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The Central
Park idea is about more than just parks and open space. It
is about how parks and open space enhance the quality of the
urban fabric in Madison. This means that a number of different
urban development issues are addressed by the Urban Open Space
Foundation and the Central Park project:
The new Central Park will be a trigger
for a burst of “smart growth.” The revitalization
of this area, using sustainable development principles, would
reduce the consumption of undeveloped land on the urban fringe.
Under new land-use recommendations, about 25 acres of land
in the East Rail Corridor will be devoted to housing, much
of it fronting onto the Central Park. At recommended
densities of 25 to 60 units per acre, these areas could provide
from 600 to 1500 new in-fill
residences. People living in this unique setting could enjoy
the best of urban living: walking or bicycling to work or
cultural events.
Similarly, buildings along the south
side of East Main Street would suddenly have a park in their
backyard, a fact that will ignite new commercial activity
there. With structured parking facilities, surface parking
lots common in the area could be transformed into quiet, clean,
high-tech enterprises and offices; a number of new businesses
have already located in the area, and solid efforts are underway
by both the public and private sectors to attract more.
There are active and vital enterprises
in the area, providing important jobs in a setting where people
can walk to work; the interests of these businesses need to
be accommodated in a win-win manner. A park and economic activity,
far from being competing uses, would in fact have a synergy
that makes each better.
And we hope to encourage and facilitate
MG&E’s goals of both “densifying”
development in the East Rail Corridor and providing energy
to nearby businesses through innovative and environmentally
sensitive “co-generation” technology.
The East Rail Corridor benefits from
the real estate industry’s most basic market analysis
consideration: Location, location, location. It sits next
to Capitol Square, between two thriving residential neighborhoods, on
a US highway, with easy access to the airport. It is also
the only under-developed area remaining in the entire center
city of Madison.
Keeping in mind that the East Rail Corridor
sits on prime real estate, firms look for two basic things
when they make “locational decisions”: good infrastructure
and cheap land.
The infrastructure in the East Rail
Corridor is very good for certain things, and not as good
for others. The East Rail Corridor is well connected for freight
rail, but the sort of firms that need rail – heavy industry
and warehousing – may choose not to locate in the East
Rail Corridor because in the twenty-first century,
transportation networks no longer converge on downtown, so
such firms don’t need to be centrally located.
Such firms will likely in places with better Interstate highway access. The East Rail Corridor
is three miles from the nearest Interstate, on busy US
151 (East Washington Avenue). Cheap land is also easier to
find in the suburbs. The large floor areas (“footprints”)
required by modern heavy manufacturing or warehousing would
be impossible in the heart of the city, in the East Rail Corridor.
In short, manufacturing and large-scale warehousing firms are not apt
to move into the East Rail Corridor.
The East Rail Corridor also has excellent
power and fiber-optic connectivity, meaning that it is extremely
well-suited to for IT, biotech, or media-based “new economy”
firms. The most successful recent developments in the East
Rail Corridor – Don Warren’s silver and blue loft
buildings on Paterson, Common Wealth’s Main Street Industries
in the old Greyhound Station on Brearly, and MG&E and
Common Wealth’s Enterprise Center on Baldwin – have
attracted these types of firms.
Firms involved in IT and biotech, light
manufacturing, design and media, and other related activities
tend to be less land-intensive than factories and warehousers.
They are also the kind of firms that like to be in the center
of urban life. And they tend to respond most strongly to amenities
such as parks, and to stay in the area as a result (why move
to a green “corporate campus” in the suburbs when
you already have a park next door?).
Furthermore, such forms attract an
array of ancillary light-industrial and production firms,
including printing companies, food-processing, repair and
maintenance, and construction.
Also, one of the great benefits of a
concentration of information-based firms is “agglomeration
economies,” or “information spillovers.” That
is, a firm that requires creativity and smarts that locates
near another firm that requires creativity and smarts will
get better productivity out of its workers, because they will
be interacting with and challenged by their neighbors and
competitors. Also, one specialized provider of products or
services can lower its costs by serve a group of nearby businesses
in a high-tech cluster. These benefits tend not to be realized
in office settings, but in unprogrammed meeting places: cafes,
restaurants, bars, and parks.
Finally, there is the question of what
happens to the businesses that are already in the East Rail
Corridor: UOSF is committed to defending the interests of
those businesses, many of whom have historic ties to the area,
and all of whom invested in the economic health of the East
Rail Corridor long before this planning process began. They
are essential, because they are the ones that keep the
employment base diverse.
As to those few businesses that are
actually located on land that is planned to become part of the
Central Park, UOSF only supports willing buyer-willing seller
arrangements; only when we have arrived at a deal that
satisfies all parties do we buy land.
Parks and housing are the perfect compliments.
Parks make residential areas more desirable, and residences
make parks safer and more lively.
Furthermore, residential uses facing
north, over the Central Park, could be built at higher densities
than what currently exists along Willy Street and in the Marquette
neighborhood, creating more intensity of use along the park
without changing the character of the existing built environment.
Higher density housing on the Isthmus also serves to counteract
the forces of sprawl.
Filling in the housing gap on the north
side of Willy Street will also provide that many more customers
for Willy Street and other area merchants. To date, Willy
Street has come a long way in becoming a viable and lively
place to do business. But it is a commercial street with housing
on only one side, and as such, its merchants will continue
to face challenges. Willy Street’s market is limited.
Successful neighborhood commercial corridors such as Monroe
Street tend to have dense residential development on both
sides of the street.
Affordable and mixed-income housing
are increasingly at the center of discussions of how best
to redevelop the East Rail Corridor. The land-use plan that
has approved by the Common Council in March 2002 recommends about 25 acres be devoted
to residential uses, and that at least 15 percent of new development
be affordable. Possible strategies include market-based (“cost-shift”)
solutions, inclusionary zoning, tax increment financing (TIF),
numerous federal subsidy programs, and other ideas.
There have also been discussions of
how to maintain affordability in existing residential areas
near the Central Park corridor, especially at the eastern
end of the Willy St. area. Ideas for accomplishing this include
down-zoning the area (capping density to make new development
less attractive), or creating a historic district overlay
that would preserve existing housing stock.
Working with Common Wealth
Development, the Marquette Neighborhood Association, and the
Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center,
the Urban Open Space Foundation is in the process of assisting
with concrete strategies to ensure that the new housing development
along a Central Park will include both owner-occupied and
rental, market-rate and assisted. We are committed to guaranteeing
that the housing around the new park will be available to
the full spectrum of Madison’s population.
This corridor has a long history as
a rail and industrial district. Likely contaminants include foundry sands (which contain heavy
metals), creosote, fuels and other petrochemicals, and other
materials.
Remediation, however, is very feasible.
The Urban Open Space Foundation is working with the DNR,
environmental engineering firms, and legal specialists, to
ensure that future uses are safe from dangerous chemicals. The
portion of the three-acre parcel
that the Urban Open Space Foundation purchased in 2000 that
is home to the Willy St. Co-op's East Side Farmer's Market has
already been fully remediated to DNR standards.
In order for any vision of the Central
Park to be realized, one prerequisite is the consolidation
of the rail tracks. Currently, tracks run on both the north
and south edges of the proposed park. These must be consolidated
onto an expanded right-of-way along the north edge of the
park corridor. Implementing this plan is also essential for
planning and engineering work for high-speed intercity service
to proceed, because service to Madison’s downtown station
(which will either be at the Kohl Center or Monona Terrace)
will run alongside the park.
The Mayor's office has requested that the Urban
Open Space Foundation take the lead on facilitating the rail
realignment process. In December 2001, we brought together
representatives from the neighborhood, city, state, MG&E,
and the local freight-rail operator (Wisconsin & Southern
Railroad), as well as engineering and operations consultants.
The result of this meeting was a renewed consensus that moving
the rails is politically and operationally feasible. And new
timeline was established for survey and engineering work to
begin.
The Central Park planning process is
also working with the city to integrate park planning with
pedestrian, bicycle, motor vehicle, and proposed commuter
rail transportation patterns.
Recognizing the critical location of
this park between Madison’s treasured lakes, the park
will have a water feature envisioned as a sophisticated storm-water
management tool, reducing runoff rate and volume and maximizing
groundwater recharge. Public input has strongly favored a
system of water management that is visible in the park –
including swales, streams, small wet-prairie restorations,
and similar design ideas.
Working closely with the DNR and UW landscape
architects and hydrologists, the Urban Open Space Foundation
is exploring strategies to use open space and park design
as a means to improve water quality in Madison’s lakes
and to improve stormwater drainage over the Isthmus. We are
also exploring strategies that would encourage the use of
green design principles in the built environment around the
Central Park, improving environmental quality there as well.
Following conversations with both the
Overture Foundation and the People’s Arts District, we
are encouraged by the vitality of the varied, vibrant, and
growing arts community in Madison and aware of its needs for
space beyond what is already being built.
The public spoken strongly in favor
of an outdoor performance venue that could accommodate neighborhood
theater groups, performances from local school arts-groups,
and spontaneous performances and public gatherings.
The East Rail Corridor – especially along Main St. –
is one of the very few concentrations of old warehouse and
industrial buildings in Madison’s central city. These
types of urban districts have proven time after time to be
the premier location for artists, artisans, and community
theater (SoHo, TriBeCa, Williamsburg, the Meat Packing District,
and DUMBO in New York, LoDo in Denver, SoMa in San Francisco,
the Third Ward in Milwaukee, etc.). The Urban Open Space Foundation
is committed to identifying ways to assist in the creation
of artists’ lofts, studios, incubators, and live-work
spaces in the East Rail Corridor.
Many other mid-size cities with industrial
histories have sites with similar qualities: underused or
abandoned rail yards built in low-lying, wet areas in close
proximity to downtown.
- In Denver’s Central Platte Valley,
the new 30-acre Commons Park is serving as a development
engine for housing and businesses in the abandoned rail
and industrial zone adjacent to Lower Downtown (“LoDo”).
- In Santa Fe, development on the city-owned
South Railyard near downtown will include the 10-acre Acequia
Park as a spur to, and amenity for, new development.
- Along the Los Angeles River, a reclaimed
railyard called “the Cornfields” will encourage
new development in the industrial area and in nearby Chinatown.
- And in Milwaukee’s Menomonee
Valley, an ambitious plan to revitalize a derelict swath
west of downtown will include open space and a park corridor
as vital components.
Fort Worth, San Bernardino, Kenosha,
and many other cities are undertaking similar economic revitalization
plans involving open space.
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