Madison wants to avoid spending more for repairs on parking garage

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By Adam Wise

Madison officials are trying to avoid sinking millions more into the city’s oldest parking garage, but time is running out and the alternatives are elusive.

Government East Garage, the city’s 53-year-old ramp near Capitol Square, needs $1.6 million in deferred maintenance next year unless city leaders commit to demolishing the structure and building underground parking spaces.

“It needs to be replaced,” said David Trowbridge, city transit planner. “It was built in the ’50s, so year after year you have to start putting more in terms of capital upgrades just to get you a couple more years. It’s just diminishing returns.”

The 516-stall parking ramp is in the heart of a two-block city redevelopment plan that could call for removing a portion of the Madison Municipal Building across the street to make room for a high-rise hotel that connects to the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center. The city has hired a trio of consulting firms, lead by North Carolina-based Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc., to conceptualize the redevelopment.

City planners would want to build a parking garage below the hotel to connect the two blocks in the redevelopment area. The new garage would have nearly triple the number of parking spaces in Government East.

But planning takes time, and Bill Knobeloch, parking operations manager, said the ramp didn’t have much left.

“What the city is interested in is giving more vitality to the area, but we don’t know what that is,” he said. “At some point, if we don’t get off the ball and make decisions, I’m going to start spending some of that money.”

But the maintenance and concrete remediation for the ramp only would buy it five to eight more years, Trowbridge said.

A final report for the site should be completed by January, Knobeloch said.

Should the city choose to tear down Government East and go underground with the parking, Mayor Paul Soglin said he had no preference for what would be built at the site.

The city’s Common Council in June killed a plan to pay Common Wealth Development $250,000 to create a business plan for a $10 million public market at the site.

While he knows money will be spent next year maintaining the ramp, Knobeloch said, no one knows how much will be spent.

“We could keep this going for many, many more years if we wanted,” he said. “But the question is: Is it a good use of the money or do we want to revitalize it with something that’s better?”