OPN Architects
A prime piece of King Street real estate — where a boutique hotel (rendering, right) had been proposed — is now controlled by a Madison business owner with a checkered past.
The development team seeking to build a boutique hotel at the corner of King and South Webster streets is exploring new locations now that the site it was eyeing has been sold to another buyer.
Since announcing plans for the hotel in 2015, Patrick Sweeney and Josh Berkson, the co-owners of Merchant and Lucille, had been in negotiations to buy 118 King St. — a small, triangular parking lot previously owned by Scott Lewis of CMI Management. But the property changed hands earlier this year and is now owned by Oleysa Kuzmenko, the girlfriend of Madison businessman Eric Fleming. Kuzmenko is also listed as the owner of 112-116 King St., which houses Ancora Coffee Roasters, Woof’s and Opus Lounge.
The sale came as a shock and a disappointment to Sweeney and Berkson, who had spent almost two years working with the city to rezone the property and meeting with neighborhood residents to refine the hotel concept. The project, named the King Hotel, was to be a seven-story, 33-room building with a restaurant, rooftop bar and underground music venue.
“The neighborhood was very excited about it and we were as well,” Berkson tells Isthmus. “When it got sold, it was really unfortunate. It forced us to take a step back from the project.”
Fleming and Kuzmenko bought the larger King Street property in February 2016 from Marty Rifken of Rifken Group LTD and purchased the parking lot in January 2017, Fleming confirms. Neither parcel was listed publicly, but Fleming maintains a “list of people he’s trying to buy property from,” which led to the sale. “It’s what we do, we buy property,” he says when asked about his interest in the site.
Fleming is best known as a former owner of the Orpheum Theater and Crave Restaurant and Lounge, which closed in 2009. His business dealings in Madison have been marred by ugly, public feuds with Orpheum co-owner Henry Doane, as well as the 2008 murder of a Crave patron by three people, including one of Fleming’s employees.
Fleming declined to say if he had future plans for developing the King Street properties, saying he’s currently focusing on maintaining them and is in the process of securing a tenant for the space on South Webster Street that formerly housed Cousins Subs. He also notes that all the existing tenants have at least two years on their leases. “It’s a good street, that’s why we bought the property,” he says. “No full plans or anything.”
Sweeney and Berkson would still like to build the hotel on the King Street site and have talked to Fleming “numerous times” about buying the property. But they’re also exploring other locations.
“Nothing was ever determined, nor were any doors closed,” Sweeney says of his conversations with Fleming. “But there are a few other sites we’ve expressed interest in, in the Madison market and elsewhere.”