Building Bridges in Downtown Madison
Consolidating a private language school from multiple floors in three adjacent buildings on the Ellsworth Block on Madison’s Capitol Square into two floors in two of the buildings—while also creating a brand, new event space—required not only patience and hard work, but creativity and a healthy respect for history.
Fortunately, Friede & Associates had a long-term relationship with the buildings’ owner Carlos Osorio. The Friede Team met with Osorio, who owns not only three buildings on North Pinckney, but also many of the businesses within them. These include The Old Fashioned and Harvest Restaurants that Friede had constructed 15 years earlier, and the Wisconsin English Second Language Institute (WESLI), which occupied three floors at 19 North Pinckney, and most of the second and third floors of both 23 and 25 North Pinckney.
Osorio informed the Friede Team that he was selling the 19 North Pinckney building to Urban Land Interests to be included in their ambitious $125 Million, 350,000-square-foot redevelopment on the Capitol Square. But before he could finalize the sale, he would need Friede to renovate the second and third floors of the two remaining buildings to allow for WESLI to move its entire operation into the space.
Osoria asked us to team up with InteriorLogic and their design team to create a vibrant new home for the school, while also returning the building to its original historic look, including a large two-story atrium and extensive masonry (both block and brick) walls. To accomplish this, we would need to rebuild a stairway from the street to the new space that would allow students and guests a new access point, replacing the current street access it occupied in 19 North Pinckney. Osorio also wanted to use the space as a new event space to host small- and medium-sized gatherings.
This meant the design team needed to creatively use every square foot that was available in the new, significantly smaller space so that the school would still be able to offer all its programs while providing students with areas to relax and study while onsite. It also meant being creative with unforeseen building conditions that would be exposed during the demolition process.
The project team worked most of the first half of 2019 on plans and worked with Pierce Engineering to determine not only what the existing structure consisted of, but also what structural modifications would be needed to undertake the massive face lift.
Once design and engineering were complete, the team began to tear apart the 150-year-old buildings that had been renovated numerous times in the past and had been reconstructed on many occasions as cheaply as possible—including after the apparent fire that happened sometime during the building’s past. It also meant matching floor heights in two buildings that had not been designed with common elevations. It also meant creating new openings between the buildings through masonry walls that hadn’t been exposed to the environment for decades and would require, not only new steel beams to be installed, but also tuckpointing and cleaning since these walls would become the new finished interior finishes. It also meant removing and storing trim and doors for reinstallation in the finished space, and literally creating new trim with similar profiles to match what had been installed decades earlier.
With these challenges in mind, and literally dozens of unknown obstacles ahead, the Friede team began demolition the first week of October 2019. Over the next six weeks, the demolition crew found hidden walls, covered skylights, partially removed structural beams and, in one area, inches of concrete and gypcrete topping that needed to be removed before reconstruction could begin. To add to the challenges, the first-floor restaurants would need to remain in operation throughout the construction, and the removal of all demolition materials would need to be carefully carried by hand and dumped into a waiting truck that needed to be scheduled in the busy alleyway around the restaurant deliveries throughout the day.
When the demolition was completed in November, the results were staggering. The crews had removed more than 60 tons of materials from the buildings—handling virtually all of it by hand.
The Friede team suggested constructing a bridge through the middle of the atrium that could tie the third-floor classrooms together and also offer areas for conversations and for students to sit under the glass ceiling in an inviting setting.
As the calendar turned to 2020, construction of one of the more creative elements of the new project—the bridge—was about to begin. Early in the design discussions, when WESLI staff expressed concerns about the loss of space for students to “hang out” and also the concern about the new classrooms being separated on either side of the existing two-story glass atrium, the Friede team had suggested that they could construct a bridge through the middle of the atrium that could tie the third-floor classrooms together and also offer areas for conversations and for students to sit under the glass ceiling in an inviting setting.
In mid-January, the new structure would begin to take shape as the Friede team installed the wood beams that would bridge the opening and create the connection between the third-floor classrooms. To facilitate the installation of these beams, the team needed to remove windows on the Capitol side of the building to allow these 20+ foot beams to be brought into the building and set across the opening. Once the beams were set, the crews installed the wood decking and the steel handrails and edging to complete that phase of the project in February.
Internal finishes, including extensive masonry, new glass and glazing, and a new stairway from Pinckney Street to the new second floor reception area were completed in late January and early February, allowing WESLI staff to begin to move into the new space and vacate the 19 North Pinckney Building.
The new bathrooms, operable meeting room walls, and second floor breakroom were also completed just in time for the ribbon cutting on March 2. Unfortunately, the Coronavirus also arrived in America at about the same time. As a result, both the continuing educational programs, the meeting rooms, and the new common space that were designed to also accommodate public functions, have largely remained unused.
Working with aging buildings requires an amazing amount of creativity and craftsmanship.
Working with aging buildings—without original, or even good, modified plans, and literally decades of unrecorded changes and modifications—required an amazing amount of creativity and craftsmanship that the entire project team demonstrated throughout the design, engineering and construction of the 13-month project. The hard work has not gone unnoticed. Greater Madison InBusiness 2021 Commercial Design Awards named this project the Best New Development or Renovation-Mixed Use and Associated Builders and Contractors of Wisconsin awarded the WESLI project the 2020 Projects of Distinction Gold Award for Restoration & Renovation.
Founded in 1981, WESLI has a history of excellence. It has earned an excellent reputation with universities, educational agencies, and students from all over the world. It offers a variety of intensive English programs to help students achieve personal, professional and academic goals, including General English, English Plus, University Pathways, Test Preparation, Business English, Tutoring, and a Teacher Training Program. Students from all over the world have had satisfying, memorable cross-cultural experiences at WESLI. And now, those students can enjoy learning in a comfortable new space that showcases Madison’s rich history.
