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City might add more landmarks

JAKE NAUGHTON/Herald photo

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Also by Taylor Cox:

Postal Service urges consumer vigilance (February 29, 2008)
Kumar: Cheapen tracking devices (February 25, 2008)
County airport aims for student travelers (February 1, 2008)

by Taylor Cox

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

The Madison Landmark Commission recommended Monday that the City Council grant landmark status to several buildings facing the state Capitol.

If passed, the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation’s proposal would preserve the 19th and early 20th century architectural style of three sites on the first block of North Pinckney Street. According to the Historic Preservation’s website, this block contains the only remaining group of landmark-worthy architecture on Capitol Square.

The Hobbins Block/Olson and Veerhusen building at 7 and 9 N. Pinckney St. are proposed to gain landmark status. The buildings currently house offices and Wait Chiropractic.

The Maeder Building/Ellsworth Block, which contains the Harvest restaurant and the Old Fashioned, are also up for nomination at 21 and 25 N. Pinckney St.

The Winterbotham building at 27 N. Pinckney St., home to L’Etoile and Café Soleil, will be considered as well.

“Landmarks celebrate a building that has some type of historical significance to history,” said Carolyn Freiwald, a member of the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation. “You can have a sticker or read about it in a book, but if you see the building itself, that is where people really feel a connection to the past.”

According to Freiwald, there is a great importance to preserve historic buildings.

“They house some of Madison’s most unique businesses,” Freiwald said. “In fact L’Etoile (opening in 1976) has actually become a national landmark, so these buildings really do a great job of housing and supporting Madison’s local business.”

Greg Murray, an opponent of the proposal for 7 and 9 N. Pinckney St., argued that the existing status of the building would be negatively affected if the building were to attain landmark status.

“The burden would highly outweigh the benefit of landmark status,” Murray said. “Only 25 percent of the original facade remains intact. The interior has been entirely remodeled and renovated, and the other 75 percent of the facade has no landmark significance whatsoever.”

Murray said the building is surrounded by non-historic facades and has lost the historic features and qualities necessary for landmark status.

Maintaining the small part of the building that is historic would make it increasingly difficult to maintain the non-historic majority of the building.

In order for a building to be considered for landmark status, the original architecture, owners and architects must be considered, according to the Historic Preservation’s website.

The percentage of original architecture each building has maintained was repeatedly mentioned during the discussion as reason to deny some of the North Pinckney Street buildings landmark status. But Katherine Rankin, member of the city staff on the landmark commission, said that percentage is not a criterion for becoming a landmark.

“Buildings really are the best representation of social history,” said Erica Fox Gehrig of the Madison Trust for Historic Preservations. “We don’t see them as a burden, and we hope they will be treated respectfully.”

The recommendations will be brought to the City Council for a final decision sometime next month.

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