In response to the recent controversy surrounding the Memorial Union Reinvestment project, members of the project committee announced changes to the facility will increase efficiency and functionality while retaining the building?s historical charm.
After hours of public testimony and deliberation, Madison?s Common Council approved the construction of a new apartment complex on the corner of Brooks Street and University Avenue early Wednesday morning.
After a lengthy debate that stretched into the early morning hours today, the Madison City Council approved the construction of a high-rise apartment building at University Avenue and Brooks Street.
The nation?s new patent law is going to help major corporations at the expense of the little guys, said Carl Gulbrandsen, managing director of the UW-Madison?s Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. “This, basically, is a big-business patent bill,” Gulbrandsen said. “It doesn?t benefit small business and individual inventors. And we?re in an economy where you want small businesses to prosper and hire.” President Barack Obama signed the America Invents Act into law on Friday, the first overhaul of U.S. patent law since 1952. Supporters said the law will make it easier for inventors to bring their products to market and will spur invention and create jobs. But Gulbrandsen, whose office turns discoveries in UW-Madison labs into patents, said he thinks the opposite will be true.
A highly contested proposal for a student high-rise on University Avenue got approval from a city commission Monday night, after nearly two hours of public forum from two rivaling campus ministry communities.
The former Bancroft Dairy that has been closed for a decade and eight South Side residential structures will be demolished as part of a redevelopment project to include a medical clinic, the city?s Plan Commission decided Monday night. The commission also recommended rezoning of the triangular parcel bounded by Fish Hatchery Road, South Park Street and Midland Street, vacating a public right-of-way segment on High Street that cuts through the parcel and a three-lot certified survey map of the subject property. The matter will go to the City Council next month. The proposed $25.2 million project would be a catalyst for significant change in the neighborhood and provide a transformational clinic to replace the Wingra Family Medical Center, said Al Fish, vice chancellor of facilities planning and management at UW-Madison. Fish said the goal is to begin operations at the new clinic within the next year.
….”every child can be helped to connect with the world of work starting in childhood and early adolescence,” said Dave Riley, a UW-Madison professor of human development and family studies. But it?s not likely puberty is the age when people decide to become, say, machinists or operating engineers. “Lasting commitments” to particular career paths made in early adolescence tend to be in the fields of sports, math or music, Riley said, and only if the adolescents happen to be really good at sports, math or music.
The press release from Doubletree general manager Tom Ziarnik describes the large group of students protesting the Center for Equal Opportunity?s report attacking the UW-Madison?s admission practices as a “mob” that “became increasingly physically violent when forcing themselves into the meeting room where the press conference had already ended.” And, it alleges that “staff were then rushed by a mob of protesters, throwing employees to the ground.”
I attended the press conference and was in the main lobby afterward. There was no “mob” that was “physically violent.”
(Michael Olneck is a UW-Madison professor emeritus of educational policy studies and sociology>)
AquaMost was recognized for its development of a water purification device based on patented technology developed by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was one of two Wisconsin companies that were finalists in the competition ? the other being Lightweight Structures of Hartland, which has designed an energy-efficient, insulation-embedded wall and floor frames.
Student Council voted Wednesday to place a referendum concerning the Memorial Union Reinvestment Project?s student theater lounge on the 2011 ASM fall election ballot in an effort to collect student opinion on the renovation.
The renovation of several roads and pedestrian walkways adjacent to the University of Wisconsin?s campus was just one of many budgetary breakdowns weighed by the mayor and city alders at Tuesday?s Board of Estimates meeting.
Dear Editor: The citizens of this state who applauded the increase in health insurance and retirement payments for state employees can now consider this fact: Wisconsin businesses are losing over $155 million a year in income.
….Despite perceptions of a bloated public sector, Wisconsin has actually had fewer government workers per capita than the national average since at least 1993, according to an analysis of the figures from the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families.
The interim chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has sent a letter to Wisconsin lawmakers urging them to oppose a bill that would ban the use of fetal tissue in research. Chancellor David Ward says in the letter sent to lawmakers Tuesday that the ban would affect both fetal tissue and cells derived from detail tissue, which would hamper research at the university.
This summer, news blew up that a ?glass box? will likely be added to the Memorial Union Theater. The structure would jut out in a mushroom-like shape, encompassing much of the area that sits next to Park Street to the north of the Union.
STEVENS POINT ? Autumn is at the doorstep again, and across much of the state, corn crops are bursting with promise, soybeans are yellowing out in their patient manner, alfalfa and pasture lands are lush and emerald green. Grain prices are high, boosting land values and yielding profits for farmers. In a difficult economy, agriculture seems to be thriving. That?s good news for this bedrock Wisconsin industry, at least for the short term. Not to look for clouds on a sunny day, but the words ?short-term? are important markers for some analysts.
The city Urban Design Commission has approved plans for a new UW Health clinic on a portion of the vacant Bancroft Dairy site at Fish Hatchery Road and South Park Street. The panel on Wednesday voted 7-1 for the $17 million project, which includes a four-story building and some 375 parking spaces in a combination of a ramp and surface stalls.
SAN FRANCISCO ? Yahoo?s stock rose more than 5 percent on Wednesday after the company fired its CEO following more than 2½ years of financial lethargy.The ouster, which became public late Tuesday, came as investors were convinced that Carol Bartz couldn?t steer the Internet company to a long-promised turnaround.
Ideal Body Shop, which has operated in a brick building on South Park Street since 1924, could be replaced by a five-story apartment building with commercial space on the ground floor. A meeting of the Greenbush Neighborhood Association at 6 p.m. Monday at the Neighborhood House, 29 S. Mills St., will hear plans to raze the iconic garage and replace it with roughly 75 apartment units. Three adjacent rental houses on Drake Street would also come down.
Take a stroll along Midland Street, a shady two-block stretch between Fish Hatchery Road and Park Street on the city?s near south side. The mix of apartments and single-family homes, most with porches out front and garages behind, seems right out of the New Urbanism planning book. If you were going to create an affordable, walkable neighborhood, it?s already there.
Even without advertising or a highway sign, plenty of people have found their way to Kelley?s Country Creamery just south of Fond du Lac. The ice cream parlor and plant on a fifth-generation farm pulled in 80,000 visitors last year, its inaugural year, and people continue to flock to the family business just off Highway 41. Karen Kelley attended value-added conferences to learn how to complement the family?s dairy operation. Once she settled on ice cream as a product, she took two UW-Madison dairy short courses and another at the University of Florida.
“The idea behind Sconnie Nation is simple. Anyone from Wisconsin, who attends school in Wisconsin, or just loves the dairy state in general can identify with Sconnie.
Remember the last time the battery on your cellphone died in the middle of a conversation? Tom Krupenkin, a UW-Madison physicist and researcher, sympathizes. Actually, he?s done more than that. He and another university scientist may have come up with a way to dramatically extend the life of a cellphone battery. And here?s the really nifty part: Their invention will allow you to keep your phone charged simply by walking.
AquaMost is working to market water purification technology based on research done at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Its device destroys a variety of pathogens in water, including bacteria, viruses and fungi. It can also destroy harmful chemicals that can contaminate drinking water.
Citing high costs, sluggish Internet speeds on public computers and limited bandwidth for researchers, University of Wisconsin System officials are building a $37 million high-speed Internet network across the state ? a web of fiber stretching from Wausau to Superior. But a legal challenge is raising questions about the need and appropriateness of that effort. The telecommunications industry is suing to stop the project, arguing it not only violates state law, but it?s duplicative and a waste of public resources.
Four months after he left office, former Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has taken a position leading a new community development corporation that will try to revitalize the Greenbush and Vilas neighborhoods on the Near West Side. The corporation will be funded by Meriter and St. Mary?s hospitals, UW-Madison and Madison Gas and Electric.
Virent, which is commercializing technology developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has 115 employees.
After getting sacked by the economy in 2008, a hotel project in downtown Madison hopes to score success by catering to Camp Randall clientele and beyond. While its name may be Hotel Red, this new business hopes to be running in the black soon. After being in the works for three years, the hotel opened to the public on Tuesday.
Techies in the Madison area will have a cavalcade of activities over the next couple of weeks to promote – and cheer – their industry. The Forward Technology Festival will be held Aug. 18-27, with as many as 2,000 people expected to participate.
Although the market for single-family homes and condominiums remains slow, developers continue to move forward with new apartment construction.
….Meanwhile, construction continues on a couple of other major apartment projects, one on the west end of the UW-Madison campus and another in the ‘Miffland’ neighborhood.
It didn?t garner much press coverage locally, but Supreme Court Justice Shirley Abrahamson gored a sacred cow recently in calling for a legislative review of the tax-exempt status of Wisconsin hospitals and their expanding network of clinics.
UW-Madison researchers got five grants totaling $5.6 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to study new nuclear energy technology, the most of any university.
HotelRed near Camp Randall Stadium is set to open its doors next Tuesday after nearly four years in the making.
The Spring Harbor Neighborhood Association is telling the developer of University Crossing, the proposed $100 million mixed-use redevelopment of 14 acres at University Avenue and Whitney Way, that it can?t back the project until it gets more information and time to review it. Specifically, the neighbors want information on traffic projections and storm water management plans, a commitment on monitoring of contaminants during construction and clarification on options for tax increment financing.
The Treasury can cry foul all it wants, but the decision by Standard & Poor?s to downgrade America?s credit rating by one notch last Friday, and the subsequent plunge in the stock market, are serious symptoms of a loss of confidence ? an assessment that is fundamentally political, not economic.
François Ortalo-Magné takes the helm of the Wisconsin School of Business next month following Wisconsin?s contentious battle over collective bargaining rights for public-employee unions, which has presented challenges for the state university system.
One solid building block is GE Healthcare?s relationship with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the nonprofit patenting and licensing arm for the university.
Ten years ago, the university, WARF and UW Hospitals launched intellectual property agreements that have allowed UW and company researchers to work side-by-side in Waukesha and Madison.
Forbes magazine says Madison is the third best city in the U.S. for young professionals. In ranking Madison No. 3, Forbes cited low unemployment, the UW-Madison and “a growing number of biotech and advertising companies.”
Madison police are investigating a stabbing and battery that occurred outside Wando?s Bar, 602 University Ave., around bar time Thursday morning.
Venture capitalists across the U.S. pumped more money into promising companies in the second quarter of 2011 than they have in three years. Investments totaled $7.5 billion, more than in any three-month period since the second quarter of 2008, with software, biotech and industrial/energy companies attracting more than 85 percent of the funds, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Venture Capital Association MoneyTree report.
In Wisconsin, investors reported $39.3 million of venture capital allocations and five of the six deals went to Madison companies. But most of the money went to one place: stem cell company Cellular Dynamics International, which raised $30 million.
A Dane County judge has ruled against a telecommunications company that wanted to slow down a broadband project in rural communities. The University of Wisconsin System and others were awarded more than $37 million in grants for the project. Its goal is to deliver telecommunications capabilities to schools, hospitals and emergency services. But Wisconsin Independent Telecommunications Systems, which operates as Access Wisconsin, filed a lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order to stop the project.
An entrepreneur from the University of Wisconsin is putting the mobile in mobile Internet.
While wireless networks enable devices like smartphones or tablet computers to connect to the Internet from just about anywhere, service is spotty or nonexistent in many cars, trains, planes, buses and other vehicles.
Suman Banerjee, an associate professor of computer sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has come up with a solution.
The staff and owners of HotelRED know there?s a ton of curiosity about the hotel across from Camp Randall Stadium. Even so, they?re planning to milk it just a little bit longer. That?s why the windows are still covered with paper as the hotel makes its final push for a soft opening in August. Inside, staff is being trained and furniture is being installed in the 48-room hotel at the intersection of Monroe and Regent streets. “Everybody keeps saying football games should be great here, and I agree,” said company president Mike Erikson. “But we also have the other 358 days a year. We want to create someplace people want to come to all year long.” Besides Badger fans, Erikson says the target market is also visitors to UW-Madison, both researchers and parents, as well as leisure travelers.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Big Ten Network will give each of the conference?s member schools a record $22.6 million this year. The increase is due in part to increased revenue from the Big Ten Network.
Quoted: Mark Stephenson, the director of dairy-policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
No matter how vocal the opposition, the state?s new Republican leadership rarely blinks when pushing through measures it deems important. Return federal high-speed rail money? Check. Slash public sector unions? rights? Done. Implement a voter ID bill? No problem.
So, when members of the Republican-led Joint Finance Committee inserted language into their version of the state budget that would have been a boon to state telecommunications providers and a blow to decades-old investments made by University of Wisconsin institutions to help deliver and expand Internet access to entities such as schools and libraries, people across Wisconsin reached for the panic button.
Exact Sciences has begun a huge test of its non-invasive screening test for colorectal cancer. The Madison company started lining up patients on June 30 to take its DNA-based stool test. Over the next 12 to 15 months, Exact Sciences wants to test more than 10,000 patients between the ages of 50 and 84 at 60 sites around the U.S., including UW Hospital in Madison.
Spinback is a much more recent story. Founded by three University of Wisconsin-Madison graduates, it was sold recently to Buddy Media, a New York company that markets a Facebook advertising program. Spinback, which helps e-commerce retail firms track social media traffic and sales, was a New York company with six employees when it was sold.
The Wisconsin School of Business (Wisconsin Full-Time MBA Profile) has named François Ortalo-Magné as its new dean. Ortalo-Magné will take over for Interim Dean Joan Schmit on Sept. 1. He is succeeding Dean Michael Knetter, who is now the president and CEO of the University of Wisconsin Foundation, the school said in a recent announcement.
Options for traveling to Wausau, Green Bay and Dubuque, Iowa ? and points along the way ? expand dramatically Thursday with the start of three direct bus routes to those cities out of Madison. The routes are operated by Lamers Bus Lines of Green Bay and are subsidized by state and federal money. Tickets for the buses, which will arrive and depart from the UW-Madison campus, will be $45 one way. All of the buses running the new routes would arrive and depart from Langdon Street in front of the Memorial Union.
It?s hard to mess with ice cream perfection. But the experts at Babcock are dabbling with a new challenge: organic ice cream. The new line can be found exclusively at Rennie?s Dairy Bar, the only organic ice cream shop on campus. Located on the first floor of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery on North Orchard Street, Rennie?s takes its name from old-time Rennebohm drugstores.
Three recent UW-Madison graduates found out just how quickly the world of social media commerce can work. Corey Capasso, Andrew Ferenci and Dan Reich created a company, Spinback, whose technology includes EasyShare, a system that lets consumers share products and purchases through social media and then lets companies find out how those communications translate into sales.
The past two years of data suggest exploding mortgage payments are not the cause of the foreclosure crisis. Prime mortgages account for the majority of mortgage defaults. Instead, there are two ?triggers? that cause foreclosures. [A column by Morris A. Davis, business professor and academic director of the Graaskamp Center for Real Estate at UW-Madison.]
It?s looking like the long-vacant 48-room hotel at the corner of Monroe and Regent streets will open in time for the first UW home football game on Sept. 1. The operators of HotelRED, which sits directly across from Camp Randall Stadium at 1501 Monroe St., announced Monday that the hiring for two key positions is complete in anticipation of opening later this summer.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison turned to a familiar face to fill its dean of the business school opening. François Ortalo-Magné, who chairs the university?s real estate and urban land economics department, has been named the dean of the Wisconsin School of Business, university officials announced Friday. Ortalo-Magné, who is an expert on the economics of the housing market, is credited with growing alumni involvement across degree programs and expanding his department?s international reach.
Real estate specialist François Ortalo-Magné has been appointed to the dean?s position at the Wisconsin School of Business, part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, north-west of Chicago.
After beginning as a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin, François Ortalo-Magné will be the next dean of its School of Business.
Three University of Wisconsin-Madison graduates have sold their e-commerce analytics company for an undisclosed price.
Spinback was formed in October and sold recently to Buddy Media, a New York company that says it has the leading Facebook management system for global advertisers. Spinback helps e-commerce retailers measure social network traffic and sales.
Cellular Dynamics International, Madison, and the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, have received a five-year, $6.26 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.The funds will be used to study the causes of a heart condition called left ventricular hypertrophy. CDI is the company founded in 2005 by UW-Madison stem cell pioneer James Thomson.
Those who follow Wisconsin?s economic development scene know the state suffers from a lack of investment dollars to help new companies get off the ground. One figure often cited is that Wisconsin is home to 1.84 percent of the U.S. population and receives 2.15 percent of the nation?s academic research spending but attracts just 0.11 percent of the available venture capital.
For more than 25 years, John Neis has been working to change that.
