The Churchill’s darkest hour

Does Madison’s first “skyscraper” need to be razed for a new Historical Society museum?

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Every nook and cranny of the old building holds a story.

In 1915 developer Leonard Gay offered Madison a swank new office building, the tallest in the city, which represented the city’s first foray into a new building type known as the skyscraper.

The Gay building, later renamed the Churchill building, sits on the Capitol Square near the head of State Street. At nine stories tall, it stirred a mixture of civic pride and horror that may sound familiar. Some saw it as a sign of vitality while others worried that it and other skyscrapers that might follow would obscure the view of the grand new Capitol building still under construction right across the street.

According to the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation, the building’s most significant contribution was the backlash to it. In 1915 no one was sure if Madison could support a building of that density and if it could, there was worry that it would overload the city’s transportation system, which at the time revolved around electric streetcars.

But the Gay building was an immediate success. The building filled fast with some of the top professionals and businesses of the day. A sampling of famous local names on that first building registry include Neckerman of the prominent Neckerman Insurance Agency, Davis of Davis Duehr eye clinic, and Brittingham of the park that bears his name. Gay himself took up an office there along with the building’s architects, brothers James and Edward Law.

In part because of their work on the Gay building, the Law architectural firm became one of the city’s most prominent design firms and today they are recognized nationally as “master architects,” though the Gay building is seen as an example of their early work and not up to the quality of later projects.

Fifteen years before he named the building after himself, Leonard Gay ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Madison, but in 1932 one of the architects of the Gay building, James Law, was appointed mayor and went on to win election in his own right and serve until 1943.

By 1915 Gay had given up on politics but he remained a prominent shaper of the city. Perhaps his most famous project is one that never came to fruition, the Lost City, remnants of which can still be found among the overgrowth in the UW Arboretum.

After Gay proved the economic viability of tall buildings on the Square others quickly followed, including the Tenney building, the Loraine Hotel and another hotel, which is today’s YWCA.

The prospect of the Capitol building surrounded by tall commercial buildings set off alarm bells with the likes of none other than John Nolen. The famous urban planner wrote a plan for the city in 1911. In it he anticipated the impact of the Gay building, which at the time was only on the drawing boards.

“The first need is to control the upbuilding around Capitol Square,” Nolen wrote. He proposed regulations to limit these buildings and with a sense of urgency. “Action should be taken without delay,” he wrote, “for the demands upon these blocks are now rapidly changing, and the ‘sky-scraper’ or other offensive structure may be begun at any time.”

In time, both the state and the city restricted the height of buildings in downtown Madison to protect views of the Capitol, and those basic restrictions remain intact.

So, it’s fair to say that the Gay building literally shaped the Madison skyline and with it the political center of the whole state. But if plans come to fruition, in a little over two years the building may be razed in part to make way for the most ironic of uses: a new state history museum.

Because of the Gay building’s place in shaping the center of Madison, the Madison Trust nominated it for landmark status in February 2018. Had the building been designated a city landmark it could not have been destroyed or substantially altered without approval from the city’s Landmarks Commission, which would have had to find that the razing was justified by some pretty tight criteria. The Common Council can override the commission, though that has happened only once.

But the Trust withdrew the nomination two months after it was submitted to the city, Hovde Properties and the Wisconsin Historical Society. In a statement released last April, the Trust explained that although it continues “to believe the structure’s historical impact on the Madison skyline would justify landmark designation,” it withdrew the application after meeting with developers out of consideration “of the needs of the greater community.”

Specifically, the Trust identified the proposed state Historical Society Museum. Since 1998, the Society has been working to expand its museum in the windowless brown clad former Wolff Kubly building at the corner of State Street and the Square. The latest proposal calls for a 100,000-square-foot building that doubles the exhibition space and adds room for meetings, storage and maybe even a restaurant.

In his recently released capital budget, Gov. Tony Evers approved a Historical Society request for $70 million in state borrowing but only if the Society can raise another $30 million privately. Former Govs. Jim Doyle and Tommy Thompson are the co-chairs of the fundraising effort.

The Historical Society is hosting 44 hearings around the state to solicit ideas about the programming and exhibits for the future museum. These discussions do not address the building itself, but at a February hearing at the Goodman Community Center, Stuart Levitan, Madison historian, author and city Landmarks Commission Chair, spoke up for the Churchill building.

Levitan told the Society officials, including Director Christian Overland, that he was “thrilled” with the prospect of a new museum. But in a statement that Levitan read at the hearing and shared with Isthmus, he said, “I am disturbed and dismayed that your plans call for the destruction of the Churchill building, or to use its historic name, the Gay building.”

Levitan cited the building’s role in Madison history, including its link to James Law. “It is its role in the preservation of the Capitol view that calls for you to reconsider your plans to raze the building,” he said. “It was in large part due to the construction of the Gay building that there developed enough political will to preserve the Capitol view against further encroachment. The construction of the Gay building was unfortunate, but it led to legislation from which all Wisconsinites have benefitted.

“It is beyond ironic that you want to tear down a building with statewide historic significance in order to build a museum to the state’s history,” Levitan concluded.

He urged the Society to find a way to incorporate the building in the new development.

“I get what he’s saying,” Overland tells Isthmus. “We’re taking all this in.”

The irony of destroying a historic building for a museum also isn’t lost on Ald. Ledell Zellers. Zellers has represented a downtown district since 2013 and she has been a long-time advocate both on and off the council for historic preservation. She will retire from the council in April.

“It’s bizarre and sadly ironic that a building with that kind of documented history is being torn down to build a history museum,” she says.

But she says it is “understandable” that the Trust may have pulled back on its landmark application out of fear that the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Scott Walker might have preempted it anyway.

That concern was shared by Trust president Kurt Stege who lists it as one reason that his organization withdrew its application. He points out that last year there was a bill introduced, but not passed, that would have given owners of buildings veto authority over the designation of landmark status.

When asked if they would be more comfortable moving ahead now that Walker has been replaced by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who would seem to be more likely to veto such a bill, both Stege and Zellers say they aren’t sure because Evers has not said much about historic preservation.

The overall project is much more complicated than just a new building to house a new and expanded museum. The museum is part of an elaborate public-private project that would take about two-thirds of a city block and comprise not just a new bigger public museum but 200,000 to 250,000 square feet of private development, which could take the form of condominiums, apartments, office or retail space. The project could end up being the largest in city history.

The footprint for the museum and the private development includes the current museum building plus two buildings immediately to its east owned by lawyer and developer Fred Mohs, and the Churchill building, owned by Hovde Properties, which also owns the now vacant low-rise buildings on Mifflin Street between the Central Library and the current museum.

A fly in that ointment is the iconic dive bar, the Silver Dollar, which sits between the museum and Hovde’s vacant buildings. The owner is holding out and some have suggested that the state may need to use its power of eminent domain.

Mohs, 82, is a well-known advocate for historic preservation. About 50 years ago, Mohs bought and restored two buildings on Carroll Street even older than the Churchill building, that now house his own offices. Those buildings would also fall to the wrecking ball as part of the project.

“If this was not going to be a fantastic new museum I wouldn’t demolish these buildings,” says Mohs, referring to his own buildings and the Churchill next door. “It’s with a heavy heart, really. I loved being here.”

Those sentiments are echoed by Mohs’ development partner, Eric Hovde, CEO of Hovde Properties and son of Don Hovde, who purchased the building from the Gay family. Hovde says that he also wanted to save the building “but I was shot down by the architects and others.”

Hovde argues that leaving the Churchill building in place would force the museum to add floors in order to add the new space in its plan, which would, “make costs go sky high.” He said it would also make loading exhibits in and out difficult and there would be no room for museum parking underneath the building.

Museum Director Overland lists the same issues. The current museum has no parking but there are two public ramps within two blocks of the site, leaving open the question of whether on-site parking is needed for the museum or to make the private development viable. Overland acknowledges that the museum gets by now without parking but says that lack of parking comes up as an issue in visitor surveys.

Hovde says that Levitan’s suggestion to incorporate the Churchill building into the new development is impractical for a variety of structural reasons. Hovde’s architects question whether the building could be saved as part of a redevelopment of any kind. He says that the biggest issue is its shallow footings, built before modern building codes. Shoring up those footings would be prohibitively expensive even if possible, Hovde says. And Mohs says that it would make underground parking much less efficient.

Deb Nemeth and John Imes sit in a sunny conference room overlooking the Capitol Square on the eighth floor of the Churchill building. The spire of Grace Episcopal Church feels like it may be close enough to touch and down below the church’s courtyard has on a thick coat of snow. In a few months, trees will blossom in white and pink.

Nemeth has had an office there since 2002 when she started working for 1000 Friends of Wisconsin, a nonprofit focusing on land use and transportation policy. (Full disclosure, I started the organization there in 1997 and worked in the building until I was elected mayor in 2003.) Imes, who is founder and director of the Wisconsin Environmental Initiative, has had his office there for 20 years.

“I love coming into this building,” says Nemeth. “When you go into the new buildings [around the Square] everything looks the same. This place is just more comfortable.”

“And the location is great,” Imes adds. “It’s walkable, there’s plenty of transit and the bike storage [located in the building] is really nice.” Those are all things important to environmental organizations like his so that employees can walk the walk, bike the bike and bus the bus. “And it’s at the crossroads of Madison, in some ways, it’s at the crossroads of the state.”

Being at that center is important to nonprofits and others who work closely with state government. But if the Churchill goes away, Nemeth and Imes aren’t sure that their organizations would be able to afford to stay downtown. Another “class B” office building, 122 State St., is being razed for a hotel and the many nonprofits located there have scattered.

“I do have a lot of concerns about the proposed demolition not only from the historical angle, but because of the real lack of affordable office space in the core downtown,” says Ald. Mike Verveer, who represents the area.

That is a phenomenon so profound that it caught the attention of the iconic urban thinker Jane Jacobs. In her seminal work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jacobs wrote an entire chapter on “The need for aged buildings.” She doesn’t just mean historic landmarks, “but also a lot of plain, ordinary, low-value old buildings.”

Jacobs argues that old buildings mixed in with new ones give a district diversity and life. Law firms and corporations can afford expensive, shiny new offices. But small businesses, bookstores and nonprofits need the low rents supplied by buildings that have long been paid off by their owners.

Jacobs even makes a case in her book, published in 1961, that is very relevant to today’s startup, disrupter economy. “As for really new ideas of any kind,” she writes, “there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.”

Zellers underscores that point. “I’m not a person in favor of throwing away buildings, whether they have historic value or not.”

Even the building’s very name reflects the city’s history. Originally named by developer Leonard Gay after himself, by the 1970s, when the building changed hands out of the Gay family, the word “gay” was taking on a new meaning in the popular lexicon. New owner Don Hovde decided to change the building’s name in 1974 to “skirt association with a lifestyle,” according to press reports at the time.

Churchill was selected because Hovde admired the British World War II leader. Mohs and Hovde were members of a local group of Churchill aficionados, led by the late lobbyist Jim Wimmer, dubbed the Other Other Club.

It’s not clear just how close the wrecking ball is to touching the Churchill building. Evers’ capital budget anticipates construction of the new museum to begin in November 2021, but that budget will need to be approved by a Republican Legislature that appears unwilling to go along with anything the governor wants. And Evers’ proposal says nothing specific about the Churchill building. It says only that “the desired museum program cannot be achieved with the existing Society-owned parcel alone.”

“It’s like any other development,” Mohs says. “I can think of scenarios where it doesn’t happen.”

Zellers suggests that if the museum is unable to expand on a footprint that does not include the Churchill building, it look elsewhere downtown. She likes the Judge Doyle Square development across from the City County Building, which is still in flux.

Verveer said that he approached city staff with Zellers’ proposal, but it was not met with support. “They felt it was kind of an 11th hour thing,” Verveer says.

Mayor Paul Soglin did not respond directly to Zellers’ idea, but says in a statement that he would “rely on the professional staff of the Planning Department’s recommendation before making my own judgment.”

Soglin’s opponent in the April mayoral election, Satya Rhodes-Conway, says that she would be “open to” Zellers’ idea.

The Historical Society’s Overland seems a bit taken aback by the idea. He notes that the current site was selected several years ago after a study of the best possible location for an expanded museum because of its location right across the street from the Capitol, which places it at the official center of the state and is easily accessible to school groups. He also stressed the proximity to UW-Madison just at the other end of State Street.

Still, while locating at Judge Doyle Square was a new idea to him, he says, “If people want to talk to us we’re open to a conversation.”