Petaluma City Council approves Target shopping center

<p>A big-box shopping center in the works for more than five years won approval late Monday night from a divided Petaluma City Council.</p><p>The 5-2 vote to approve the 33-acre East Washington Place project, anchored by a Target store, came close to midnight, capping a six-hour council meeting devoted entirely to the development.</p><p>Council members expressed relief at the decision, with some recriminations for the prolonged public debate, which Mayor Pamela Torliatt described as “an ugly process.”</p><p>Voting along with Torliatt for the proposed 364,000-square-foot center were council members David Glass, Mike Harris, Mike Healy and David Rabbitt.</p><p>Councilwomen Tiffany Renee and Teresa Barrett were opposed.</p><p>“We're pleased with the result,” said Ryan Nickelson, who represented the Florida-based developer, Regency Centers.</p><p>Nickelson said he hoped to move through the design approval process in a timely manner and to start the project as quickly as possible.</p><p>Target has said it hopes to open in October 2011.</p><p>Supporters of the project have repeatedly lambasted City Hall for failing to act more quickly on the center, proposed by Regency in 2004.</p><p>A month ago, following a nearly six-hour public hearing, the council voted 4-3 to postpone a decision. Regency subsequently filed a lawsuit accusing the city of subjecting the project to years of needless delays.</p><p>Torliatt, in a parting comment Monday night, said “I would suggest and ask that the applicant get rid of the lawsuit.”</p><p>Nickelson said in a brief interview that he could not comment on the suit.</p><p>In addition to Target, the center is expected to include a Friedman's home improvement store, smaller food and retail shops and office space on the site of the former Kenilworth Junior High School.</p><p>A study last year required by the city and paid for by the developer said the project would generate more than $1 million a year in city tax revenue and create 721 full- and part-time jobs.</p><p>Regency, which has developed more than 400 shopping centers around the country since the 1960s, bought the former school site for $22 million in 2004.</p><p>“This has been the damndest thing I've ever seen, quite frankly,” Glass said, expressing dismay over comments about him and describing some local news accounts as “sheer fiction.”</p><p>But Glass said he was “comfortable with supporting the project,” adding, “I know there are people who are not going to be happy with that.”</p><p>Harris said he wholeheartedly supported the center and cited Regency's agreement to pay $10.4 million in city development fees as an economic shot in the arm.</p><p>Healy said it was “really the best project we are going to get” and that it would enable residents to do “more of their shopping in town.”</p><p>Rabbitt called it “a private sector stimulus project” that will bring jobs and sales tax revenue to the city.</p><p>“We need to keep our dollars local,” Torliatt said. She said she hopes Friedman's becomes a center tenant, offering lumber and hardware to the community.</p><p>But the debate, she said, “really bothers me” because of “how low it's gotten.”</p><p>The mayor called Regency's lawsuit disheartening.</p><p>Barrett said she was concerned about the project's traffic and water consumption, saying the latter was “not acceptable to me.”</p><p>Renee acknowledged that the project had been improved during the process, but said “I don't think we've gone far enough.”</p><p>She said the center will change the entire fabric of the community and traffic congestion on East Washington Street will once again make it difficult to travel from the east to the west side of town.</p><p>The project's next step is a Planning Commission meeting on Feb. 23 to consider the shopping center site plan and architectural design.</p>