[media-credit name=’Jen Small | The Badger Herald’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]

A city committee heard arguments concerning its conditions for approval on a developer’s application to rezone and demolish the Stadium Bar at a meeting Monday.

The Plan Commission meeting addressed areas of concern that will impact the construction of the planned six-story apartment and retail complex on the 1419 Monroe St. property, which is adjacent to Camp Randall.

In December, Stadium Bar’s owner Dan McCarty told The Badger Herald that he “reached a contractual agreement” to sell the property to Opus Development Company.
At the Plan Commission meeting, discussion focused on three issues important to the proposal: apartment layout, parking availability and public safety.

Ald. Marsha Rummel, District 6, inquired why 28 percent of planned bedrooms lacked any exterior windows. Tonya Hamilton-Nisbet, a Plan Commission member, echoed this concern, despite layout modifications Opus has made to market the interior bedrooms.

“A windowless bedroom gets very small very quickly,” she said. “I just question if you’re going to have people who would be in this facility believing that a windowless bedroom is going to be positive to them.”

Discussion of parking focused on the Plan Commission’s condition that requires a portion of parking spaces be reserved for use by businesses. Jerad Protaskey, a representative from Opus Development Company, said parking was available in the Union South and Engineering Building parking garages, which is why he thought this mandate was unnecessary.

Additionally, Protaskey said most students travel by foot, bike and moped, which the building’s design has accommodated by installing extra racks.

Ald. Shiva Bidar-Sielaff, District 5, agreed Opus had accommodated foot traffic, but disagreed that depending on street parking or UW parking lots was a solution.

“I would not count on those [parking lots] to be available at all at any of the time … even in the evening and the number of events and activities that happen in that area,” she said.

After exploring ways to modify this requirement, the commission ultimately decided to keep it as originally written.

Capt. Steven Rogers of the University of Wisconsin Police Department described his qualms about the construction plans, particularly the parking lot the proposed building would share with the police station. He said he fears that residents might illegally park in the station’s parking lot or make it harder for squad cars to easily dispatch. 

Rogers also said he feared new arrestees, which are processed in the station, might flee to the proposed apartment complex in escape attempts, thereby jeopardizing the safety of future residents.

Plan Commission member Michael Heifetz took an alternative view, pointing out that intoxicated Badger fans frequenting the Stadium Bar probably represent a greater threat to public safety than any of the problems raised by a new apartment complex.

“I am respectful of the UWPD concerns, but I agree … that they do not rise to a level of referral,” he said. “Eliminating 2,400 people – most of whom have been drinking – does eliminate a number of problems that we have seen at this body as well as other bodies in city government … I have spent time in that establishment. But I won’t mourn that it’s gone.”

Now that the Plan Commission has given its approval, Opus’ proposal will be forwarded to the City Council for deliberation on April 16.