Design team: Noah Tang, Team Lead | Dawn Peters | Joshua Maubach | Samantha Mlot | Hannah Horn
Program Summary
This proposal primarily contains a six-twelve story hotel and conference center with underground parking, first-level retail, first- and second-level conference space, and four-eight stories above for rooms. There is green space and outdoor dining attached. The alley would feature nicer seating or a pocket park. Across Madison, there is a grocery store with apartments above. Next to that are shipping container corridors of restaurants and retail. There is more green space around the corner, with a water retention pond to capture runoff.
The 80-100 room hotel where the former Front N Center was located. 
View from the coliseum. 
Corner of Madison and Front Streets looking west. Main entrance to the market hall with commissary kitchens. 
Parking lot of the market hall can double as an event space. Shipping containers have public art on them. 
Interior of the market hall, with space for gathering and eating (tables and booths not modeled). 
Urban grocery store with apartments above on the Washington Street entrance to the market campus. 
Restaurant and bistro style seating on Center Street by the hotel.
Benefits to the Surrounding Area and City
The high intensity proposal includes a grocery store with apartments above, micro retail and restaurants housed in shipping containers, and a water retention pond to alleviate flooding during a storm and provide a small wildlife habitat. These features would support small-scale entrepreneurs, while attracting area residents. Unlike the other proposals, this plan focuses on non-residents, most obviously by featuring an art-deco-style hotel and conference center that covers the entire site where the four-story Front N Center building now stands. The hotel and conference center would require substantial investment for the underground parking, ground-floor retail, two stories of conference space and four-eight stories for 80-100 hotel rooms. The art deco design reflects the architectural style elsewhere in downtown and would visually enhance the block, as would the green space, outdoor dining and pocket park in the alley. If successful, the hotel could be a boon to downtown businesses and provide income to the city. It entails, however, substantial risk for one project.
Financial Viability
This development looks the most conventional; a multi-million dollar project designed to anchor the downtown region with a hotel and public market space. It does not follow the Strong Towns method of incremental development per se. Yet, since it was created by the high-intensity team at our charrette, we decided to include it in this proposal packet. Most of the location would be turned over to private developers, so sales and property taxes will be a boon for the city. Even with the public market being owned by the city, the potential sales and tourism revenue make this proposal worth discussion.
It is beyond the scope of this packet proposal to determine the capital stack and other information needed to implement this project. Regardless, the construction of a hotel with a conference center will allow more optimal usage of the arena and more leveraging of these combined resources toward the goal of revitalizing the downtown and core neighborhoods.
Strong Towns Blono 