Large lots eyed for shopping

<p>The largest and highest-profile vacant lots identified in Petaluma’s General Plan are each at least 30 acres in size, situated along Highway 101 and designated for a mix of new uses.</p><p>All three are also the subject of specific development proposals — as well as part of a larger debate in the community and the current City Council campaign about what types of development are desirable, beneficial and appropriate for Petaluma.</p><p>Each site also has its own history in the planning pipeline, with several previous project concepts having evolved or been dropped along the road to the current proposals.</p><p>Most recently, a revised site plan for a 36-acre site on North McDowell Boulevard, across from Petaluma Valley Hospital, was the subject of a preliminary review by the Site Plan and Architectural Review Committee.</p><p>Deer Creek Plaza</p><p>The project: Formerly known as “the DSL site” under owner Downey Savings and Loan, the hay field between McDowell and Highway 101 was purchased about a month ago by Merlone Geier Partners of San Francisco.</p><p>MGP specializes in commercial retail shopping centers and acquired all of Downey’s real estate portfolio, said Greg Geertsen, managing director.</p><p>Geertsen and his colleagues presented the city’s Site Plan and Architectural review Committee with a plan showing a large home improvement and garden store — possibly Lowe’s, which was previously announced for the site — along with other unnamed retailers, a health club, a pharmacy and medical offices.</p><p>The owners would restore Deer Creek through the site and create public plazas and open space along the waterway, MGP officials said.</p><p>The latest: SPARC and members of the public who attended the Sept. 25 meeting weren’t sold on the plan.</p><p>“I don’t see anything but a bunch of boxes scattered on this site,” said SPARC member Jack Rittenhouse.</p><p>“I don’t think it fits here in Petaluma,” SPARC member Dennis Elias said. “It’s still an automobile-centric site.”</p><p>Critics said the site plan lacked imagination and was disappointing, noting that the medical offices were shown in the northeast corner instead of closer to the hospital, where patients and doctors could walk back and forth.</p><p>Several speakers said the wide-open parcel could give the east side of Petaluma a downtown-like urban center instead of a traditional shopping center.</p><p>“There’s an opportunity here for a significant and important community-serving center for the east side,” former council member David Keller said.</p><p>“I think you have an unbelievable opportunity to take this 40-acre site and make it spctacular,” SPARC Chair John Mills said.</p><p>What’s next: MGP officials said they will hold a community meeting with neighbors before making revisions to their plan. Whatever comes out of that process will likely be the subject of a second preliminary SPARC review, not yet scheduled.</p><p>“We certainly will go through a community-input process,” MGP Managing Director David Geiser said. “We know we’re going to make revisions to our plan.”</p><p>Riverfront lifestyle center</p><p>The project: A collaboration between Petaluma’s Basin Street Properties and Alabama-based Bayer Properties, the “Riverfront” project would transform a vacant 40-acre site into apartments, townhomes, 395,000 square feet of commercial space and a hotel.</p><p>The site is located the south end of Hopper Street, sandwiched between the former Pomeroy concrete plant, Highway 101 and the Petaluma River.</p><p>Plans calls for extending Caulfield Lane across Hopper Street to reach the site and building a new drawbridge across the river to reach Petaluma Boulevard South.</p><p>The project is modeled after Bayer’s “Summit” outdoor malls in Reno and elsewhere nationwide that typically feature high-end retailers like Pottery Barn, Banana Repub-lic and Williams-Sonoma.</p><p>The latest: At the project’s first SPARC review, Bayer representative David Silver-stein said the project would be an “upper-end” shopping center aimed at women consumers.</p><p>“We’re not in the business of building value-oriented projects,” he said. “We build it for the female shopper.”</p><p>Like Bayer’s other Summit developments, the project would include more than retail — 200 apartments, 130 townhomes and a 108-room “boutique hotel” are planned.</p><p>Bayer has prepared rough 3-D renderings showing the scale of different buildings in the project, but has not presented architectural details yet.</p><p>SPARC members who reviewed the plans agreed with some of the public speakers that Bayer should explore adding public river access, such as a small boat launching center, along the property’s river frontage.</p><p>What’s next: Another SPARC review, not yet scheduled.</p><p>East Washington Place</p><p>The project: Originally proposed in 2004 when the former Kenilworth Junior High School campus on East Washington Street was purchased by Regency Centers, a Florida-based shopping center developer, the Target-anchored plan has gone through several revisions.</p><p>Townhomes on the southern end of the 34-acre site have been dropped and the project will no longer move the school bus yard on Lindberg Lane.</p><p>Office space has been added above smaller stand-alone retail pads near the northern edge of the project.</p><p>A draft environmental report was released last year but is being redone by City Hall since the site was redesigned.</p><p>The latest: Target is still the anchor tenant, but signed contracts with Cost Plus World Market and Circuit City have expired due to the “extraordinary delay” in advancing the project, said Regency vice president Bruce Qualls.</p><p>Along with other large projects in Petaluma, East Washington Place was subject to a development moratorium for two years while the city analyzed its future water supply as part of the new General Plan.</p><p>Tenants such as Cost Plus, Circuit City and Borders Books might still be part of the project but haven’t been confirmed at this point. The current site plan shows six open spaces for mid-sized retail stores.</p><p>What’s next: Qualls expects a draft of the revised EIR to be released sometime in the spring.</p><p>(Contact Corey Young at corey.young@arguscourier.com)</p>