Centre Seven on North Pinckney Street
Urban Land Interests is proposing a redevelopment project for North Pinckney Street and requesting a landmarks variance for Centre Seven (the building on the left), which was rehabbed in the 1970s.
Everything was bad in the 1970s. Stagflation, bell bottoms, leisure suits, polyester in all its forms, burnt orange shag carpeting, every car American Motors made, the Captain and Tennille.
And the Centre Seven building on Pinckney Street in downtown Madison. Even the name is bad. Why invert the “r” and the “e”? Because you hope the pretension will allow you to charge higher rents, that’s why. In the 1970s developers took two perfectly fine old buildings on North Pinckney Street and mauled them with an awful rehab. They obliterated whatever historic value, charm and beauty these buildings had.
Now we have a chance to bulldoze that mistake, put it behind us, and replace it with something much better and of much higher value. Local development company Urban Land Interests has proposed a new mixed use project on that block which would preserve the truly historic buildings there, including the American Exchange Bank at one end and the building that houses The Old Fashioned at the other. Moreover, ULI has a reputation for good modern architecture. Its Block 89, Glass Bank rehab and old Anchor Bank projects have dramatically improved the downtown. We shouldn’t think twice about this.
But, unfortunately, we will have to think twice and maybe three times about it. The problem is that somehow the buildings got designated as landmarks back in 2008 when I was mayor. I don’t recall the debate, but apparently there was a long one. (In my defense there were a lot of long debates.) If I could go back in time and veto the designation I would.
Nonetheless, here we are. Twelve years ago the city council made a mistake and the current one shouldn’t feel bound by it. If it gets to that point, and it probably will, the council should overrule the Landmarks Commission and allow Centre Seven to be put out of its misery.
In a perfect world the council wouldn’t have to act in this case at all. Our historic preservation ordinances are in themselves relics of a time when, ironically, travesties like Centre Seven were happening with some frequency. It was an era of bad taste when Brutalist architecture was in fashion and so we overreacted with historic preservation ordinances that now seem out of touch with reality. Essentially, the way it works now is that the esoteric tastes and obscure historic references dug up by single-minded preservation zealots can be tossed up as roadblocks to sensible and sometimes even exciting redevelopment proposals. The irony is that laws designed to prevent mash-ups like Centre Seven now might end up preserving the very sort of building those laws were meant to prevent.
In the case of Centre Seven, city staff is recommending that the Landmarks Commission deny the developer’s request for a variance to landmarks protection because some of the original detail on the second floor exterior of the building escaped the ‘70s defacement and because the building has a tie (pardon the pun) to the history of menswear retail in the city.
But the ULI’s proposal would save and reuse the original terra-cotta clam shell-styled windows and ornamental balustrade on the second story, just not in their original position. Even the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation’s president Kurt Stege told the Wisconsin State Journal that he personally believed that the proposal would take those elements and place them in a better context than they are right now.
So, I think the staff’s highly subjective judgement in this case is wrong but you can read their report for yourself and draw your own conclusions. While this is only a recommendation, staff reports are highly influential with city policy makers. It’s likely that when the Landmarks Commission votes on this (perhaps as early as Monday) they’ll go along with what the staff wants. After all, the commission is made up mostly of preservationists and the ordinance strictly limits the basis on which they can grant a variance, even if they want to.
Then, if the proposal makes its way through other hoops, including the Urban Design and Plan commissions, it’ll be up to the city council to vote to overturn the Landmarks Commission. That’s not the way it should be. Any action by an unelected body like Landmarks should be simply advisory to the elected and accountable decision-makers. Landmarks’ views should be just one piece of information that policy makers can review in making up their minds about the value of the overall project, not a hurdle that they have to vote to overcome. It actually used to be even worse. Landmarks’ rulings used to require a supermajority of the council to overturn, but now it’s a simple majority. It’s still a fundamentally undemocratic system.
And let me finish with this irony and indication of just how messed up historic preservation is in Madison. The early plans for a new State Historical Society Museum would raze the Churchill Building, almost directly across the Square from Centre Seven. As I reported a while back, the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation nominated the building for landmark status, but then withdrew the nomination under pressure from the developer. The Churchill Building was Madison’s first “skyscraper,” it held the offices of many historic figures over the years and the building itself is hardly touched from its original design and details.
And yet if the Churchill Building is faced with demolition it will have no Landmarks protections while Centre Seven, which has been so defiled and which has such a thin connection to anything significant in Madison history, stands there threatening to derail a fine new development. Does this make sense to anybody?
