A few summers ago, Chas Karch brought his children to the playground at Olbrich Park, only to find it gone. The Madison Parks Division had replaced it with a “nature play area” after reviewing the site, a decision Karch says was made without reasonably consulting constituents.
“During the process of that playground removal, we felt like the voices of the neighbors to the park were not really heard, so we formed [Friends of Olbrich Park],” Karch tells Isthmus. “We walked down there to play and it was empty.”
The planning process did include public input meetings held over Zoom, but Karch says he felt the process lacked transparency.
Karch, president of Friends of Olbrich Park (FOOP), says the mission of the group “is to help make the park better for all and ensure that the voices of the surrounding community are heard…I think it’s easy for local concerns to get lost.”
He shares neighbors’ mixed emotions about Olbrich Gardens’ master planning process, which will guide long-term future plans over the next two decades. The expansion seeks to accommodate the rapid growth in visitors, modernize aging infrastructure and ensure the gardens can continue to serve both the local community and increasing tourism demand.
Friends of Olbrich Park will host its next quarterly neighborhood meeting on the plan on Tuesday, April 14 at 7 p.m. at the Goodman Community Center in the Merrill Lynch Room. Tanya Zastrow, director of Olbrich Gardens, Ald. Dina Nina Martinez-Rutherford and Parks Division Assistant Superintendent Lisa Laschinger will be in attendance.
Olbrich Park, adjacent to the gardens, includes sites under consideration for garden expansion, including two softball diamonds and the boat launch by the gardens. The friends group hopes the design process, emphasized by the Parks Division as community-oriented, addresses past communication gaps and ensures neighborhood input is meaningfully included.
As city officials and residents weigh parking expansion — one of the plan’s most contentious issues — against the potential loss of recreational park space, residents worry the proposal could remove community amenities.
The friends group worries that Scenario 2 specifically creates an opportunity for the gardens to “expand into the park significantly,” removing “quite a few amenities.”
“It’s not just taking empty space,” Karch says. “It just feels like we’re losing a lot of park all of a sudden, and I’m a big fan of Olbrich Gardens. It’s definitely an asset to have in our city, park and neighborhood, but there needs to be a balance.”
Those concerns were also reflected in more than 650 responses submitted through a now-closed public survey on the expansion plan.
“It would be heartbreaking to lose what little green space we have in our immediate neighborhood (safely walkable for children!) to be replaced by a parking lot that is, much of the time, empty,” says one respondent.
The design team for Olbrich’s expansion plan presented two scenarios at its March 17 public meetings, following a January workshop where visitors weighed in on the garden’s key needs and possible design directions.
Initial concepts centered on updating the aging visitor center and addressing crowded parking as attendance grows. At the second public workshop, attention quickly shifted to a key feature of Scenario 2, an added entrance and exit on Garrison Street, raising concerns about increased neighborhood traffic.
“We heard loud and clear that this is a concern of neighbors,” says Olbrich’s Zastrow. “The designers put that in there as a way to help with traffic flow, especially during times when people are all leaving around a certain time together.”
Zastrow tells Isthmus that the two design scenarios presented during the second workshop are still entirely fluid.
“The final scenario is probably going to be a merger of the two. Or, it might not be. It still really depends on what people really liked or don’t like,” she says. “Again, nothing is set in stone.”
Other concerns mentioned in the survey responses and raised by the friends group in its Public Voter Guide include the relocation of another playground within the park as well as a soccer field, ice rink and two softball diamonds.
“In winter, there’s very few places you can take your kids outside after work,” Karch, a father of three, says. “After 4 p.m. when the playgrounds are covered in snow and it’s dark, the skating rinks are still lit — it’s a great way to get your kids outside. When we go there, there’s a lot of other neighborhood kids. To lose a skating rink for them would be a big deal.”
Many survey respondents advocated for the preservation of green space within the gardens over parking expansion.
“If given the trade-off between more garden space or more parking lots…the answer will really highlight what [Olbrich] prioritizes: nature or asphalt,” reads one comment from the survey results.
Zastrow says other top concerns included expanding opportunities for younger children and adults, increasing outdoor learning experiences, adding food options in the gardens, and providing rentals for weddings, gatherings and celebrations of life.
“I feel cautious about the commercialization of the gardens, for example expanding the gift shop, adding more food vending, and expanding paid special events,” says one survey respondent. “I would hope that the everyday experience of visiting the gardens as a free public park is prioritized. This experience is a tremendous asset to Madison’s public.”
Olbrich operates through a partnership between the city of Madison Parks Division and the nonprofit Olbrich Botanical Society. In 2009, the city and Olbrich completed a land swap that identified specific areas for potential future expansion — which include areas within Olbrich Park — rather than extending the gardens across the railroad tracks. Olbrich’s last major expansion was in 2000, and many events and programs have outgrown the space since.
Ald. Martinez-Rutherford, whose district includes Olbrich, says she prefers the parking options in Scenario 1, which essentially brings the lot “up to code,” according to Zastrow. Martinez-Rutherford also prefers preserving the park’s current location as much as possible.
“I share the concerns with increased traffic on Garrison,” she says. “It’s important that we take into consideration the needs of the community while moving toward a more vibrant and meaningful space that Olbrich is becoming.”
While parking expansion is one option under consideration, Zastrow says staff are also looking at ways to ease congestion by encouraging visitors to walk, bike or use public transit.
Over the coming months, the design team will continue to incorporate survey results into a final plan for the garden’s expansion.
“Again, we wanted people to voice their thoughts and opinions and let us know so that we can help inform the design process,” Zastrow says.
Following the March session and survey, the design team has continued to review public input and narrow multiple scenarios down to a single final draft plan, with another opportunity for public comment on May 20 before the plan is adopted at the end of May 2026.
“This plan is not going to happen overnight. We’re looking at 20 years in the future. It’s a complicated site, because we have a really lovely neighborhood around us, and at the same time, we serve visitors from all over who are coming to Madison,” says Zastrow. “We’re just trying to meet the needs of our community in the future.”
“I care a lot. I walk my dog at Olbrich Park every day. My girls and I, we go ice skating and play down by the water. That’s why I live here. I don’t want them to be taking away ice rinks or playgrounds anywhere. I think we should have more amenities for kids to play outside. That is my core belief,” Karch says.
Karch is looking forward to the neighborhood meeting on April 14 and glad that officials from the Parks Division and Olbrich Gardens will be there.
“I’m encouraged they’re coming,” says Karch. “Hopefully it will be a good discussion.”
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