As a Plan Commission member, I got a couple of e-mails on the Marcus Theater
project following today's Cap Times story, so I thought I'd post my thoughts.
I voted against the rezoning, along with one other Plan Commission member, Beth
Whittaker. I think the proposal is lacking in several respects, not directly
related to the bike path bridge -- the Cap Times article overstates that issue,
I think, since there are bike paths and lanes throughout the project that
connect in a decent way to surrounding facilities. Here are my objections:
1. This is an area envisioned for transit oriented development in the comp plan
and is right next to the Northeast Neighborhoods, which the city hopes to
develop as with low car dependence.
2. However, the developer made no real effort to work with Metro to provide
transit. On-demand shuttles buses to the nearest scheduled stop would be a
low-budget item, and would benefit the low-paid, part-time workers the
theater/bowling alley/restaurant will employ, as well as some patrons, and
would lessen the need for the acres of free parking Marcus envisions.
3. The parking lot exceeds Madison zoning minimums by several hundred spots, in
what is supposed to be TOD.
4. The theater and parking will go in before the "main street" part, which was
the New Urbanist appeal for some. There's not guarantee that main street will
ever be built, and even if it is, it's a pretty weak New Urbanist approach, but
more of a prettyfied strip mall. The whole thing represents only a slight
improvement from the off-the-shelf 1970s style of auto-dominated developement.
Assuming council goes along with the rezoning -- a safe bet given that the
alders on the commission and two others who weighed in from the audience were
in favor -- we will have another crack at the project when Marcus seeks
approval for its specific design. I will push them again on the parking/transit
issue, but I wasn't getting much traction on that last night. It would be great
to have some folks show up and reinforce the message. This will probably be in
about a month. Marcus wants to open by the end of 2009.
Eric
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