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Gaps in Madison

Last week, the incredible work of volunteers and town employees saved downtown Madison from becoming a gaping hole. Fire erased part of our “Main Street” facade that combines storefronts into a wall of building.

That fire widened a gap, just like the Jolly’s Drug store fire of the 1980’s. What came after that fire—RJ Julia’s and Willoughby’s et al turned destruction into revival as the loss became an opportunity for reinvention.

We have several other looming gaps on Boston Post Road. The General’s Residence and two other antiques are victims of an economy that does not always encourage speculation, so these buildings’ owners await opportunity to come to them, but all three buildings are in slow motion demolition—and need a different type of volunteer effort to prevent another set of gaps to force the issue. Just like proactive prevention saved everything around Village Pizza and the Madison Wine Shop, I think we need to find a way to encourage investment in properties that will, sooner or later, be naked earth—just like the site of the downtown fire.

My office helped fill in such at gap at 90 Wall Street—a complex that increases the tax base and will bring 70 new employees to downtown. That process was facilitated by Madison’s Planning & Zoning wing of paid staff and volunteers, working to create opportunity in the wake of another fire. But that effort had brave investors. With three empty homes close to collapse, we can either say “Whatever” and go about our business, or we can create ways to enhance the value of antique restoration in downtown Madison.

One bad apple might not spoil the whole bunch, but three eyesores can devalue a downtown, no matter how nice the sidewalks are. Madison has invested many volunteer hours and town employee costs to receive almost $2 million in STEAP funding for new sidewalks, trees, and power relocation in downtown Madison, I think we now need to save the cascading structures we see imploding in plain sight.

I think we need to expand beyond the street-scaping activities that are about to launch and stabilize the architecture those improvements serve. This means the same spirit that kept downtown whole should be applied to these at-risk buildings—once again using volunteers and town employees working with urgency to prevent disaster, even if it in slow motion.

Duo Dickinson is a nationally known architect and author with a practice in downtown Madison.