With
little time left, neighbors hope to save historic Madison bar with mobster ties
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Dean Mosiman | Wisconsin
State Journal
·
With no good options, neighbors and preservationists still hope
to save a historic bar with deep ties to Chicago mobsters that’s threatened by
demolition as part of a development near the Alliant Energy Center.
McGrath
Property Group hopes to raze the Coliseum Bar & Banquet, 232 E. Olin Ave.,
and historic Wonder Bar steakhouse, 222 E. Olin Ave., for an 18-story, $40 million structure, which would offer 291
apartments, 16,000 square feet of commercial space and five floors of parking.
Lance McGrath
said he has a history of incorporating older buildings into redevelopments when
it makes sense, but that the far smaller scale of the Wonder Bar and its
architectural style don’t fit with the current project.
“The building
can be moved, but it is a significant undertaking,” McGrath said, adding that it
would cost at least $250,000 plus other expenses and that he’d donate the cost
of demolition toward a relocation. “The main issue is finding someone willing
to take on the project who owns a site within a relatively close proximity.”
The city’s
Landmarks Commission said the Wonder Bar has historical value to the city as a
rare remaining example of a Prohibition-era roadhouse.
“This is
really gritty,” said city preservation planner Heather Bailey. “It’s about
organized crime operating at the edge of the city.
“I think that
it would be a loss to the city’s history for this structure to be demolished,”
she said. “Often our landmarks are about celebratory history, and this place
tells a more difficult story about what happened at the edges of the city
during Prohibition. These places help us tell a more complete story.”
Online
petition
Neighbors who
hope for more time to find a new home for the Wonder Bar have started an online
petition expressing opposition to demolition and asking that serious
consideration be given to the historic value of the building and an alternative
to its destruction be sought. If a new location can be found, the group may
launch a fundraising effort to support the move.
“The Wonder
Bar is a victim of lack of advance planning,” said Carrie Rothburd, a neighbor
and member of the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation’s advocacy committee.
“At this point it would take a potential owner to drop into the scene with a
serious infusion of cash. The best — really, the only — option for saving the
Wonder Bar is finding a new location for it nearby as soon as possible.”
McGrath’s
proposal will be considered by the Urban Design Commission on Wednesday, the
Plan Commission on July 26, and the City Council on Aug. 3. He intends to start
construction in the fall.
Notorious
history
The Wonder
Bar, emblematic of the outposts gangsters established at roadhouses along
highways in rural areas and on the outskirts of cities in the 1930s for the
illegal distribution of liquor, is woven into the history of some of the most
notorious figures of the Prohibition era — the warring Chicago gangs led by Al
Capone and Roger Touhy.
Originally
dubbed “Eddie’s Wonder Bar,” the two-story, fortress-like structure was
financed by Roger Touhy and built in the vernacular style, finished with brick
and second-floor apartments for his brother, Eddie Touhy, in 1930.
The
establishment stayed in the Touhy family for two decades. After several changes
of ownership, Dennie Jax took the Wonder Bar back to its roots as a
full-fledged steakhouse in May 2009. The atmosphere remained classic, with a
fine-dining ambience, stone fireplaces downstairs and upstairs, and walls
holding photos of old-time film stars and gangsters.
Jim Delaney
purchased the Coliseum Bar and Wonder Bar in 2017. The establishments were
doing well, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to close both in March 2020.
The Wonder Bar reopened in September, but the Coliseum Bar, which relies on
much larger sales volume, opened for a few weeks in June before closing and
remaining shuttered. The Wonder Bar closed at the end of May.
Lack of a plan
So far, there
seems no simple path to saving the Wonder Bar.
The building,
approximately 48 feet by 48 feet, is estimated to weigh between 800,000 to
950,000 pounds, which eliminates any sites south of the Beltline due to weight
capacities of overpass bridges, McGrath said.
The estimated
$250,000 moving cost doesn’t include expenses to deal with trees, street
lights, traffic lights and signage that may need to be removed, and a
relocation site would also have to be prepared for the building, he said.
The city Parks
Division explored the possibility of moving the structure to Olin Park, but the
cost to make it an accessible public space “would be significant and beyond the
Parks Division’s capacity to take on without significant additional resources,”
parks superintendent Eric Knepp wrote to McGrath this week.
“I support the
effort to save the Wonder Bar,” said Ald. Sheri Carter, 14th District.
“However, finding the right location and the monies needed to relocate the
building will be the greatest hurdle to overcome.”
‘Something
cool’
Janelle Munns,
a neighbor who renovated a vintage building at 109 E. Lakeside St. said it’s
unfortunate the Wonder Bar building doesn’t have historic preservation
protection and that it could be incorporated into a scaled-down project —
“something cool, something different, someplace that those who care about
history and vintage character would like to live.”
“The major
roadblocks are time, cost and, above all, lack of advance planning,” Rothburd
said, noting that some are also concerned about the project’s height and
density.
“But I cannot
stress enough that Mr. McGrath is not the villain here. While he has made no
changes whatsoever to his plan to reconcile neighbors’ comments with his
design, the city has also shown no willingness to incorporate citizen input
into planning for the neighborhoods surrounding the Alliant Energy Center.”
“If it ends up
going the demolition route, then we would do whatever we can to salvage
materials in the building,” McGrath said.
“No one likes
to see old buildings get torn down, including myself, but in this case it is
necessary to create much-needed housing,” he said. “It will be a significant
addition to the city of Madison’s tax base and will hopefully help propel the
vision of the Alliant Energy Center master plan and the surrounding Destination
District.”