By Brian E. Clark
WisBusiness.com
The Madison Landmarks Commission has again pushed back making a decision
about the historical significance of the 80-year-old Rennebohm Building, this time scheduling a decision for Aug. 22.
UW-Madison officials say making the building a landmark would complicate
plans for a high-tech research center. (See a previous WisBusiness story: Potential Landmark Could Complicate Plans for $375 Million Research
Center)
The city panel met in July, but decided it needed to physically inspect
the three-story structure before it could determine its importance to
Madison, said Katherine Rankin, the planner who coordinates the
commission.
She said the panel still needs more time and that she has been in contact
with the university about the delays.
The building is at the corner of University and Randall avenues, the
western end of a two-block site where UW-Madison officials hope to build
the $375 million Insitute for Discovery. The university contends the
Rennebohm Building is not worth saving, and says saving it would be an
impediment to research, reducing the first phase of building by as much
as 10 percent. As an alternative, the university is considering putting a
soda fountain in the institute and naming it after Oscar Rennebohm as a
way to honor him.
UW officials hope to break ground on the first phase of the institute by
2007. It would total 750,000 square feet and be home to numerous multi-
disciplinary labs.
