Plan commission forwards rezoning and approves Drury hotel conditional use with substitute arch relocation plan

The Plan Commission unanimously forwarded a rezoning recommendation and approved a conditional‑use application for an eight‑story, 205‑room Drury hotel at 33 West Johnson Street on Jan. 12, 2026, and forwarded a certified survey map to the Common Council. The approvals included a negotiated substitute to a staff condition dealing with the site’s historic Central High School arch.

Planning staff summarized the project’s history and past approvals at the site, observed that the Urban Design Commission (UDC) recommended approval, and flagged issues under conditional‑use standard 8 related to the hotel’s double driveway on Wisconsin Avenue and the appropriate treatment of the historic arch. Staff recommended integrating the arch into the hotel site, but the applicant proposed alternate language that would allow the arch to be relocated within the city if an appropriate site can be identified and paid for by the applicant, with the arch kept in storage for up to five years.

Drury representatives described the hotel's massing, activated ground floor uses, preservation of mature trees along Wisconsin Avenue, green‑roof elements and stormwater measures. Architect and team members emphasized a design intended to relate to the adjacent Madison College building and downtown streetscape. The applicant said integrating the arch into the new hotel design would diminish both the arch and the larger building’s historic integrity and could complicate future eligibility for historic tax credits for the adjacent building.

Staff explained that if the arch were reinstalled on the Madison College parcel it could conflict with Secretary of the Interior guidelines and jeopardize use of federal historic tax credits for rehabilitation; staff suggested locating the arch elsewhere in the city if it could not be appropriately integrated with the adjacent building. The commission accepted the applicant’s substitute condition, which requires the applicant to work with planning staff to identify an appropriate alternate city location, cover reasonable relocation costs and retain the arch in storage for up to five years.

Commissioners also discussed the design tradeoffs around a double drive aisle on Wisconsin Avenue; staff and UDC concluded the building design sufficiently mitigated streetscape impacts. Alder Ugar moved to forward the rezoning (PD to UMX); Alder Field seconded. The commission then approved the conditional use with the substitute arch condition and forwarded the certified survey map, recording unanimous approval for all three actions.

The items will proceed to the Common Council for final action on rezoning and the certified survey map; the conditional‑use recommendation will be forwarded as the commission’s finding.