Beginnings: 1991-1996: There's No Place Like Home

Once the Board decided to open a new school in South Madison, where it should be located became an incredibly important and politically volatile issue. There were two site selection processes conducted over a four year period and one offer from a private company, (Promega Corp.) to locate the school on their site.

• Fiore Commercial Brokerage Search, (1991)
• City of Madison Search, (1993)
• Promega Corporation Partnership Proposal (1994)

Fiore Commercial Brokerage Search, 1991. The District hired a consultant from the Fiore Commercial Brokerage Corporation to survey greater South Madison for possible magnet/middle school sites. Sites identified included existing buildings available and adaptable for school use and, parcels of vacant land, including the following possible locations:

Existing Buildings:

• Former K-Mart at 1002 Ann Street, City of Madison
• Former Badger School at 501 East Badger Road, Town of Madison
• Former headquarters of Heurikon Corporation at 3201 Latham Drive, City of Madison
• Former Classic Lanes Bowling Center at 2300 South Park Street, City of Madison

Vacant Land Parcels:

• Parcel E, located in the 100 block of East Badger Road, Town of Madison
  • Land area: 16.2 acres
  • Asking Price: $810, 000
• Parcel F, located at 2198 West Badger Road, City of Madison
  • Land area: 7.5 acres
  • Asking Price: $600,000 (estimate based on previous offer to sell)
• Parcel G, 1400 West Beltline Highway, City of Madison
  • Land area: 14 acres
  • None proposed, owned by the University of Wisconsin
• Parcel H, South Clayton Lane at the South Beltline, Town of Madison
  • Land area: 5.25 acres
  • Asking Price: $595,000
• Parcel I, 822-900 John Nolen Drive, City of Madison
  • Land area: 4.2 acres
  • Asking Price: $874,000
• Parcel J, 102 Koster Street, City of Madison
  • Land area: 5.8 acres. An additional 4 acres of low-lying ground, contiguous to the north was also available
  • Asking price: Owned by Dane County. No asking price was set.
• Parcel K, 2202-2234 Luann Lane, City of Madison
  • Land area: 5.1 acres
  • Asking price: $500,000
• Parcel L, 2000 block of Rimrock Road, Town of Madison
  • Land area: 7.5 acres
  • Asking price: $817,000
• Parcel M, Rimrock Road at East Badger Road (southwest corner), Town of Madison
  • Land area: 9.3 acres
  • Asking price: $950,00

On Saturday, December 7, 1991a group of 30 representatives of the Board of Education, administration, parents, and the Madison Urban League, formed to look at four of the existing buildings and four of the vacant land parcels that Fiore Brokerage had recommended. The tour included the following Madison sites:

Existing Sites
Classic Lanes Bowling Center, 2300 S. Park Street
Former K-Mart, 1002 Ann Street
Former Badger School, 501 East Badger Road
Former Heurikon headquarters, 3201 Latham Drive
Vacant Land Parcels Parcel G. 1400 West Beltline Highway. Parcel F. 2198 West Badger Road. Parcel J. 102 Koster Street (Lyckberg Park). Parcel K. 2202-2234 Luann Lane

The crowd favorites, while not unanimous, were the bowling center and the former K-Mart Building. In terms of the land parcels, none were clearly recommended. Those concerned about having it ready by the fall of 1992 though, chose the Heurikon building--the only one realistically likely to be ready by August of 1992. Likewise, the site recommendation made by Fiore Brokerage was to build at the former Heurikon headquarters at 3201 Latham Drive. They favored the Heurikon building for the following reasons:

1. It offered important features such as large windows, extensive wiring, suspended ceilings and newer mechanical systems that would require far less time and money to remodel for use as a school.
2. Its lessor and owner could accommodate a short term lease with options to renew and to purchase, providing the school district with great flexibility.
3. The rent proposed was the most reasonable of the others considered.
4. Additional land was available for purchase adjacent to the Heurikon facility.

An open forum was conducted on Tuesday, January 14, 1992 at Lincoln Elementary School to gain additional input from community members on the potential sites and program areas for the new school. The summary of the survey completed that evening can be found here.

Having only just begun the site selection process, the Site Selection Committee for the South Madison Middle School met on Tuesday, March 3, 1992, to determine in particular the desired site and/or building characteristics:

1. Five to eight acres of land.
2. Building of a minimum of 30,000 square feet.
3. North of the Beltline in South Madison.
4. Accessible by public transit.
5. Neutral setting, i.e. equally desirable to south and west side parents.
6. Mixed use area acceptable.

In addition to the work of the committee, nearly six months later in May 1992, Bill Seno of the Fiore companies, the district's space needs consultant, submitted a revised report regarding two dozen privately held properties not offered for sale located north and south of the Beltline that could possibly be acquired through eminent domain. He also recommended the district look into where some other state agencies were headed in terms of satisfying their own space needs.

By December of 1992, the committee was not able to recommended a site.

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City of Madison Search. With no site selected in January of 1993, the new superintendent, (who had been hired by a divided Madison School Board on September 31, 1992,) Cheryl Wilhoyte, contacted the City of Madison to help locate a site for the South Madison middle school. It was soon decided that Middle School 2000 (the name given to the South Madison middle school) would open in temporary quarters in Hoyt Elementary School.

The information presented here is based largely in part on a paper titled: "MMS2000, Identification and Evaluation of Potential Sites" prepared by the City of Madison Department of Planning and Development and submitted to the district on November 16, 1994.

The City of Madison's Department of Planning and Development and the school district jointly developed a list of the criteria which were then used to identify and evaluate sites. These were the established criteria:

Site Size.

Sites ranging from a minimum of 6 acres minimum to a maximum of 25 acres would be considered. Sites with less than six acres would be considered if they were located in close proximity to additional open space.

Building size.

Initial size should have 30,000 square feet available to accommodate approximately 250 students. Future expansion of 30,000 additional square feet to serve up to 600 students total was desirable.

Location. 

• Within the attendance zones of Lincoln, Franklin, or Leopold Schools
• There was considerable discussion about the desirability of locating a site south of the Beltline. While there was no Board of Education consensus at the time that sites should be north of the Beltline, the Planning and Development Department focused its attention on those sites in close proximity to the Beltline or north of the Beltline within South Madison.
• The site was not to result in the dislocation or overcrowding of several hundred existing students.

Transportation. 

• Good pedestrian and bicycle access should be available.
• The site should be located such that Madison Metro Bus Services could be provided.

Land Use.

• Compatible with adjoining land uses and the City's Land Use Plan
• Access to public safety services provided
• Adjoining land uses should provide potential enhancement of MMS2000 and the school specialty
• Site provides non-classroom learning opportunities in close proximity
• The site be in an aesthetically attractive setting to the community which it is intended to serve

Site Development Considerations.

• Development capability of the site including soils analysis
• Cost of site, including relocation of existing uses
• Cost to extend infrastructure
• Building area allowance for current and future school needs
• Regulatory approvals required for building permits
• Timeline for receiving deed to land
• Timeline for breaking ground

Concerning the locational criteria for the school the Department of Planning and Development indicated they would focus efforts on the geographic area roughly bordered by the South Beltline on the south, Lake Monona on the East, Monona Bay on the north and the University of Wisconsin Arboretum on the west. Sites in close proximity, but south of the Beltline would also be considered. (It was under this exception that Cheryl Wilhoyte suggested the Promega site location.)

There was also a strong feeling on the part of the staff team, that even though MMS2000 was to be a magnet school, that the school could still serve as a focal point for the neighborhood within which it was located. It could help meet other community needs if located in an area accessible to most of the South Madison Neighborhoods.

After meetings with city agencies, realtors, parents, and members of the community, and reviewing detailed land use and parcel ownership maps of the greater south side, the Planning Unit identified potential sites for a middle school that fell within four general categories.

• School district owned properties
• City and other publicly owned properties
• Vacant privately owned lands
• Developed privately owned lands 

School district owned properties. The school district owned three potential sites in the general area, including Lincoln School, Leopold School, and  Longfellow School.

The School district had the option of remodeling the Longfellow School site located on South Brooks Street into a middle school, building a new middle school on the Lincoln Elementary School site, and relocating the elementary school or building a new middle school on the Leopold Elementary site. The District decided not to pursue development of a middle school at those locations.

City and other publicly owned properties. The City-owned land in the South Madison area that met the land size criteria was primarily park land. Use of these areas posed several issues:

• loss of open space in the area
• the need for the School District to pay market value for the land so that replacement land could be acquired 
• the need for the School District to pay for the reconstruction of facilities which were lost
• the primary sites considered in this category were Bowman Field on Fish Hatchery Road and Franklin Field on West Olin Avenue.

Vacant, privately-owned property. Vacant privately held properties of six to twenty-five acres in size were relatively scarce in this area. Two sites that were considered included a 7.3 acre parcel located along Rimrock Road across from the Coliseum and larger tracts along Rimrock Road and Badger Road, south of the Beltline.

Developed, privately-owned property. There were a number of sites that could have been purchased or acquired by condemnation that would have provided a site large enough to accommodate the new middle school. However, the City's real estate staff indicated that it would have taken eighteen months to two years to obtain a title to a property through the use of condemnation, before construction could begin. Because there was no consensus of opinion in the community as to an ideal location for a middle school, staff concluded that an active pursuit of improved properties not for sale would not be justified. Some of the sites in this category that were considered early in the process included commercially developed lands located along Plaenert Drive and Wingra Drive between Park Street and Fish Hatchery Road including:

• Land located north of Wingra Drive and West of Park Street (then location of a Post Office.)
• Thorstad Chevrolet property
• Gallagher Tent and Awning
• Parking lots occupied by Strand and Dean Clinic employees
• Ameritech Service facility.

Ultimately, the City recommended a total of Five sites:

Privately Owned:

• 1002 Ann Street, former K-Mart site
• Park Street-Wingra Drive, Bunberry, Wingra Drive/Post Office site
• 200,300 block of East Lakeside Street, State Medical Society site

City-owned Parkland

• 1775 Fish Hatchery Road, Bowman Field park site
• 200 block of West Olin Avenue, Franklin Field park site

These were the details of each of the five sites:

	Bowman	Franklin	K-Mart	Post Office	State Medical
Cost	$3.7-4.3 million	$7.5-9 million	$4.65+ million	$5.2-5.9 million	$4.7-5.5 million
Accessibility	high	high	adequate	high	adequate
Site Size	adequate	adequate	adequate	adequate	adequate
Proximity to classroom enhancements	adjacent parklands, Madison Newspapers, Dean Health, UW-Arboretum	adjacent parklands			adjacent parklands and lake access
Disadvantages and Concerns	soil conditions	time and substantial costs involved in relocation of the the park maintenance facilities	noise due to Beltline proximity problems within the multi-family buildings near the site	severe site constraints

After weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the five sites contained in this report, City staff concluded that the two sites that represented the best opportunities to site the MMS 2000 in conformance with the School District's standards and within a reasonable time period included the Bowman Field site and the State Medical Society site.

Bowman Field had two options within it, each analyzed in a site recommendation report prepared by Hammel, Green, and Abrahamson, Inc. Milwaukee WI, October 2, 1995.

This was the analysis of the two sites at Bowman Field:

In August 1994, while the City was developing its site location recommendations, Superintendent Wilhoyte proposed locating the school in a Fitchburg Industrial Park near Promega, a biotechnology firm. However the idea drew criticism from residents and committee members who wanted the school located in South Madison. Read details about the proposed, but never adopted partnership with Promega.

The Madison Branch of the NAACP had specific ideas too for the school, though they focused first on the program and second on the site selection. They felt as though the district's approach to finding a place for the 300 or so middle school students displaced in the other city middle schools was backward. They recommended instead the District address the following issues, listed in order of priority:

• What should students in the population be taught?
• What are the best methods for teaching students?
• What support services do students need?
• Who should teach them?
• What kind of long term vision and support should the District provide?

The Madison NAACP felt the educational program should dictate the space...not vice versa.

In June 1996 the MMSD Board of Education approved an offer to purchase six acres of the City of Madison's Bowman Athletic Fields on Fish Hatchery Road for $452,000...in the heart of the city's south side.

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