Community Development Authority updates plans for Park Badger redevelopment

The Community Development Authority and its private partners have released updated designs for the Park Badger redevelopment project, located at the northwest corner of South Park Street and West Badger Road on Madison's South Side.

What Has Changed

Previous designs shared with the community called for:

• An eight-story building with clinic, lab, and office space for Public Health Madison and Dane County and family apartments nearest to the Park and Badger intersection
• A second five-story building with an expanded Fire Station No. 6 and senior apartments
• A landscaped ground-level amenity space between the two buildings

The updated plans call for a single six-story, Z-shaped building with shorter corridors that will improve access and connectivity between the parking, commercial, and residential levels.

All apartments would have in-unit laundry, and most would have a balcony or patio, in addition to shared indoor and outdoor community spaces.

The top floor of 46 apartments would be reserved exclusively for seniors and include a dedicated dayroom.

Teens and younger children also have reserved space on the second floor, along with an outdoor roof terrace and a ground-level basketball half-court for resident and neighborhood use.

In all, the six-story building would house a total of 221 income-restricted one- to three-bedroom apartments, along with the new 26,000-square-foot fire station and 32,000-square-foot facility for Public Health Madison and Dane County.

What Led to the Redesign

In the time since initial plans for the development were released, the proposed location of a Metro Bus Rapid Transit station for the planned North-South route has shifted from Hughes Place to the nearby Park Street median. This change removed the need for a public transit connection through the project site itself and moved the primary North-South pedestrian connection to a widened path along Park Street.

Challenging soil and bedrock conditions also contributed to the redesign, affecting the placement, sizing, and configuration of underground parking and traffic circulation that are critical to site operations.

Next Steps

The development team expects to begin the formal city approval process for the first phase of the project in February, with construction slated to last from late 2026 into the second half of 2028.

Community Meetings

A pair of community meetings will be held with the development team providing additional details about the latest project plans and answering questions.

A virtual session on Zoom will be held from 6:00pm - 7:00pm on Tuesday, February 17, 2026, while an in-person session will be held the following day (Wednesday, February 18, 2026) from 12:30pm - 2:00pm at the Madison College Goodman South Campus. Both sessions will have the same information.