It was billed as a $100 million “urban village,” a project to energize the entire east side.
Union Corners promised to transform the site of a contaminated battery factory three miles from the Capitol into a mix of condominiums, offices and retail shops. There was talk of shady green public plazas, bubbling water features, even a light rail transit stop.
But today the 15-acre site is a tangle of empty lots, broken concrete and piles of gravel along one of the city’s busiest corridors. The only things standing are three mature oak trees where employees of Rayovac once enjoyed their lunch breaks before the aging brick factory on Winnebago Street was shuttered by new corporate owners five years ago.
Quoted: Colleen Dunlavy, economic historian at the UW-Madison.