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Madison has approved another big change for a main gateway to the state Capitol, replacing nine vintage houses on the 500 block of West Washington Avenue with a six-story housing project.
But due to the economy, the project will be delayed for a year.
On Monday, the city’s Plan Commission unanimously approved a proposal from Virtue LLC to demolish the nine buildings used for student housing between 519 and 547 W. Washington Ave. for the W-shaped, six-story building with 140 apartments and 168 underground parking spaces.
But due to rising interest rates and construction costs, Virtue intends to renew rental leases for another year before moving forward with the redevelopment in the fall of 2023, said Jim Stopple, one of the owners. Most of the housing projects now under construction locked in loans and construction bids before costs surged, he said.
“I would much rather start this fall,” he said. “It just seems prudent to hold off.”
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The City Council member representing the site and the director of the city Planning Division can extend the project approval for up to 24 months without further Plan Commission action.
The buildings have been student housing for a long time, but the new development will likely attract some students and many young professionals who want to live in the Downtown area but not in the most bustling areas like Capitol Square or State Street, Stopple said. Many students are shifting from neighborhoods to the high-rises going up closer to UW-Madison, he said.
Downtown Ald. Mike Verveer, 4th District, said he laments the loss of lower-cost housing — and the lack of lower-cost apartments in the redevelopment — but supports the project because it will bring much-needed housing to the area.
“We need the additional density, specifically in the Downtown,” he said. “We just don’t have the stock to meet the demand.”

A rendering of Virtue LLC’s six-story housing project along the 500 block of West Washington Avenue.
Verveer said he isn’t sure if the delay in construction is due to extreme caution or a sign of things to come. “This might be the beginning of some developers holding off because of the economy,” he said.
Mifflandia realized
The project is another early test of the city’s new neighborhood plan and zoning for the corridor of two- and three-story houses — converted to student dwellings long ago — that tie together the Bassett and Mifflin neighborhoods that meet along the 400 and 500 blocks of West Washington Avenue.
The city’s 2012 Downtown Plan singled out the area between West Dayton and West Main streets and North and South Bedford and Broom streets — playfully dubbed “Mifflandia” — as a place meriting special attention and a separate process for a detailed development concept plan, design standards and implementation strategy. The City Council adopted the plan in late 2019.
Already, Keller Real Estate Group has demolished six houses between 504 and 516 W. Washington Ave. and three more houses between 8 and 14 N. Bassett St. for a $22 million, six-story structure now nearing completion that will offer 2,300 square feet of first-floor commercial space, 103 apartments and parking for 98 vehicles.
Both the Keller project and Madison Property Management’s redevelopment “meet the letter and spirit of the adopted Mifflandia Plan,” Verveer said. “It meets the huge demand for Downtown housing, which is a good thing,” he said.
A smaller scale
The main facade of Virtue’s project will be four stories and broken into three separate masses with outdoor courtyard spaces in between facing West Washington Avenue. On the fifth floor, the structure will step up to six stories.
The building will offer 22 studios, 62 one-bedroom units, four one-bedroom units plus den, 30 two-bedroom units and 22 three-bedroom units. It will feature a lobby, office and exercise space on the first floor, a community space and deck on the sixth floor, and rooftop access for residents.
The city has files that document the history of many properties in Madison but has them on only three of the buildings at the redevelopment site: 525, 527-529, and 541 W. Washington Ave., city preservation planner Heather Bailey has said.
“The history that we have for these three structures is indicative of the history of development along this stretch of West Washington Avenue,” Bailey said when the project was proposed in November. “From the 1890s to the 1920s, there was a housing boom and this route to the heart of the city was lined with working-class and professional rental housing. There does not appear to be anything particularly historically or architecturally significant about any of these properties, but they are a part of the vernacular architectural history of Downtown Madison.”
Vernacular architecture is a style that is designed based on local needs, availability of construction materials, and reflecting local traditions.
The Landmarks Commission has noted the loss of the existing vernacular housing for the project.
Virtue is open to entities that might want to relocate any of the existing structures, as well as those looking to repurpose materials from the structures that are eventually demolished, Stopple said.
19 Madison-area restaurants, bars, brew pubs and coffee shops that said goodbye in 2021
Estrellón

Estrellón, Chef Tory Miller’s 7-year-old upscale Spanish-influenced restaurant on West Johnson Street, off State Street, closed for good after first offering takeout then going on hiatus during the pandemic. In announcing its closing, Miller said his focus now is on his other restaurants, Graze and L’Etoile, both at 1 S. Pinckney St., on Capitol Square. Miller owns the restaurants with his Deja Food Restaurant Group partner, Dianne Christensen. Deja Food also had Estrellón.
In a text message, his explanation of Estrellón’s closure was: “Pandemic. Staffing. Mental and physical fatigue. No RRF (Restaurant Revitalization Fund). Protect L’Etoile. Keep my family and team safe and employed. All that.”
Miller Family Meat & Three

Miller Family Meat & Three, a Southern comfort-food carryout restaurant, which operated for about four months on the bar side of Tory Miller’s upscale, Spanish-influenced restaurant Estrellón, also closed. Its closure came at the same time as Estrellón’s.
Samara Kalk Derby | Wisconsin State Journal
Fresco

Fresco, the fine-dining Food Fight restaurant on the top floor of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, ended its run in October. Caitlin Suemnicht, Food Fight restaurant group’s CEO, said Fresco’s lease was ending and the company had several reasons not to renew it. “Fresco’s a 15-year-old restaurant and we were starting to look like a 15-year-old restaurant,” she said, adding that lease negotiations with the museum took longer than expected, and by the time the company was ready to start construction, the restaurant needed to reopen from its COVID-19 hiatus.
Benvenuto’s North Side

Benvenuto’s Italian Grill, which opened across from Warner Park in early 2003, closed in October. “The lease for that location is up,” owner Brian Dominick said then. “All of the other locations are owned or are on long-term leases and will continue to be ready to serve our guests as we have for over 25 years.” Dominick said the closing was not COVID-19-related, adding that some of Benvenuto’s six other locations have “flourished” during the pandemic with carryout and delivery business. Dominick said the North Side restaurant needed remodeling, which didn’t make sense to do in a building he doesn’t own. Benvenuto’s has two other Madison-area locations, in Middleton and Fitchburg.
Lorraine’s Cafe

Lorraine’s Cafe on Monroe Street closed in July with no fanfare, not even so much as a heads up to Ken Kopp IV’s loyal customers, some of whom had been eating there since Kopp ran New Orleans Take-Out in the same location until December 2019. Kopp owned Lorraine’s with his wife, Sajia Kopp, and the couple moved to Taos, New Mexico, where Sajia’s mother lives. The decision to close wasn’t tied solely to the pandemic, but Kopp said early 2020 wasn’t an ideal time to open a new restaurant. The pandemic “sure didn’t help, but even without it, if everything was normal, we’ve talked about moving down there,” he said. “It’s definitely sad, but I was definitely ready for something different.”
Barriques on Atwood

The Barriques coffee shop on Atwood Avenue closed in October after a six-year run. Matt Weygandt, who owned the shop and has six other area Barriques Coffee Roasters and Cafes with partner Finn Berge, said that location didn’t bounce back from the pandemic “for whatever set of reasons.”
He said he and Berge needed to sign a renewal on the lease, and “it’s a location that has nowhere near come back and recovered the way the rest of our places have,” he said.
“We just didn’t feel comfortable signing up for a long-term obligation when we were uncertain how much of our pre-pandemic business we were going to be able to get back,” Weygandt said then.
Samara Kalk Derby | Wisconsin State Journal
Mr. Seafood

Around Thanksgiving, Ting Cai Zhou closed Mr. Seafood, formerly Pho King Good, at 600 Williamson St. in the Gateway Mall, and opened Delicacies of Asia, at 506 State St., where Lotsa Stone Fired Pizza used to be.
Samara Kalk Derby | Wisconsin State Journal
Cool Beans Coffee Cafe

The Cool Beans Coffee Cafe near East Towne Mall closed in September after 20 years and reopened in December as a café called Mercies Coffee. New owner Mallory Orr, who briefly worked at Cool Beans, said the name comes from a Bible verse. “It talks about God’s mercy being new every morning,” she said.
People’s Bakery

After 18 years, and ongoing health problems, the owners of People’s Bakery at 2810 E. Washington Ave., closed the business in February. Nabil Elghadban and Mari Nikoyan said the bakery at was successful, particularly when they sold their Mediterranean specialties at summer festivals.
The Avenue Club

The Avenue Club and the Bubble Up Bar, 1128 E. Washington Ave., a one-time Madison institution, closed to make way for a $25 million, 40,000-square-foot music center for Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras. Food Fight’s CEO Caitlin Suemnicht said the company closed the restaurant in October 2020 after much deliberation because of COVID-19 restrictions. From April 2020 to August 2021, Food Fight worked with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services and Porchlight at three of its restaurants, including The Avenue, to provide meals for people staying in shelters.
Next Door Brewing

The former Next Door Brewing at 2439 Atwood Ave., closed in August after eight years. New owners Thomas McVary, Peter Schroder, Tom Gosse and Michael Chronister, who had been regular Next Door customers, plan to reopen as Starkweather Brewing as soon as January.
Zoup!

Zoup!, a soup, salad and sandwich restaurant in Middleton, closed in February due to COVID-19, a spokesman for the company said. “Tried everything, tried everything: carryout, curbside, third-party delivery. There just were no customers,” said Richard Zimmer, who works in franchising for the chain.
Pine Cone in DeForest

The Pine Cone in DeForest closed in September with owner John McKay creating controversy by leaving a note on the door blaming the state and federal government for its demise. “Due to the decisions of your state government (Evers) and your federal government (Biden), The Pine Cone has been forced to close its doors after 40 years. Thanks for all your support,” the sign said. He later said the real reason he closed the truck stop restaurant at 6162 Highway 51, was because his lease was up. “That was just a little frustration. That was a bad decision,” he said about hanging up the handwritten sign. A separately owned Pine Cone restaurant in Johnson Creek is still operating.
Star Bar

The closure of Star Bar, a cocktail and craft beer bar on East Washington Avenue near Livingston Street, wasn’t the result of the pandemic, said its owner Hawk Sullivan. He said it was tough to make it in an event-based area, with The Sylvee music venue across the street. The bar would be busy for about 90 minutes before a show, and it was hard to have two bartenders come in just for a short time, he said. Star Bar was closed, like other bar-only businesses, for most of 2020. Sullivan said he opened in September 2020, with outdoor seating, for less than a month. Patrick DePula of Salvatore’s Tomato Pies next door took over the space for Dark Horse Artbar, an art gallery, bar, and performance art and music venue.
J-Petal

Yushen Chen partnered with Kira Wang to open a J-Petal franchise at 511 State St in the summer of 2020. Then, to save rent money during the pandemic, in March he moved the Japanese hand-held crêpe business in with Kung Fu Tea, another franchise he owns a half-block up. J-Petal crêpes stopped being offered in the tea shop about four months ago, an employee said.
Samara Kalk Derby | Wisconsin State Journal
Ground Zero Coffee

Ground Zero Coffee “is now in the past. It will never come back,” said Lindsey Lee, who owned the shop at 744 Williamson St., for 22 years, and closed it in 2020, saying he’d reassess in early 2021 whether it would be reopening. Lee said his two Cargo Coffee locations, 1309 S. Park St., and 750 E. Washington Ave., were doing better than Ground Zero — especially the Park Street one — because they have drive-thrus. Lee said he made the final decision to close in March of 2021. “It was predicated on not being able to come to terms on a new lease and the need to focus on the other two shops.” He said his old space is being remodeled for an office.
The Icon

The Icon, 206 State St., ran from 2007 to 2020. It wasn’t reported on the State Journal’s 2020 list because it wasn’t clear then it wouldn’t reopen. On Nov. 8, Valbon Beqiri, the owner of two restaurants in Fort Atkinson, opened The Botanist Social in its place.
Cranberry Creek

Cranberry Creek Cafe operated at the corner of Bridge Road and Broadway until mid March 2020, when it had to shut down because of COVID-19. Jim Norton, who has owned Cranberry Creek for 17 years, said it has transitioned into a catering business and he uses its restaurant space as a banquet room for private parties. Norton said he doesn’t plan to reopen as a restaurant. “Nobody really wants to work anymore,” he said.
Union Corners Brewery

It’s unclear exactly when Union Corners Brewery, 2438 Winnebago St., closed. A call and text message to the brewery’s owner, Eric Peterson, to find out went unreturned in July. It opened in June 2019 with an ambitious food menu.
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