Traffic study stalls review of development

By Adam Wise

The neighbors of a potential Madison development are getting restless over the lack of a traffic report as the project nears a city vote.

“We understand there will be more traffic — that’s a reality,” said Greg Hull, president of the Spring Harbor Neighborhood Association. “We want to know that it’s going to be handled in the proper manner, and we want to know how.

“I think that’s what’s kind of drawing the ire or concern. Where is it? And why haven’t we seen it?”

The traffic report is tied to a 14-acre development that Krupp General Contractors LLC, Madison, proposed for a site on University Avenue near Whitney Way on the city’s west side. Krupp wants to start construction of a 60,000-square-foot University of Wisconsin digestive health clinic at the site by November, with later phases to include a hotel, residential space and retail.

Krupp hired consultant KL Engineering Inc., Madison, in June to complete the traffic study, said KL President Kim Lobdell, and then brought KL back in August to do more work on the report. She said working with the city and working around its construction work on University Avenue led to delays, but the report would be in the city’s hands Friday.

“We were coordinating with (the city) to make sure what we’re doing fits in with what they’re doing,” Lobdell said, “and we have to have a definitive site plan to have an accurate traffic study.”

The neighborhood group and the city want to know how a proposed entrance to the development on University Avenue and the corresponding lighting will affect traffic flow. The entrance would be about 400 feet from the intersection with Whitney Way.

“University Avenue is a significant gateway corridor, a heavily traveled roadway,” City Planner Tim Parks said, “so anything that upsets that delicate balance is not in anybody’s better interest.”

The neighborhood association also is concerned with the balance, Hull said, particularly because the project is up for a city Plan Commission vote Sept. 19. He said he didn’t understand why the approval process couldn’t be delayed to give the neighborhood more time to look at the completed study.

“It just doesn’t add up in our head,” Hull said. “And because we haven’t seen these models, it suggests it isn’t adding up in the models either.”

Hull, though, stressed there’s a difference between concern and opposition because “right now it’s just a big concrete lot.”

Once the traffic report is in the city’s hands, Parks said, it’s likely it won’t be a roadblock to the developer’s plan to be in the ground by November.

“If the end result was that (the developers) say this is where the road has to go, and our city engineering staff says, ‘We can’t do what you want us to do,’ that will send the whole project back to the drawing board,” he said. “And I don’t think that will happen.”

City engineers have until Sept. 8 to comment on the report to get the opinions to Plan Commission members before the meeting, Parks said.

The time crunch, he said, will require “fancy footwork” to ensure proper review of the document.

“Is it getting tight?” Parks said. “It’s getting tight.”