An Urbanist Christmas List for the North Bay

Santa Claus is about 24 hours away from his pre-flight checklist.  It’s time to finalize my list of urbanist Christmas wishes for the North Bay.

New Years and the annual obligation of resolutions is still a week away, but thinking about my wish list reminds me that my first resolution should be learning more about the urbanist issues that are important to each North Bay community.  I know what it’s important to me in Petaluma and I have a grasp of region-wide issues, but I could learn much more about the priorities of urbanists in Napa, St. Helena, and Healdsburg.  Luckily, I have a whole year for that effort.

North Bay

More Urbanists: My wish list must begin with having more urbanists, especially those willing to make their views felt.  Critical mass is a crucial concept.

Urbanist Candidates:  The coming year will include a general election.  I wish for more and better urbanist candidates.  Not candidates who think walkable developments are fine as long as they don’t interfere with new big boxes, but ones who have both a comprehension and a gut-level feeling that urbanism is a logical and essential component of our future and who are willing to work to counteract the marketplace constraints that impede urbanism.

Finding a Balance with Tourism: As shown by Ballot Measure B in Sonoma and the continuing hotel proposals in Healdsburg, there is increasing interest in lodging options in downtown settings.  Here in Petaluma, the conversion of the Hotel Petaluma and the proposal for The Petaluman boutique hotel also shows how travelers are eager to have a walking environment outside their hotel room door.

I wish for the region to find the appropriate balance between tourism and urbanism.  Tourism can bring dollars needed to sustain urbanism.  But too many tourists can result in sidewalks and restaurants filled with nothing but tourists.  Find the right balance is key, but non-trivial.

Petaluma

Fairgrounds: Closer to home, I wish for good news from the negotiations between the Sonoma Marin Fair Board and the City of Petaluma.  The Sonoma Marin Fair is a fine institution.  But it sits on land that could change the course of the city if used well.  Finding a balance between the two won’t be easy, but perhaps Santa can help.

Petaluma Station Area: A year ago, the Petaluma Station Area Plan was adopted with great hope that it would soon lead to urbanist development in the heart of the city, adjoining the coming SMART rail station.  Since then, silence.

The problem seems to be that SMART hasn’t yet issued a Request for Qualifications, seeking a developer for the first parcel next to the station.  (I’ve heard reports the new owner of the next parcel beyond the SMART parcel is proceeding with a plan that will be consistent with the Station Area Plan.  But I suspect that the firm is hesitant to advance too far ahead of the SMART parcel which will provide the walking route between their parcel and the station.)

I wish for Santa to help SMART to get the paperwork underway and for a qualified and motivated developer to quickly snatch the opportunity.

Already Granted

SMART to Airport: Sometimes the best gifts are the ones you didn’t expect, but meet your needs perfectly.  In that category is the newly announced funding for a SMART station at the Santa Rosa Airport.  I’ve only used the Santa Rosa Airport a couple of times, but found it a much more pleasant way to begin a trip than traveling to San Francisco or Oakland.  Riding a train from Petaluma to the airport sounds even better.  I thank Santa for his prescience.

I know that some will quibble that there are insufficient air travelers to justify a rail station serving the airport.  To which I can only repeat a comment often made regarding decisions about new bike lanes and bike paths.  One doesn’t choose a location for a new bridge based on how many people are swimming the river.

Have I missed any obvious urbanist Christmas wishes?  Probably.  Please add your thoughts below.

Note: There will be a new post on Christmas morning.  But that will be only because I always write on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  Christmas Day is to spend family and friends.  My post will still be waiting for you after the holiday.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

A Shipping Container Pop-Up in Petaluma?

Pop-up retail businesses in urban settings and shipping containers for urban space are two growing trends.  Both, especially in combination, offer interesting possibilities for the North Bay.

Shipping containers are being increasingly used for retail and residential space.  Atlantic Cities writes about some of the applications.  In appropriate sites and with good site engineering, they can provide a quick and effective response to changing urban conditions.

Pop-up retail spaces, quickly installed stores often with a limited intended life, are frequently used to bridge the gap between e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores.  Knowledge@Wharton offers a perspective on the philosophy behind pop-ups.  Atlantic Cities offers thoughts on the related concept of temporary cities.

Pop-ups can also be used to meet short-term social or neighborhood revitalization needs.  Several restaurateurs in Oklahoma City are setting up pop-up restaurants to feed the victims of the recent tornadoes and to raise relief funds.   And a string of pop-ups was recently used to kick-start a moribund commercial district in Oakland. 

The container and pop-up trends are separate and distinct.  But they can overlap in marvelous ways.  After devastating earthquakes struck Christchurch, New Zealand, Re:Start, a pop-up retail mall that made extensive use of containers was among the first businesses to begin serving the stricken town, restoring a sense of normalcy.  After a year, Re-Start remains in operation.

I found all of this interesting, but it didn’t seem pertinent to the North Bay.  Until I chanced upon a pop-up business in a shipping container and had my eyes opened.

It was in Carlsbad, a coastal community in northern San Diego County.  Carlsbad is largely comprised of vast ridgelines of stucco palaces, about which I’ll write another time.  But in the center of the car-centric sprawl is a downtown shopping district that somehow survives from another age.  And on a key downtown intersection is a pop-up waffle shop, Boxd, in a shipping container.

I stumbled across Boxd during recent travels.   My interest piqued, my traveling companion and I stopped for a mid-afternoon snack, a fresh waffle laden with peanut butter and strawberry preserves.  In exchange for the small purchase, I posed questions to the counter person.

The lot was owned for years by an elderly gentleman who didn’t have an intended use for it.  But he

 had a grudge against the city, so chose not to sell the lot to the city.  After his passing, the city was finally able to acquire the lot, but funds were too tight to create a new city park.

Instead, Boxd filled the void.  In exchange for a land lease, the waffle shop installed a container for a small restaurant, another container to serve as a downtown restroom, and enough tables and artificial turf to create an eating area.  With a few details such as old-style lamp posts, the site made an appealing addition to downtown.

According to the counter person, there was no significant obstruction from the brick-and-mortar stores in downtown.  Nor was the City building department a major hurdle, despite the unusual structure.  However, when I first spotted the business on the evening before my snack, an employee was on the roof installing a vent despite the business having been open almost a year.  So there seemed to be a least a few issues with shipping container approach.

The counter person didn’t know the term of the City lease.  However, I can see a use like Boxd being a land-banking operation.  It would allow a short-term productive and aesthetic use of a piece of property until economics can justify brick-and-mortar.

So, can Boxd provide a model for the North Bay?  My thoughts went immediately to the Petaluma Station Area.

As the Station Area plan is implemented, two potentially contradictory goals must be met.   First, multiple buildings must be constructed, requiring sequential staging throughout the Station Area.  Second, the rail passengers must be made to feel comfortable so their daily patterns become engrained.

It seems that a containerized pop-up coffee stand could help achieve the latter goal without getting in the way of the former.  The business could be a container or two that are moved to new locations in the Station Area as construction progresses and as the access routes of the train passengers evolve.

Perhaps the initial site for the containers would be close to the SMART station.  But as the initial buildings near construction, which would hopefully happen soon, the containers could be moved closer to D Street, a route by which many passengers will approach the station.  Later, as the length of Transverse Street nearest to the station is completed, perhaps another location for the containers can be found adjoining that alignment.

At this time, it’s a premature idea, but I think there’s worth in it.

Back to Boxd.  You may be wondering about my thoughts on the waffle.  It was fine, but I was surprised at how runny peanut butter becomes when enclosed in a fresh-from-the-griddle waffle.  The flavors were excellent, but the messiness factor was high.  If I again find myself in Carlsbad, I’d probably be more tempted by the pulled pork and slaw waffle.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

From Today to TOD - Retail

In a pair of recent posts (here and here), I wrote about the difficulties of integrating transit-oriented development (TOD) into communities that have a drivable suburbia slant.  The two previous posts addressed how providing parking for transit users can conflict with a desire for mixed-use development near a transit stop.  I also wrote about a transitional solution that the City of Petaluma hopes will provide a working compromise and the hurdles that the solution must yet overcome.

But parking isn’t the only element issue that creates transitional difficulties.  Some are even more intractable than parking.  Such as retail.

A favored vision of TOD enthusiasts, and of urbanists in general, is streetfront retail.  The image they evoke is of the communities of the 1930s in which our parents or grandparents were raised, with rows of locally-owned storefronts marking the downtown.

Consistent with this vision, ground floor retail, underneath residential or office space, is a key element in many urban planning codes and conceptual plans.

But three key elements have changed since the 1930s.  First, cars have become far more pervasive.  And we’ve constructed a world in which the incremental cost of car usage is so small that few feel constrained in how many miles they drive.

Second, drivable suburban development has met the retail needs of the car drivers.

Third, the internet is capturing an ever increasing share of retail.  About 18 months ago, a planner told me that internet sales were only about 3 percent of all retail sales.  When one considers that cars and food are among the largest sources of retail sales and that both are relatively immune to encroachment from the internet, perhaps the number was correct.  But it seems evident that the internet’s share of retail will continue to increase, perhaps even finding business models that can capture shares of car and food sales.

Many have rediscovered, or never forgotten, the value of shopping downtown for a handful of screws or a sheet of sandpaper.  But most, when looking for a new power drill or belt sander, will drive to a home improvement store or shop on-line.  And the absence of those big-ticket, big-profit items from downtown undermines the commercial viability of downtown retail.

Developers have long understood that cities were seeking more retail than the market could support.  I’ve worked on multiple projects where the space designated by the code as streetfront retail was given transitional titles of “live-work” or “interim residential”.  A commitment was given that the space would become retail as soon as the market could support it.  But no developer believed that change would ever happen.

Within the past week, an architect told me of designing residential space with 14-foot ceilings to meet a city requirement that the space be easily converted to retail at a later date.  The developer didn’t believe that the space would ever be anything other than high-ceilinged residential.

Perhaps most tellingly, a developer acquaintance recently tried to sell an entitled, but unconstructed, mixed-use project.  The potential buyers were consistent in their determination of the project value.  Approximately $35,000 per residential unit.  And no value for the streetfront retail.  Although the buyers would build the retail, they expected to discount rents significantly in order to keep the spaces filled.  So they couldn’t project any profits.  At least they weren’t considering retail a negative asset.

And if you need yet one more example, look at the vacant spaces in the Theatre Square project in Petaluma, especially in the locations away from the primary pedestrian routes.

The Petaluma Station Area plan met the problem head-on.  The team headed by Opticos Design of Berkeley that developed the master plan knew that retail would be dodgy.  Especially in a city that recently gave the green light to two drivable suburban shopping centers.  Not surprisingly, the Opticos team found that the market didn’t exist for retail along the full street frontages.

In the words of the Final Draft report, January 2013, “Retail cannot be supported at every building, but if the current conditions change such that more retail can be supported, the code should be sufficiently flexible to allow that use.”  (For those who are reading along, this is from page 3-17 of the Petaluma Station Area Master Plan.)

The effect is that the initial buildings, if they comply with the master plan, will have some retail, but not as much as would have been required under the current code.  Instead, much of the street frontage will be residential.   (Techniques such as stoops or small private gardens will be used to transition between the public space of the sidewalk and the private space of the homes.)

If retail conditions change, later buildings might include a higher proportion of retail.  Although I suspect that Target and Amazon will be actively working to prevent that possibility.  And will likely succeed.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Getting from Today to TOD – Parking

Urbanists have visions of the future.  Visions that may be twenty years or farther into the future, but are nonetheless in perfect focus.

Where the focus is often less clear is on the intervening years.  The years of awkward transition between a drivable suburban present and a walkable urban future.

A frequent urbanist vision is of transit-oriented development (TOD).   An urbanist sees a delightful street scene with refreshed commuters disembarking from sleek trains and walking or biking contentedly toward nearby homes.  There would be abundant opportunities to make nightly purchases in streetfront stores or to sit in neighborhood pubs, sharing news of the day.

But even if a TOD could be magically plopped into place tomorrow, the reality is still that the surrounding community wouldn’t be ready to accommodate a TOD in its midst.   Last May, I wrote about new development being a rent in the fabric of the city, a wound that takes time to heal.  A TOD, no matter how well-designed and executed, disrupts the existing day-to-day life of a city.

Finding ways to heal those wounds, to facilitate the transition to a TOD future, is key to a successful TOD.

The City of Petaluma is currently is the final stages of a master plan for the Petaluma Station Area, a possible TOD adjoining the SMART (Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit) station that will soon be built near downtown Petaluma.  The draft master plan provides an example of the transitional strategies that are required to implement a TOD.  Today, I’ll begin writing about transitional parking.  There are other issues, such as retail demand, that I’ll cover in future posts.

The initial SMART vision for Petaluma had a fully-conceived vision for commuter parking.  There were to be two stations in town.  One would be near the historic downtown and would be suited for pedestrian, bicycle, and transit access.  The other would be near the north end of town and would include extensive parking.  It was a reasonable strategy.

But as often happens, even reasonable strategies can come unwound.  In this case, economic hard times reduced the sales tax revenues that were to fund the construction of the new train.  SMART had to adjust their plans.  One change was the deferral of the north station.  What remained was the downtown station that hadn’t been intended to provide much parking.

That was the challenge that faced the consulting team, headed by Opticos Design of Berkeley, who was hired by the City of Petaluma to prepare a TOD master plan.

Before discussing the Opticos solution, I’ll offer a quick summary of the lands encompassed by the master plan.  For those who know Petaluma, this is information you already know.  But for others, you may wish to download the final draft master plan.  An overview of the TOD site can be seen on page 2-6.

The potential site includes three large blocks of land.  Immediately adjoining the historic train station and the site of new train station, and further bounded by E. Washington Street, Copeland Street, and D Street, is land owned by SMART.  The land is currently being used as a staging area for rail construction.  SMART intends to seek a developer for the land after rail construction is complete.

Next closest to the station is the Haystack Landing site, bounded by E. Washington Street, Weller Street,  D Street, and Copeland Street.  Earlier development plans for the property failed and the land has been in a bankruptcy court action for several years.  Except for a pair of metal buildings in one corner, the site is vacant.

Furthest away from the station, bounded by E. Washington Street, Weller Street, and the Petaluma River, is a shopping center that was recently renamed River Plaza, but is still commonly known as Golden Eagle.  Redevelopment of this site under the Petaluma Station Area would result in a higher level of economic use, but will likely happen after the other two sites because of the productive use already in place.

The concept that Opticos proposed to address the parking concern was an incremental development of the SMART land.  If the initial development can be limited to the areas closest to the station, E. Washington, and D Street, much of the internal area of the parcel can be used for parking on an interim basis.  By my calculations, it seems that 300 to 400 parking spaces could be created.

The plan on page 2-11 shows a possible overall development of the site.  To understand the interim parking thinking, look at the parking in the middle of the two halves of the SMART site.  Those two lots would be extended toward the central street and to the street to the southwest, which is Copeland Street.

The expectation would be that the parking areas along the street frontages would eventually be replaced by the final buildings as the initial buildings were fully absorbed.  The hope is that the north Petaluma station will have been built by that time, reducing the need for parking at the downtown station.

But there is one other possibility.  If there continues to be strong demand for parking at the downtown station, one or both of the parking areas in the middle of the building sites could be converted to parking structures.  The cost would be significant, but would only be incurred if there was a need.

Do these parking strategies offer a good transitional solution?  Absolutely.  Does it mean that we needn’t worry about the parking issue again?  Not even close.  There are many possibilities for the ship of good intentions to be driven onto the lee shore of real-world issues.  I’ll talk about some of those of possibilities in my next post. 

But for today, I’d suggest that you scan the draft master plan.  It’s a large document and I don’t seriously suggest you read every word, but read as much as holds your interest.

If being a part of bringing this vision to fruition is of interest to you, including the interim parking concepts, you may wish to attend the final meeting of the citizens’ advisory committee.  It will be held this Thursday, February 21, at 6pm at the Community Center.  Everyone is welcome to attend.  The master plan will then head to the Planning Commission and City Council, where your attendance could also be valuable.

Moving from today to TOD is a complex subject.  Hopefully, Petaluma can provide lessons for the other cities in the region.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)