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Grocery Store Project

Below are the remaining City Commission/Committee Dates:

As anyone following this project is aware, dates are subject to change.  We advise checking the following calendar to confirm dates, times or location changes http://legistar.cityofmadison.com/calendar/

Urban Design Commission:         February 15, 2012

4:30pm in Room 260

215 MLK Jr. Bldvd

Plan Commission Meeting            February 20, 2012

   (Public Hearing)

5:30pm in Room 201

210 MLK Jr. Blvd

Common Council Meeting             February 28, 2012

   (Public Hearing)

6:30pm in Room 201

210 MLK Jr. Blvd



For anyone wishing to participate in the process, the meetings are open to the public.  This is when residents can go on record as being in favor of or apposing the proposed development plan.  You would also have the option to speak at these meetings as well.  You can verify the time and locations of these meetings by visiting The City of Madison's calendar link: 

http://legistar.cityofmadison.com/calendar/

Primary Planning Division Staff Contacts are:

Michael Waidelich

email: mwaidelich@cityofmadison.com

Phone: 267-8735

Tim Parks

email: tparks@cityofmadison.com

Phone: 261-9632

Al Martin

email: amartin@cityofmadison.com

Phone: 267-8740

Veridian and developers have submitted their formal application to change zoning, neighborhood plan and comprehensive plan

Veridian Seeking Comprehensive Plan Amendment

Message from Alder Cnare (8/15/11)

Grocery Store Proposal Update
Not a hard date, but a foretelling of the future. Since the Plan Commission approved forwarding a proposal to change the comprehensive plan, and neighborhood plan and zoning for the Grandview Commons Town Center, the development team has been working with consultants and city staff, including a self-initiated meeting with some neighbors against the project in its thus-far incarnations to refine its submission package to include all the necessary elements to apply for all changes in one application, thereby giving neighbors and decision-makers a complete package to analyze.

Again, I have no firm date of submission, but stay tuned for one pretty soon. The process will be the usual one – review by Urban Design Committee, Plan Commission and the Common Council. The proposal may take a second turn through any of these, if the members decide they need more information to make a good decision. These are known as referrals. Neighborhood meetings will be part of the process, too. I will hold at least one large group one, but will ask the development team to be ready to conduct some smaller group ones, too, such as for a neighborhood association or board, or condo association.

While I asked to be not re-named to the Plan Commission specifically because of the gravity and tenor of this project and process, I will be at all the meetings where it appears. I hope you can attend, too, whatever your position.

(Apologies if some of you got this info. in another e-mail.)


Lauren Cnare
Alder, District 3
608-226-0987 (cell)
district3@cityofmadison.com (e-mail)




To Madison Neighborhood Associations:

This is an update and a reminder of two scheduled meetings next week related to the 2010-2011 Comprehensive Plan review and amendment process:

On Monday, May 16th, the Madison Plan Commission will accept a final list of potential Track 2 amendments to the City of Madison Comprehensive Plan for formal evaluation and consideration.  Track 2 consists of potential amendments to the Comprehensive Plan Generalized Future Land Use Plan Map that were requested by prospective developers or others to accommodate a specific proposed development or future land uses that would not be consistent with the recommendations in the current adopted plan.  Inclusion on the final list of accepted amendments does not necessarily indicate that the requested amendments will be supported by City staff, the Plan Commission or Common Council, but only that they will be evaluated and considered.  Most of the requested amendments would also require a corresponding amendment to the applicable neighborhood plan, and the planning process to develop specific Comprehensive Plan and Neighborhood Plan amendments for consideration and possible future adoption will include participation by the affected neighborhoods and Alders.

Nine Track 2 amendment requests have been submitted---six by the March 21 submittal deadline, and three after.  Locator map and summary information sheets for the Track 2 requested amendments are attached, for your information.  Copies of the Track 2 amendment request letters, comments received on the requested amendments, and additional information about the Comprehensive Plan review process and schedule are also available on the Comprehensive Plan website at:

www.cityofmadison.com/comprehensiveplan

On Tuesday, May 17th, the Madison Common Council will consider an ordinance to adopt the proposed Track 1 amendments to the City of Madison Comprehensive Plan.  Track 1 consists of amendments to the Comprehensive Plan Generalized Future Land Use Plan Map that either correct an error or omission in the adopted plan, or that were recommended in other City plans adopted or amended since January 2006.  Because the Track 1 amendments are based on previous planning approvals and followed a process that included public participation in developing the recommendations, they are being considered first and separately from the Track 2 amendments.  The Plan Commission recommended adoption of all the proposed Track 1 Comprehensive Plan amendments at their May 2, 2011, meeting.

A full description and locator maps of the proposed Track 1 amendments are available on the Comprehensive Plan website at: www.cityofmadison.com/comprehensiveplan

If you have any questions about the upcoming meetings or the Comprehensive Plan review and amendment process, please let me know.  Thank you.

Michael Waidelich

Principal Planner

Department of Planning & Community & Economic Development

Planning Division

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From Alder Cnare:3/23/2011

As you know, last week the development team (Veridian, Rollie Winter, Vandewalle) met with city planners (Murphy, Parks, Waidelich, Cover) and invited me and Alder Compton to attend a meeting with a new urbanist planner with expertise in retail to discuss the grocery store proposal. Robert Gibbs (for more click here: http://gibbsplanning.com/Contact_Information.html) came as a guest speaker and someone who has reviewed and re-worked the past proposals to talk about retail, anchors, grocery stores and show us successful areas of new urbanist retail. It was a fascinating discussion where we learned that national (large) and local (small) retail can happily co-exist because the large store acts as the draw for planned shopping and shoppers then learn of, try out, and shop at the nearby little shops. He even shared how the larger ad budget - number of ads and media placements - let the smaller stores ride on the large stores' coat tails because shoppers came for the advertised items and stayed to patronize the smaller shops.

He talked about the importance of the anchor and showed a couple cool examples where little stores wrapped around the back or side walls of a large store sort of disguising it with a new wrapper of cute local retail. He also showed pictures of dead areas and talked about what killed them. One reason was no anchor or no successful anchor. Another reason was the placement of the retail complex.

Then he tackled why today's grocery store is trending bigger and bigger. Part of the reason, he said,is the sheer variety of products we have available to us and have come to expect. There used to be Coke, Pepsi and ginger ale. Now it's, 5 flavors each of Coke and Pepsi, and 6 other flavors, plus the whole water, energy drink, bottled tea. He showed images of the small produce sections of the 1960s and compared them to today's bounty of everything year round in "regular" and organic. Whole and sliced; fresh and dried.

Then, we got a look at a printout of a new site plan that had a box for a 58,000 square foot grocery store, small buildings rearranged to break up and reduce the parking lot and a little green commons by the library site. I asked the city staff to critique the new plans and each one offered some praise, some criticism and some questions. It was very interesting to hear planners debate the merits of all the elements of a site, building placement and traffic patterns. We are in good hands in Madison with both experienced and innovative private and public professionals.

In a follow-up conversation with Steven Cover, the new planning director, he told me that the city's planners will be taking this on in a more proactive fashion to work with this knotty site, neighborhood plan, new urbanist design problem. I am very glad that this conversation, no matter how difficult is has been, is, and will be, continues. It allows everyone to keep working toward a solution with creativity, commitment and support of a process that has the possibility to become something most people can embrace. Unlike so much other political activity these days, many are still at this table. And that means progress toward some solution - or at least possibilities along the way to explore.

So, at a "back to the drawing board" stage it means there is no purpose to a charrette at this time or a neighborhood meeting at this time until we have something new to react to. Then, we take another loop through dialogue, comments and re-work.

The development team has submitted its letter to request a comprehensive plan amendment as I had e-mailed you all earlier. Per the recently approved process, the city expects "Phase 2" proposals like this to take a long time. No other steps have been taken.

Thanks to everyone who continues to engage in an open-minded way, conducting and sharing research, offering comments in a thoughtful way that considers other viewpoints and concerns, too.

I'll let you know when there is another milestone or event along the way,

Lauren Cnare
Alder, District 3
608-226-0987 (cell)

mailto:district3@cityofmadison.com (e-mail)