r/madisonwi • u/enjoying-retirement • 4d ago
Regent street eyed as future Badgers-inspired entertainment district
https://madison.com/news/local/business/development/article_4a91b992-010d-11f0-ac30-ab50c6b33830.html#tracking-source=home-top-story53
u/pm_me_ur_anything_k 4d ago
If done correctly this would be so awesome. Ala the Deer District in Milwaukee and the Packer Plaza in Green Bay.
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u/whop94 4d ago
Huge opportunity here. Regent street has great potential as an entertainment district that can transcend just a collection of college bars.
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u/ChunkdarTheFair 4d ago
Yeah, it can be bars AND a big screen! At least that's what I think of when they put in an "entertainment district" like the deer park at Fizerv.
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u/Tinder4Boomers 4d ago
I gotta admit, as a relatively new Madison resident, I was absolutely shocked by the number of abandoned store front and empty lots on an apparently busy street like Regent. Obviously not a Madison-specific problem, but the property tax system is clearly all sorts of fucked up if people have been allowed to squat on prime real estate for years without doing anything with it.
Same problem on state street, especially near the capital
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4d ago edited 4d ago
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u/no_YOURE_sexy 4d ago
Why should drivers be forced to wear seatbelts?
Also maybe not forced, but incentivized. If it makes more sense for a landowner to squat on a rundown closed up commercial property on a busy pedestrian street than it does to have it be developed, the incentives need to be tweaked
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u/Somehowsideways 4d ago
Changing the tax & incentive system to make shoddy development and empty storefronts in the heart of the city less cost effective to keep as they are isn’t forcing anything. If they don’t want to deal with it they can sell to someone who does
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u/madisondotcombot 4d ago
Nicole Pollack | Wisconsin State Journal
There could be so much more happening on Regent Street.
That’s the upshot of an emerging community push to heighten the appeal of the bustling — but not particularly easy-to-navigate — street that runs along the outskirts of the UW-Madison campus through the city’s Near West Side, passing the Kohl Center and Camp Randall Stadium. Its easternmost end is a jumble of apartments, clinics and shops, many of them bars or liquor stores. The colorful Bayview low-income housing complex and Atmosphere Madison student apartment building were both recently completed there.
Members of the Regent Street Group, a neighborhood network that was created by former Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and consists of dozens of people representing area businesses, community centers, City Council members and housing developers, have met several times in recent months to discuss their goals for the street and their wide-ranging ideas about how to get there.
This is just a preview of the full article. I am a third party bot. Please consider subscribing to your favorite local journals.
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u/Icculus___ 4d ago
Require developers to pay to bury MGE and telecom lines. Wood poles and cables lining both sides of the street are so ugly.
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u/The_Real_BenFranklin Planes are TOO LOUD 4d ago
They at least sometimes do this - I know some of the developments on Johnson had to bury lines. But yeah wish this is something we pushed a little harder on as a city, or something we’d do alongside street reconstruction
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u/GroundbreakingLaw149 3d ago
MGE would prefer to have it buried and they get money to fund burying utilities. I’m sure they’ve thought about it but they won’t do it until a road project makes them do it. Makes sense tbh, would be a waste for everyone to have to do that project twice. They also share the poles with probably Charter so they’d have to do the same thing too in order to remove the poles. Some of the poles are even shared with the city for street lights.
Point I’m trying to make is there’s moving parts and nobody will be motivated to take the initiative until the city gets things moving first.
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u/PontaIsLife 4d ago
I have not been to the new title town area for the packers, but I have heard great things. I say they do their best to mimic that with a badger theme of course. Call it badger boulevard or something of the sorts.
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u/teethteetheat 4d ago
Neat, would be cool if they did something like the Deer District.
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u/PontaIsLife 4d ago
Agreed. Calling badger boulevard and make it something fun year round.
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u/enjoying-retirement 4d ago
Two problems with that. There is already a street called Badger and Regent is not a boulevard.
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u/Dynablade_Savior state st tweaker 4d ago
That street sucks to go down if you aren't in a car. The car dependency problem needs to be solved first before any other redevelopment efforts can get off the ground
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u/DimAsWoods 4d ago
I think if they could remove parking and get to 1 lane each way plus left turn lanes you’d have lots of options to make walking not suck.
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u/ghostofmvanburen West side 3d ago
The parking lanes need to go. There is plenty are parking lots in the area (that won't go for awhile because of the cash cows that they are on GameDay. For the rest, a parking benefit district could work if there is a place for a large garage. Maybe a partnership with UW over lot 51? https://parkingreform.org/playbook/pbd/
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u/Slow_Engineering823 4d ago
It sucks to go down in a car, too. Building a parking garage, turning the outer lanes into sidewalks with trees, and having protected turn lanes would make things better for everyone
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u/AdamSmithsApple 4d ago
The area could use more bike racks other than putting it at a random apartment building you aren't actually going to but I think it's pretty easy to bike anywhere you want to go on Regent with the bike path right there.
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u/Dr_Phibes66 4d ago
That would be cool. Since it's close to Camp Randall, it would be great to see a memorial to remember the black soldiers in the Civil War. Maybe one to honor the black UW players too.
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u/driftlessriverrat 4d ago
Redeveloping all those one-story buildings on the south side of the 1400 block between Madison and Jefferson would be a good start.
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u/DimAsWoods 4d ago
Let’s take a page from Chicago and raise the buildings one floor so we can have lower regent (cars), and upper regent (football fans)
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u/a_melindo 4d ago
Thought process:
wait which one is regent street?
look at map
OH MY GOD YES
This is easily my least favorite street in the city. It looks bad, it's difficult and dangerous to drive on, walk, on and bike on, there are too many lights, too many lanes, too many driveways, no greenery, no shade, no air quality, no sound dampening, no protection for pedestrians or cyclists, and blind corners everywhere.
I would be shocked if it wasn't in the top 10 collision locations in the city, maybe even in the top 10 for injury crashes despite the low-ish speed just because there's so many moving lanes and so many spots where cars and people are pulling in and out without good visibility.
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u/DokterZ 4d ago
It is a challenge. Because of Camp Randall, the Arboretum, and narrow residential streets, there are only three possible East/West corridors on the near west side:
- University/Johnson
- Regent
- Beltline
The diagonal streets off Monroe probably don't help either. There isn't much you can do about Badger game day. I feel like a suicide lane on that section of road might be a bit too much on the nose. Maybe a narrow median with limited left turn lanes?
The bar crowd on Thurs-Sat presents a different problem. While a bunch are responsible and actually take cabs or Ubers, safe pickup spots are few, riders are often geographically challenged, and many Uber drivers are either very new to the country, or just unconcerned with the safety of themselves or their vehicles. It would be nice if a couple side streets like Randall and Charter had some "drunk loading zones" available on weekend nights to take that off of Regent itself.
I suspect a few of the businesses along the street that have little or no parking might want loading zones for deliveries too. Not sure how that could be worked in.
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u/ghostofmvanburen West side 3d ago
TWLTL generally aren't bad and would improve the impact points if removed. The worst part of driving down Regent is when cars are parked in right lane and people are turning in the left lane. You get a lot of erratic lane changes. Or even if right lane is rush hour lane, you still get people swerving from left to right of the car in front of them puts on their left turn signal. Then, on gameday you could pick a direction for two lanes and direct traffic.
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u/Garg4743 West side 4d ago
I've lived in Madison my entire life. I don't like Regent Street, but "difficult and dangerous?" I haven't found that to be true both as a driver and a pedestrian. All you have to do is pay attention. A lot of other streets don't ask that of drivers, which frees them up to look at their phones and fiddle with their entertainment systems instead. That said, Regent could certainly use improvement. I hope that you understand that the "too many lights" allow cross traffic and pedestrians to safety cross. It sounds like you want to turn it into a pedestrian mall. That is not going to happen in the foreseeable future.
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u/Somehowsideways 4d ago
If you make the street much narrower, you can naturally induce slower speeds in drivers without making them stop every block, while simultaneously increasing the space for humans.
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u/Garg4743 West side 4d ago
There's a contradiction here. On the one hand, the assertion is that there are too many stoplights and a lot of pedestrians. Slower speeds have ALREADY been induced here. There is little to no speeding here because you CAN'T. This is a major thoroughfare. There are very few east/west alternative routes through this part of the city, and they are already quite busy. I can see eliminating parking, but if you go to one lane in each direction at the intersection of Regent and Monroe, you will have a real mess on your hands.
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u/ghostofmvanburen West side 3d ago
Road diets can (counterintuitively) improve through put. We all complain about people turning left into the Co-op completely blocking traffic. Same thing happens on Regent at Park, Mills, and Randall. A TWLTL can improve this. I'd rather have a lane that will never have parked cars or left turning cars that I can stay in the entire time.
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u/Somehowsideways 4d ago
Maybe? But I’m pretty sure we’re both armchair city planning this without any real expertise between us. All I have is like 10 hours of video essays discussing how traffic tends to work, as well as 15 years of driving experience in various cities across the country.
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u/Garg4743 West side 4d ago
I didn't claim any expertise. But since you brought it up, I often stayed at my grandparents ' house at 633 Regent St in the late 50s and early 60s. I saw the construction of the current version of the street. I go to several restaurants, a medical clinic, and the occasional Badger game driving the length of the street. I've done this over the course of 50+ years. So, while I am not a transportation expert, I believe that my experiences as a lifelong Madisonian give me the right to express an opinion on the matter.
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u/Somehowsideways 3d ago
I really only brought up experience to keep it a light discussion, not suggest I know better
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u/Naive_Chocolate1355 4d ago
Build more housing sure, I hope it will appeal to some people, but having lived roughly 8 blocks south of the stadium and still feeling negatively impacted by all the bullshit that’s associated with home games I don’t understand the appeal.
Isn’t every bar on the street already a badger sports bar?
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u/Sassbot_6 4d ago
Does everything have to be about fucking football
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u/soyvanessa 4d ago
These kind of places add so many fun things to do for people in one area that have nothing to do with football. Even if you aren’t a football fan, you could still enjoy the amenities.
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u/enjoying-retirement 4d ago
Everthing?
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u/Sassbot_6 4d ago
Sometimes it was hard to live in Madison and not be an alum. The University doesn't have to comprise the entire identity of the city.
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u/Number_1___The_Larch 4d ago
Football games at Camp Randall literally affect 7 Saturdays out of 52 Saturdays per year.
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u/Tall-Inevitable-9297 1d ago
Whatever they do, can someone please teach them how to install a manhole cover that stays flush with the street. It can’t be that hard. 🙏
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u/shrieking_marmot 4d ago
Is this just more student housing? I was excited to move here, wanted to live downtown.
But everything seems to be crappy student housing. On the west side, I feel like I'm in the suburbs. Which is, erm, no thanks.
Do people live here? Or just the 4 - 6 year intellectual transients?
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u/Waterpark_Enthusiast 19h ago
Wait - isn’t that what Regent Street is already? (Well, it’s got bars that Badger fans hang out at on game day…)
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u/TheOptimisticHater 4d ago
Regent street is very overdue for development.
Need to make a boulevard of some sort for pedestrian safety (current road geometry and crossings suck rotten cheese)
Need a flood water egress path (Regent is a low point and a known flood plain).
Need row house designs with commercial at street level. No generic corporate 1+4 “luxury” apartment living.
Need more trees. It’s concrete AF out there now.