The city’s Board of Public Works considered the reconstruction and assessment of several student-occupied downtown areas in addition to the renovation of a Madison Police training center during a meeting Wednesday.
Board members said some of the reconstruction plans may directly affect University of Wisconsin students’ safety and living quality.
Areas involved in the plan include Spring Street and North Orchard Street, where a student apartment building known as the Humbucker and a number of fraternity houses are located.
Ald. Scott Resnick, District 8, said the reconstruction plan for Spring and Orchard Streets includes repaving the streets, adding lighting in mid-block areas, upgrading sanitary and storm sewers and improving parking conditions.
“Some of the water utilities there are actually from the 1890s, so this is the time for us to replace these, and we are very excited during this time to also get new pedestrian lighting,” he said.
Resnick added these new plans have been well received by both residents and students and the team has received great support from the public.
New assessment plans will also be carried out in District 4, which includes South Fairchild Street, West Doty Street and South Carroll Street. Plans for these streets also include new pedestrian lighting and sewer upgrades. The projects will start in March 2012.
The board also authorized an amendment to the contract between the City of Madison and Angus Young Associates to give an additional $101,300 to architectural and engineering design services for a remodeling of the Femrite Drive Madison Police Department Training Center.
MPD Training and Personnel Captain Susan Williams gave a City Engineering Department report on the construction plan of the center, which is currently undergoing initial phases of remodeling.
According to Williams, the new model of the training center includes a new auditorium, new classrooms, a computer lab and a new fitness training room.
“The new auditorium will have some complexity, somewhat of a theatre design,” Williams said.
She added the auditorium’s new features include a movable wall for efficient use of space.
Board members also approved a motion to create a residential water service connection and to update both the well operation permit and well abandonment procedures and requirements.
Joseph Grande, water quality manager from Madison Water Utility, said the major change would be increasing the monthly fee from $100 to $200.
“These are state requirements that we enforce,” Grande said. “If you have a well, you have to follow standards if you don’t want to create the potential situation that harms the neighborhood. People who are using the water for irrigation purposes also have to meet those requirements.”
Another item on the agenda was to authorize the mayor and city clerk to execute a purchase order agreement with the UW College of Engineering to complete a lake response model for Lake Wingra.
A representative from City Engineering said the department would work with professor Chin Wu of the UW Civil & Environmental Engineering Department to carry out the study and complete the model.
He said the model would determine the lake responses to differing inputs and conditions such as carp, wave, wind and phosphorous inputs. The cost of this study would be $90,052 over a two-year period.
