Developments Flourish in the Madison, WI, Region

Tom Hannes

Development is a mainstay in the Madison, WI, Region and for good reason – it is the fuel of fresh ideas in the form of housing, civic spaces, attractions, venues and businesses. Yet, in many communities within the region, building new isn’t always building better, and history is important. For places like these, using existing, vacant and under utilized spaces for new ideas is an advantageous way to take on development and growth. 

The Collective 

When the Greater Watertown Community Health Foundation saw a community need for more child care, housing and nonprofit support, it decided to create a space for all three. 

The Collective, a building and 80+ acre live-work-play neighborhood along the Rock River, isn’t just a space to address community needs. It’s a development in the Madison, WI, Region that is bringing life back to the former site of the Bethesda Corporate Center. And The Collective wasn’t kidding about supporting nonprofits; Bethesda is still located on the site as one of the multiple nonprofit partners utilizing space in The Collective. 

In terms of housing, Sara Stinski, the foundation’s communications strategist, says that they are referring to it as “workforce affordable housing.” She says that the foundation is working to create housing types that more people are seeking nowadays – smaller single-family homes, condos, duplexes and apartments. 

While the initial Collective building is now open – featuring an entire second floor dedicated to serving children, a home for six nonprofit organizations and coworking space – the foundation is looking forward to moving ahead with its housing plans and the new YMCA headquarters set to be located at the site. 

While awaiting groundbreaking for the headquarters, the YMCA has opened a new Child Care and Early Education Center and a satellite Express YMCA at The Collective. 

“To our organization, The Collective is much more than just a building,” Stinski says. “It’s really an investment in our community.” 

ARISENow 

Further down along the Rock River, the Janesville community is working to activate and revitalize its downtown area. 

To reach that goal, ARISENow was created several years ago as a private-public partnership to strengthen and implement the ARISE strategy, a vision and implementation approach for downtown’s future that also preserves its history and authenticity. 

To date, the plan has accomplished revitalization goals ranging from streetscape enhancements to the development of a Madison, WI, Region pedestrian bridge and a “festival street” that brought new events to downtown. 

In activating the downtown area, ARISE isn’t just focused on the new. In fact, one of the strategy’s four main goals is to “preserve the historical character and authenticity of the downtown.” 

For example, Janesville has some of the best examples of Victorian storefronts in Wisconsin, says Mick Gilbertson, ARISENow committee co-chair. 

Now, there is a design guideline for how building owners should treat these storefronts to preserve them, and each year roughly $15,000 in facade grants are made available to help maintain the character of downtown buildings. 

Children’s Museum of Rock County 

One upcoming project working to support the ARISE strategy’s goals is the Children’s Museum of Rock County, a development in the Madison, WI, Region that will take the site of a former bank building in Janesville, which has sat empty for several years. 

The site is a historic piece of downtown Janesville. According to Claire Gray, Forward Janesville’s director of policy and strategic initiatives, the building was constructed in the early 1900s and served as a home for various central lending institutions that helped build Janesville’s business community. 

In creating the museum at this location, the organizations involved hope to preserve the building’s history while creating a new, safe and fun attraction in the downtown area for families and visitors alike. 

The target opening date is spring or summer 2025, at which time the 20,000- to 25,000-square-foot facility is planned to feature a two-story climber in the historic atrium, a water room, an early learning space and a flexible makerspace, among various smaller galleries. 

“From a development standpoint, this has a great potential to drive visitors to the downtown and utilizes an iconic landmark to the city,” Gilbertson says. 

Strang 

If they haven’t heard of Strang, it’s likely that every Madison Region resident has at least been inside of a Strang building. From science and tech headquarters to schools, Strang is no stranger to changing architectural needs. That’s one reason it’s been in business for almost 90 years.

“Think of the term ‘best practices.’ Internally, we talk about ‘next practices,’” says Peter Tan, executive vice president and chief design officer at Strang. “Over the years, we’ve just grown in our scope. … We’ve been able to keep up with the evolution of the architectural and building industry. We reinvented ourselves many times while staying true to our mission: creating places where people prosper.” 

Strang, an architecture, engineering, interior design and planning firm established in 1935, has kept up with changing times. In 1964, after adding engineering to its repertoire, Strang designed the nation’s first academic computer facility at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, a building that still exists today. Later, it developed and established expertise in performing arts, and has since designed the Gebhardt mixed-use building. This development in the Madison, WI, Region features The Sylvee, a 2,500-person music venue. 

Now, the company continues to look for innovative new projects. It recently did work on a new Madison facility for European-based food, environment and pharma product testing company Eurofins. The building is one of the company’s largest facilities in North America. 

The firm is currently working on another facility for the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras, a building that Tan says will be inspired by the form of a cello. Also on the horizon is a headquarters building for Stoughton Trailers. 

Yet, with each new project, Tan says, Strang holds tight to the idea that “every building has a responsibility to the public realm because we affect the quality of life.”