“An OGRE?!? I ought to club them and eat their bones!”

Though it always goes without saying, this blog represents my opinion as a resident of Madison. While I draw from my knowledge and experiences as a reporter, I write everything you see here off the clock, and as a proud professional, I’m able to keep my personal feelings from influencing the work I do when I’m wearing my “reporter’s hat.” Just sayin’ is all.

If someone came up to me and said, “Hey, I’ve got a few dozen million dollars, and I want to sink it into making a faded icon of a bygone era that sits on your block shine again. You’ll get a better view of the lake, improved access to the waterfront and a much classier-looking neighbor. Oh yeah, and we’ll throw in an open air bar you can drink at,” I think I’d be knocked speechless, for starters.

It’s the statistical equivalent of walking down a beach and finding a genie in a bottle — millions to one. Yet after weighing your options, carefully considering each potential move and finding there is indeed a way for you to benefit by it, you’d be a fool to throw that bottle back into the ocean… right?

Apparently not if all you wanted from your walk on the beach was to be left in utter, destitute peace, I guess.

The genie and the bottle scenario is the stuff of fantasies. The neighborhood icon could have been a reality in Madison, and still could be, but not if a handful of stubborn, narrow-minded curmudgeonly residents of the Mansion Hill neighborhood succeed in their goal of squelching a proposed project. Unfortunately, they’re accustomed to getting their way.

Madison’s Edgewater Hotel was once the stuff legends are made of. In its decades on the waterfront, it’s hosted Elvis Presley, Bob Hope and Bob Marley, to name just a few. But the years have been hard on the building, and its squat profile on the downhill slope at the end of Wisconsin Avenue do little to make it appear exciting or inviting in its current form.

A guy named Bob Dunn had something he wanted to do about that. A prodigal son returned to his hometown, Dunn and Hammes Company proposed a visionary redevelopment of the building that would replace the uninspired architecture with a grand plaza open to the public, where anyone could meander easily off the street and gaze out over the lake, or grab a drink at the bar, or wander down to the lakefront. A sleek tower of hotel rooms would lend the structure some majesty and expand its capacity from a Podunk 107 rooms to a respectable 225-ish.

And through it all, Dunn would lead the project with experience gleaned from the successful rejuvenation of another once-faded icon, Green Bay’s Lambeau Field. I speak as more than a rabid Packers fan when I say that, while a game in Green Bay was always an event to be envied by football aficionados the nation over, it’s now an unrivaled world-class experience. The man is clearly a master of his trade.

But the Hill People aren’t interested in having a national gem on their door steps. They say it’s too big, and it doesn’t “fit with the character” of their neighborhood. They claim it will draw too much traffic onto their “quiet little” four-lane street. They gaze backward at someone else’s broken promises from decades ago and cite those as reasons not to trust this developer.

They’re as shortsighted as they are self-serving. I’ve watched for months as Dunn has modified his plans to appease the so-called “neighborhood group,” which in reality represents a small minority of residents with a disproportionately loud voice. Dunn has acquired more land in order to slide the hotel tower further to the side, thus providing a better view of the lake from the street — at their request. Dunn has rearranged the configuration of the driveway through his design to keep traffic from accumulating on the street — at their request. Dunn has even lowered the height of his proposed tower, cutting hotel rooms from the design and profitability from his project — at their request.

He’s met with them on dozens of occasions to hear them voice their concerns. He’s spent tens of thousands of dollars (*edit* Alder Mark Clear puts the figure at around a million) in staff time to try and gain their favor. He’s done everything short of offering up his firstborn child, but ever since the Hill People dug in their heels, they’ve been unrelenting in their opposition to Dunn planting so much as a shrubbery on the property.

Their baffling persistence in the face of an evolving plan leaves me feeling like it’s not any aspect of the plan itself the Hill People are opposed to — it’s anything vibrant and alive they hate. They don’t want you to be able to take in the view from a majestic public terrace, because they’d just as soon not have you around. They don’t want to hear the laughter of children or the tinkling of music on a warm night. They moved onto the hill to be left alone, and like ogres, they’ll blindly attack anything that wanders into their domain. The only way they would be completely content would be if the Edgewater would slough off the hill into the lake tomorrow.

They need to grow up. They need to come to terms with the fact that Madison is not the cozy little berg of 13,000 that it was in 1890. They need to accept that tall buildings have a place in cities — that in fact, most great landmarks stand out somewhat from their surroundings, yet still enhance the area as a whole. Because the notion that one well-designed hotel tower and an accompanying plaza will bring a historic district crumbling down is ludicrous.

I’ll say this: the Hill People are persuasive. They’ve got five members of the powerful Landmarks Commission eating right out of their hands, and they’ve used that majority to stall the project dead in the arduous city approvals process. It’s an embarrassment to that vital process, which is designed to weed out bad proposals and prevent regrettable mistakes, when a well-designed project can be so easily hijacked by a small minority. It exposes a vulnerability that needs to be fixed.

The city council can overturn the commission’s decision with a 14-vote supermajority. There’s already a movement among alders to try and make this happen, but ultimately, it’s up to Bob Dunn whether he wants to appeal. If he makes that decision by noon Wednesday, the issue could come before the entire council at next Tuesday’s city council meeting. But at this point, I wouldn’t blame the man for turning his back on the city and walking away, disgusted.

Dunn’s got to be wondering if his effort is worth it, at this point. His investors certainly are, with millions of dollars hanging on the line for a project that may or may not happen. Dunn’s been described as “short-tempered,” “brash” and “insensitive” by people who have followed this process closely. Honestly, if I came to a city with millions of dollars to sink into a landmark, which would in turn generate millions more in property taxes and economic impact, create jobs and be pretty darn cool to boot — only to face a tooth and nail fight at every turn — I’d be a little salty too.

I hope he sticks with it. I hope the city council has more common sense and overturns the Landmarks Commission’s ridiculous, arbitrary decision. I hope to see this project continue through an already thorough vetting to the point where we get to debate whether taxpayer-backed Tax Increment Funding should be used to help it along, because I feel that’s an interesting debate that’s really worth having.

But if this is where the road ends for the Edgewater Project, we’ve got more than a shame on our hands. We’re sending a message to every visionary out there — people like Frank Loyd Wright, who designed the Monona Terrace, only to have it rejected. 40 years after his death, the project was resurrected, built, and now stands as one of the city’s most iconic structures.

Maybe the next visionary will bypass Madison completely, and leave the ogres to sit on their hill undisturbed.