Tommy Washbush
McGrath Property Group is proposing a $40 million, 18-story development on the south side of Madison near the Alliant Energy Center. The developer and supporters say the project, which would include 291 apartments and 12,500 square feet of commercial and office space, would spur economic development and create a “destination district” — a new place for Madisonians to hang out, shop, bike and live.
It would also involve the demolition of the Wonder Bar and Coliseum Bar on Olin Avenue.
Naturally, the proposal has been met with opposition from Madison residents. So much so that the city’s Plan Commission recently voted to table it indefinitely, citing issues with the project’s height, affordability, environmental footprint, and impact on south Madison. They handed the proposal back to McGrath Property, in hopes that a rework would alleviate concerns.
But the project also faces opposition from those who want to preserve the Wonder Bar, a Prohibition Era-bar that was recently nominated for landmark status. “I am very much opposed to this project simply because of the demolition of the Wonder Bar,” commissioner Jason Hagenow said during deliberation of the development proposal.
A petition, which now has nearly 3,000 signatures, opposes the demolition of both bars.
What drives the concept of historic preservation and why should it prevail over arguments for development? Historic in terms of what? Preserved for whom exactly?
These are questions that preservationist Franklin Vagnone, president of Twisted Preservation, a New York City-based consulting firm, has explored. For him, “preservation is essentially an elitist, class and racially divisive activity whose result is a form of economic bias and segregation.” Vagnone, who has helped run history and preservation organizations for the last 30 years, says he is compelled to call out what he sees as racism in the preservation field.
Did racism fuel some of the pushback to a development proposal last fall in Los Angeles, when plans were announced to convert an aging duplex into a 16-unit apartment building that included low-income units? Opponents, supported by the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission, rushed to get the duplex a historic designation and residents quickly proposed that the entire area be designated historic in an effort to ban new housing altogether.
It appears that those wanting to conserve the class makeup of their neighbourhoods successfully weaponized preservation to keep their community free of low-income renters, something Vagnone warns about.
“Historic districting and preservation code requirements can be a contemporary form of ‘redlining,’ which excludes a diverse economic group of people from land ownership.”
While I do not know if similar intentions are behind moves to preserve the Wonder Bar, we should pause historic preservation efforts in general — especially in a segregated city like Madison with large income gaps.
We already have a problem with prioritizing aesthetics over functionality.
This May, the Madison Plan Commission rejected a second proposal to build the Hub II, a seven-story, 106-unit apartment building at 126 Langdon St., because the “scale and aesthetics of the building diminished the character of the Langdon Street neighborhood, where UW-Madison’s historic fraternity and sorority houses are located.”
There were other valid concerns about the development, like lack of affordability and the impact of luxury rent prices on student housing, but aesthetics, including the height of the structure, took center stage.
In a city where housing is scarce, and people are burdened by high rents, conversations should primarily be focused on supply, demand and affordability, not aesthetics. Preservation distracts.
“When historic preservation cuts into home production, the people who pay most dearly are those with the least housing security,” says Dan Bertolet, director of housing and urbanism at Sightline Institute, a Seattle-based research organization devoted to sustainability. “Overzealous or misplaced preservation has real costs.”
Madison now finds itself in that bind. An expanding city needs more affordable housing. If we do not build more, developers take their projects elsewhere and the city loses out.
Vagnone argues that the preservation of historic sites may perpetuate a form of nostalgia that in the end becomes economically restrictive and culturally exclusionary. A fair warning, but it’s not always that simple.
Last year, the Madison Common Council adopted its first historic preservation plan. It lists properties in the city that represent important persons, groups and events related to Madison’s marginalized communities. This is an effort to “diversify the stories we preserve,” city preservation planner Heather Bailey has said.
History is worth preserving, especially that of marginalized communities. But where do we draw the line on what should be saved and what needs to be removed in order to make room for equity, housing and security for the people of Madison now?
The creation of a city historic preservation plan signals that more than surface-level conversations on historical preservation are being had in Madison, and perhaps those discussions can find a middle ground. One important question to remember in the midst of these discussions: What of the future are we sacrificing by maintaining the past?
Nada Elmikashfi is a former candidate for state Senate and chief of staff to state Rep. Francesca Hong.
