Visually compatible? The proposed new Edgewater tower would dwarf the already quite large black National Guardian and Life building on the left. Precedence matters and every exception made will eat away at the Mansion Hill historic district.

1. The mayor believes we should invest $16Million in public subsidy for a luxury hotel development to create temporary construction jobs and low paying hotel jobs because we are (according to his blog) in the "midst of the deepest recession since the Great Depression, " That may be true for the country as a whole, but here in Madison, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (Oct. 2009), Madison has the 23rd lowest unemployment rate out of 372 city rankings, at 5.5% . The national average is 9.5%. So, we aren't hurting here in Madison as much as some would like us to believe. Shouldn't we be making better investment choices that bring long term and better paying jobs? Hint: East Washington Avenue is the gateway to our city, yet it is starting to resemble an industrial ghost town. The East Washington BUILD plan is in place, just waiting for a jump start a public subsidy could give.

2. Do city processes make it difficult to build in Madison? From the April 2009 Isthmus: "I would say the city has done a 180-degree turnaround in the last four to five months," says Bertler, the president of Supreme Structures, a local development firm that builds commercial and residential structures. He thinks Madison officials are suddenly much easier to work with when it comes to approving building projects."

3. Can the owners of Edgewater claim economic hardship? One could get the impression from the public discourse that the Edgewater hotel is run down and in need of public assistance to fix her up again. Do the owners of the Edgewater understand the need for timely reinvestment? Internet travel giant TripAdvisor.com, lists 59 hotels in Madison rated by their travel members.

How downtown hotels rank based on Tripadvisor's traveler feedback on 59 hotels:
Concourse Hotel - #4 of 59
Doubletree - #5 of 59
Hilton - #20 of 59 (They're new, so, what they hell are they doing wrong...)
Edgewater - #41 of 59
Inn on the Park - #45 of 59

The theme seems to be that new or remodeled hotels get better reviews: "Concourse completes $3.5Million in remodeling" WSJ, Feb. 2009, and "$3 million investment in new Doubletree" WSJ April 2005. Should Madison tax payers bail out the Edgewater through massive TIF public subsidies so that she can get fixed up too? Is that fair to the Concourse or Doubletree who invested heavily in remodeling with their own money? Should we be bailing out Inn on the Park too? Oh, and National Guardian Life, with $2Billion in assets, owns 29% of the Edgewater. Do they really need a public subsidy before they invest in a remodel of their property?

4. Madison recently commissioned a downtown hotel feasability study. It was adopted by the Madison Common Council on March 17,2009. The main recommendation is for a large hotel (400 rooms) within walking distance of Monona Terrace -1200 feet (Inn on the Park is just barely within that range, Concourse is not and Edgewater is definitely not.) Monona Terrace, it was discovered, is losing millions of dollars in lost conventions because there are not enough quality rooms withing walking distance. "The new study estimates that since 2001, the city lost 81,000 attendees with an economic impact of $50 million due insufficient hotel space near Monona Terrace," WSJ, March 2009. Just asking, but why did we pay for this study and then ignore it? "The city's top priority should be supporting Monona Terrace, said Deb Archer, president of the Greater Madison Visitor and Convention Bureau," WSJ, July 2009. . Marcus corp., owner of the Hilton, was working on a just such a hotel plan earlier this year. That proposal has seems to have disappeared over TIF controversy. Lack of mayoral support maybe? Perhaps Marcus Corp. needs to read the Hammes playbook.

5. What's in it for the public? There seems to be widespread excitement about public access at a remodeled Edgewater. Most people don't realize that the roof deck will be private property, closed at will by the hotel for special events: "the Hammes Co. ensures "continuous access" for the public at all times to the grand staircase and lakefront, but it also states that special events with more than 250 people may require limiting access to the rooftop plaza at times. In an interview, Hammes President Bob Dunn compared it to the city-owned Monona Terrace convention center, which is also closed for private events at times" Cap. Times, Sept. 2009 .

6. Does the public really support $16Million in TIF subsidy? Oddly, here is what Alder Michael Schumacher (the alder bringing this back to the council) said about TIF and Edgewater back in September: "Ald. Michael Schumacher says he would have a hard time justifying a vote for $16 million in TIF for a single project, particularly when the majority of funds go toward amenities the Hammes Co. likely needs to include to garner any attention from city committees.

"It's kind of hilarious," he says. "If they don't create the public space that they claim that they will, the public access and the public roof, I don't think they would make it through any committees. But then they're saying to us that we have to pay for it?" Cap. Times, Sept. 2009 .

Is this the way to do business -- trample our historic preservation ordinance in order to string Hammes along and then kill the project later over TIF? That really is bad form.

Our city leaders seem incapable to heed their own advice WSJ, July 2009 :

"TIF requests, Bruer added, are coming "at the worst possible time" as the city braces for a tight budget and tries to focus on basic services and neighborhoods. "

-AND-

"We need to think about the long-term interests of the city - jobs, urban vibrancy, and the collateral development that will happen," Cieslewicz said," .

Last updated 30 December 2009.