Madison school developer pulls second proposal, plans to start child care operation

April 09-- Apr. 9--It's back to the drawing board -- again -- for the owner of Winona's former Madison Elementary.

Developer Andrew Brenner pulled his second plan for the property Monday afternoon, hours before the city's planning commission was set to hold a public hearing on the proposal. Brenner's "Plan B" would have converted the historic building's east wing into a 10-unit apartment complex and the west wing into a child care center, pivoting from his initial proposal for senior living as well as the construction of a new apartment building on the lot.

Now, he told the Daily News, his third plan will focus solely on child care, leasing some of the space to established day care providers and also starting a day care of his own in the building.

"It's not an easy thing to get into," Brenner said Monday. "I didn't come here to start a day care. I wanted to restore an old building ... and at least make a penny."

The earlier two plans for the property, which Brenner acquired in December, were tripped up by the city's zoning requirements. Both would have necessitated an amendment to the city's comprehensive plan to change the zoning of the lot, a move the planning commission soured on in February. Brenner's "Plan C" would not require a zoning change, he said.

Though the developer has no prior experience in child care, he said the future "Madison Academy" could operate as a 24-hour facility to serve parents working second and third shifts.

The facility also could rent out classrooms to teachers to offer after-school classes, such as how to build rockets, he suggested.

Brenner said he'll begin work on the child care operation in the next two months. He added that he will return next year with a plan to develop a handful of rentals on the back half of the lot, where the playground is currently located, unless the day care is "really successful."

"If I build on the playground, I can build three buildings and each one of those can have units in them of four," he said.

Though it won't face as much red tape at the city level as his previous plans, the day care proposal will still hit a snag of a different kind if the Winona public school district does not remove its restriction on the building, mandating that it not be used to teach children ages 6 and up.

Brenner said he contacted representatives from Save Our Schools and told them he needed that restriction removed to make headway on the new project. SOS representative Doug Salzmann told the Daily News that the group will "unconditionally support" the efforts of building owners to remove those restrictions and would encourage the school board to do so.

Echoing claims that he is "bending over backwards" to meet interested parties' needs on the issue, Brenner said Plan C is far from the plan he initially dreamed up -- though he still has two additional plans in his back pocket if the new proposal falls through.

"This building is very difficult to make work. I'm not even sure if it will," Brenner said. "But nobody can say that I didn't try."

"It's not an easy thing to get into. I didn't come here to start a day care. I wanted to restore an old building ... and at least make a penny." Andrew Brenner

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