Nicole Pollack

6 days ago | madison.com | Nicole Pollack

Judy Giacomino is no stranger to disasters. Since she retired and began volunteering for the American Red Cross, the former retail buyer has responded to dozens of fires, floods, tornadoes and hurricanes. These two-week deployments have taken her all over the country and into difficult circumstances. When she is sent to conduct damage assessments that help people access financial assistance in the aftermath of natural disasters, she is often the first Red Cross person they see.

1 week ago | madison.com | Nicole Pollack

Six months since a Red Rooster bar manager allegedly caused a three-vehicle crash at the intersection of North Stoughton Road and Highway 30 after drinking while at work, killing a 37-year-old man, Madison may not renew the bar's liquor license. The city's Alcohol License Review Committee voted 3–1 to recommend nonrenewal on Thursday. The City Council will consider the committee's recommendation on Tuesday.

1 week ago | madison.com | Nicole Pollack

If everything goes exactly as planned, a 97-year-old brick house that has been approved for demolition will instead be towed this summer from its original site on West Mifflin Street to an empty lot near Brittingham Park, several blocks away. Peter Taglia, an environmental scientist and longtime Madison resident who owns a handful of houses in the city, has led something of a grassroots campaign to save this one. The roughly 2,100-square-foot house at 427 W.

1 week ago | madison.com | Nicole Pollack

The owners of the new Haven fusion restaurant in Downtown Madison didn't know they needed to get city permission or use specialized materials before painting the century-old building's brick façade dark gray, they told the Urban Design Commission on Wednesday. Co-owners Nikki Yuan and Sharon Li painted the building at 430 W. Gilman St., formerly home to the Blue Velvet Lounge, with an "interior flat matte" paint, a report from city staff said.

1 week ago | madison.com | Nicole Pollack

The dilapidated Super 8 on Madison’s Far East Side is no more. Gutted and reassembled over the past year, the 37-year-old former motel is days away from reopening as a low-cost studio apartment building. Wiseman Capital of Madison wanted the building’s units to look and feel like apartments, not motel rooms. So it stripped the 4765 Hayes Road structure down to the studs. “The studs stayed,” said Cody Wiseman, the company’s founder and CEO. “The bones are good.”Almost everything else is new, he said.