As temperatures warm and days become longer, it’s easy to feel at least a wee bit optimistic. After all, spring is traditionally the season of hope, right? So now is a good time to consider some of the new (and new-ish) things happening in Madison this year.
Destination Madison offers a worthy rundown of “what to look forward to” in 2025 — including the long-awaited opening of the Madison Public Market. As the Destination Madison website notes: Talks of a year-round indoor public market have swirled around Madison for years, but 2025 will be the year talk turns into action. The Madison Public Market is set to open on Madison’s near-east side in early 2025 and be home to dozens of local merchants specializing in food, wellness, art, gifts and more. The public market will be host to more than shopping and dining. The space will serve as a business incubator and accelerator to help launch futures for local up-and-coming business owners. Businesses being supported by the incubator and accelerator program will complement a lineup of permanent booths and businesses in the market. (The latest update indicates the market will open in July…)
Additionally, three new shelters (“years in the making,” according to The Cap Times) are expected to open at three Madison parks this spring on the city’s southwest side, downtown and far east side. Costing a combined $6 million, the shelters will offer restrooms, a covered picnic area and a small parking area at Country Grove Park; a beach shelter with similar amenities to Country Grove at Tenney Park; and an enclosed, reservable space at Door Creek Park that includes a gas fireplace, restrooms and kitchen features, along with new basketball and futsal courts. “Two years ago, the city’s Parks Division hired the UW Survey Center to gauge how residents use parks and parks facilities,” The Cap Times reports. “About half of respondents said having shelters and gathering spaces was very or extremely important.”
Sports fans will have more options this year, too. In addition to such popular sports teams as the Madison Mallards summer collegiate baseball team, the Ultimate Frisbee Association’s Madison Radicals and Forward Madison FC (Madison’s professional men’s soccer team) the Madison Night Mares are part of the Northwoods League Softball. The first for-profit women’s collegiate softball league began play last summer, and the first home game of the Night Mares’ second season will be June 12 at Warner Park against the Wausau Softball Club.
And music fans will be treated to another lineup of diverse concerts at historic Breese Stevens Field along the ever-evolving East Washington Avenue corridor. As of late-March, the 2025 lineup includes Megan Moroney and Clint Black (June 6), Queens of the Stone Age (June 20), The Flaming Lips and Modest Mouse (August. 14) and “Weird Al” Yankovic (Sept. 12). Plus, a new venue — the Atwood Music Hall on Winnebago Street — will open in June, and it looks impressive. The schedule already includes the 2025 Madison Area Music Awards ceremony (June 15) and performances by Ben Sidran (June 20), the BoDeans (July 3), Spooner’s 50th Anniversary Show (July 12), Yonder Mountain String Band (Aug. 1), Loudon Wainwright III (Sept. 5), Roger McGuinn (Oct. 4) and Dar Williams (Nov. 12).
I’ve always believed that Madison offers a greater diversity of opportunities and amenities than many other cities of comparable size. And all of this is proof of that.
