Downtown Hotel Development: "A Vanity Project?"

Two weeks ago, the Monday Buzz spoke with Sean Carrol, of Citizens Against Subsidized Hotels, or CASH. Last week, CASH acknowledged that they were unlikely to get the 16,000 signatures needed by June 29 to force a referendum on the city’s proposed Judge Doyle Square redevelopment project. This means the Madison Common Council will have the final say on what could be the city’s most expensive publicly financed development project ever. Clocking in at over one hundred million dollars, the proposal would include offices, retail, restaurant, entertainment, and most controversially, a luxury hotel on the site of the city-owned parking lot behind the Madison Municipal Building. Fifteenth district alder David Ahrens, a critic of the Doyle Square project, contacted the Monday Buzz to answer some remaining questions. Ahrens joined the Monday Buzz on June 16, 2014.