Many options still on table over new downtown library

Samara Kalk Derby  —  10/31/2008 5:18 am

Madison's new Central Library should be a stand-alone building with architectural significance, and only part of a multi-story, mixed-use building if the economic climate demands it.

That was the consensus of many downtown residents and other library users who attended a forum Wednesday night to discuss the future of the Central Library.

"Why can't we dream big and build something really fantastic?" wondered Dory Christensen, who lives nearby in the Metropolitan Place condominiums.

Christensen said she would prefer a free-standing building to a mixed-use development, adding, "we might as well go all the way."

She noted that Metropolitan Place hasn't been successful in attracting commercial tenants and questioned the need for more office and retail space downtown.

Last spring, local developer Terrence Wall proposed tearing down the outdated library, 201 W. Mifflin St., and replacing it with a nine-story, $45 million glass and stone structure with ground-floor retail, a three-story library and private offices above it. Wall would pay the city about $3.5 million for the land.

Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has made the new library a priority by including $1.7 million for the central library in his capital budget for 2009, with $28.3 million more in 2010 and costs split between the public and private sectors.

About 30 people gathered at the Capitol Lakes Retirement Center on West Main Street for the discussion sponsored by Capitol Neighborhoods. The audience heard from Library Director Barb Dimick, and Jeffery Scherer, an architect with Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle in Minneapolis, who has worked with libraries for more than 25 years and is currently consulting with several communities about building new central libraries.

Michele Besant, a librarian at the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the idea of the central library as a public space, a civic space or a so-called "a third space," should be taken into consideration.

"We have excellent library services but we don't have a great library," Besant said. "That's never made sense to me."

Downtown resident Michael Bridgeman said a stand-alone iconic building is important.

"I, for one, would be very disappointed if we didn't build something of symbolic value," he said. "Something of distinction that represents the community."

Bridgeman said that he hopes that 50 years from now people respect what the city decided to do with its library.

Attorney Scott Herrick said that when he came to Madison 40 years ago, before he had an apartment, he got a library card and joined the downtown YMCA.

Herrick didn't discount the possibility of a mixed-use project, noting that it would be a great amenity to have an office in a building with a library. Because of the proximity between his office and the downtown library, he makes frequent visits, he said.

"I've been in and out of the Madison Public Library tens of thousands of times," Herrick said.

Other than the State Capitol, Madison doesn't have a "great" building, he said, referencing the Monona Terrace and Overture Center.

"This Athens of Dane County" doesn't have great architecture, but it does have "a great library system that functions for me superbly," Herrick said. "In making upcoming decisions we shouldn't develop an edifice complex."

The central library opened in 1965. It has about 98,000 square feet on four floors, two of which are below ground.

Dimick said there are 38,000 people in the downtown isthmus and 29,000, or 78 percent, have library cards.

The Madison Public Library Board has prepared a request for proposals for the purchase and redevelopment of the central library for a new library building. The deadline for developers to get their RFPs in is Nov. 21. The city council is scheduled to approve a developer in January.

Downtown Ald. Mike Verveer said that he has not been a big fan of the mixed-use idea, but is keeping an open mind. "I'm a healthy skeptic of this," he said.

Verveer called the city of Madison a "hyper democracy" and said there would be plenty of opportunity for future input. The City Council has only taken a couple of votes on the issue, he said.

"In no way, shape or form is this a done deal," he said.

Samara Kalk Derby  —  10/31/2008 5:18 am