Madison Public Market
The City of Madison Public Market Development Committee voted to approve a site plan, allowing the Madison Public Foundation to begin the process of fundraising. While there continues to be discussion about the visual look of the Public Market, the current plan strongly continues on the previous planning process.

The site, at the corner of East Washington Avenue and First Street, continues to have about 50,000 square feet for a public market (both permanent and temporary spaces), a Food Innovation Center (which will include processing and aggregation facilities) and an outdoor market plaza for food carts, vending and socializing. Currently the plan includes underground parking below the entire site.

There is still much to do. The city still needs to negotiate different aspects of the plan with the property owner and formalize a letter of intent. In addition, the new Madison Public Market Foundation (which is anticipated to operate the future public market) will need to expand their board and begin the process of fundraising almost $6 million.

Things will be moving fairly quickly as more decisions are made. You can find out more at madisonpublicmarket.org or on the city’s website cityofmadison.com/dpced/economicdevelopment/madison-public-market/426.

Emerson School playground
For the past several years, the city and school district have been discussing improvements to the Emerson Elementary School playground. A few years ago, the Emerson East-Eken Park-Yahara (EEEPY) Neighborhood Plan allocated some Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to support increased recreational opportunities for the community.

We were unable to conclude the discussions before spending the CDBG funding; however, the city and school district have agreed to a joint-use agreement for limited public access to the active use areas (and officially recognize as part of the Madison Parks system) and to provide $55,000 of Parks Division Neighborhood Parks Improvement funds to support improvements to the playground as part of the Neighborhood Plan.