.
Predicts Way, “The loss of historic preservation tax credits will lead to fewer adaptive reuse projects in the state.”
Steve Brown Apartments worries about the loss of credits as well.
James Steakley
Period Garden Park and many old homes are in Mansion Hill, one of Madison’s historic neighborhoods that preservationists want to protect.
“We LOVE historic properties, their story and their architecture,” writes the company’s CEO, Margaret Watson, in an email. The company owns 19 properties in Mansion Hill, including 18 that are deemed to be “contributing” to the neighborhood’s historic character. The company also owns property in University Heights. “We find that many of our residents appreciate the beauty and historic value of these properties. There are also residents who prefer to live in a nice house, and rather not have the high-rise experience.”
There’s also a downside. Older homes and properties require a lot of work. “Every year we invest in capital improvement projects to better these properties,” says Watson. That’s where the tax credits come in handy.
“It can be very challenging,” adds Watson. “We understand that responsibility, and others coming into the market should take a hard look at that piece. It doesn’t always make ‘good business sense’ on paper, but we just happen to like preserving old properties and have a special love for Madison.”
It does make very good business sense in one way, however. “Historic preservation is not about nostalgia,” says Way. “What it has to be is a development tool. And it is.”
If done well, it can help spur the economy, she says.
“Preservation work is more labor-intensive than new construction,” Way says. “So the carpenter who works on that job leaves the job site, gets a haircut on the way home, picks up some milk and buys something on the way. It’s spurring local, local, local. Whereas with new construction you buy materials from a catalog and they show up via truck. It’s not spurring economic development in a local sense.”
“Also, we don’t talk a lot about heritage tourism in Madison, but it does the same thing,” Way adds. That is, people travel to see historical buildings and spend money in the process. “Increase heritage tourism and people come, they stay longer, and enjoy our city for its unique qualities.”
Scanlon finds the Midwest less enthusi-astic about historic preservation than Philadelphia, where she spent 14 years as a preservation architect.
“In Philadelphia it was more, ‘This is for the city’ than I feel here,” she says. “Here it’s definitely about Midwestern property rights. ‘Yeah, I own a landmark and it’s mine to do as I please with.’”
Levitan says zoning is intended to arbitrate and resolve these conflicts between property rights and the civic good.
“All zoning and all land-use restrictions involve balancing public interests and property-owner rights,” he says. “That’s the basis of zoning. More or less regulations and restrictions are appropriate depending on the circumstances.”
The headlines that inevitably arise whenever the needs of preservation and development occasionally come into conflict might lead some to believe that preservationists are winning this battle. But the fact is that less than 1% of the city’s land mass is contained within the five local historic districts.
Observes David Mollenhoff, historian and author of Madison: The Formative Years, “If we can’t protect this tiny part of our city, where our richest history is concentrated, then we’re in serious trouble.”
