Erdman nomination will get a public hearing

The Madison Landmarks Commission, yesterday, moved the nomination to the next step in the process after testimony from several registrants, and nearly an hour of anguished discussion about the process that brought the nomination to this point, whether to forward the nomination in the face of a development proposal and owner opposition, and the letter of the Landmarks Ordinance.

Amy Kinast, who prepared the nomination, argued passionately for the preservation of the building based on its association with Marshall Erdman, Modernist architect William Kaeser and Frank Lloyd Wright. Members of the development team testified that the nomination has come too late, and to forward the nomination at this point would add costs to their process. Designating the building a Madison Landmark, they said, would burden the project to the point where developers and investors would pull out.

The discussion among the commissioners centered on whether they ought to act on the letter of the law by simply assessing the nomination’s merits and forwarding it to the public hearing phase, or act in the broader context of the development approval process. Discussion of the latter option centered on the likelihood of the Common Council to approve or deny final approval of the nomination. Two precedents were raised – the Rennebohm Building on University Ave., demolished in 2007 for the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, and the Woman’s Building on Gilman St. (now Samba Brazilian Grill). The Rennebohm case was substantially similar to the Erdman situation in that a major development had been proposed before the Landmark nomination was submitted. The Landmarks Commission, after pained discussion, decided not to forward that nomination, knowing full well that the owner (UW) would eventually request a demolition permit, and very likely get it. The Woman’s Building had been proposed for a facadectomy, and a new apartment tower attached to the rear.  That nomination was forwarded and eventually OK’d by the Council because of its exceptional significance to Madison’s Progressive-Era history.

The Madison Trust testified in support of moving the Erdman nomination forward.  The public hearing will take place in September.

Our comments to the commission are below.

The Erdman office and shop building appears to be eligible for Landmark status under the criteria of the Landmarks Ordinance at 33.19(4)(a)1 and 2. Marshall Erdman & Associates had a dramatic impact on Madison’s post-war development.  The company was a prominent, prolific and successful local contributor to the rapid post-war expansion of residential subdivisions on Madison’s west side, and it was a company that demonstrated a commitment to high quality and low-cost homes for their Madison neighbors.  The company’s legacy is prevalent throughout the city in the more-than-150 pre-fabricated homes the company built in our post-war subdivisions, the Unitarian Meeting House, the prototype of the Doctor’s Park in Shorewood Hills that the company successfully marketed nationwide, and Middleton Hills, the area’s first neighborhood to adopt New Urbanist principles.

The property at 5117 University Ave. is the location where the innovations and the progress of the Erdman company took place. It is not a pretty cluster of buildings, but, like Aldo Leopold’s chicken coop where he wrote A Sand County Almanac, the office and shop complex illustrate the practical, nuts-and-bolts operation of the company rather than the product of the company and its innovation. It is where the innovation and adaptation of the Erdman company took place. In that sense it is uniquely qualified to convey the production and adaptation of the company.

We fully support the right of Amy Kinast, as a resident of Madison, to submit a nomination for the property. We fully support the contention of the nomination that the property is eligible under the criteria.

We feel that the timing of the nomination is unfortunate and has led to a potentially contentious discussion about whether the property should be designated a Landmark. The poor timing, however, does not diminish the property’s significance and eligibility under the Landmarks Ordinance.
We feel strongly that the contentious nature of this nomination, coming as it does in conjunction with a development proposal for the property, should not be interpreted as a shortcoming of the Landmarks Ordinance, or of the Landmarks Commission. This situation, and recent ones like it, come about because Madison does not have planning tools that identify potentially historically significant properties throughout the city. Such surveys would essentially flag potentially significant properties immediately so that property developers and city staff would be aware of them before the design process goes too far. Existing surveys of historic properties are concentrated on the  downtown area and on pre-WWII properties. The entire body of post-war development (65 years) is completely unsurveyed (we commend the Commission for undertaking the survey scheduled for a few west side neighborhoods later this year). But beyond that, the dearth of information leads regularly to situations like this one where historically significant properties sit unnoticed until a development proposal is submitted.

Category: Executive Director's Blog, Madison Landmarks Commission