MADISON WIS. – BY NEIL HEINEN (EXCERPTS FROM MADISON MAGAZINE / CHANNEL3000.COM): Special places where we want to live — cities, towns, villages, neighborhoods, parks and paths — don’t just happen. Most of them are the result of careful, thoughtful and usually inspired planning by someone with a vision, but more importantly by someone who cares deeply about how we coexist. Brian Vandewalle was one of those planners.
Vandewalle, who died in July at the age of 77, had a profound impact on hundreds of communities throughout the Midwest … With an extraordinary team of planners at Vandewalle & Associates, Brian reimagined, revitalized and rebuilt often deteriorating cities and villages into healthy communities.
Over 30-some years, I interacted with Brian dozens of times in relation to local projects, like the Capitol East District transformation of East Washington Avenue … re-imagined Oscar Mayer and Alliant Energy Center campuses … the John Nolen Drive redesign … the Madison Lakeway Project …Monona’s Broadway Corridor … a Madison rail/transit hub … Middleton’s downtown.
I feel I also got to know Brian through his remarkable team at Vandewalle & Associates. Rob Gottschalk, Brian Munson and the late Mike Slavney, among many others. Each one has had a significant and long-lasting impact on the Madison of today and the foreseeable future and beyond. There are very few developments in Madison, indeed in much of Dane County, over the last 30 years that haven’t been influenced in some fashion by the team at Vandewalle & Associates.
You can read the full Madison Magazine article by Neil Heinen here.
Neil Heinen is a contributing writer and former editorial director for Madison Magazine.