Santa Rosa to take earlier look at alternate Old Courthouse Square plan

A group of downtown business owners succeeded Tuesday in getting the Santa Rosa City Council to speed up its consideration of a slimmed-down plan to reunify Old Courthouse Square.

Supporters turned out in force to encourage the council to move up a discussion of the project and financing options from December to September.

The speedier review was sought because the group, which calls itself the steering committee for the 1990s-era Coalition to Restore Courthouse Square, hopes the first phase of construction to reunify the square and install side streets can begin in 2016.

“We believe Courthouse Square potentially represents the core of a vital city, one that we think will be greatly enhanced by its restoration and reunification,” said Jonathan Coe, president of the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce.

Coe said the vacancy rate of commercial spaces around the square today is “appalling” and “approaches 50 percent.”

“That’s just not appropriate for a city like ours to have vacancies surrounding its prime core commercial space,” Coe said.

Urban planner Lois Fisher noted that in places like Healdsburg, buildings that face the downtown square command 25 percent rent premiums over spaces just a block off the ?plaza.

“I’d really like to move this up as an economic development project for the city of Santa Rosa,” Fisher said.

Several downtown business and property owners have been trying for months to convince the city to move more swiftly to support a more modest, workable version of the city’s current $17 million unification plan.

They argue that a two-phase approach that installs the basic footprint of a reunified square next year while reopening a public discussion about what features should grace it in the future is the best way to ensure the project doesn’t lose momentum.

The new plan calls for restoring the square to its pre-1966 layout of having full streets on four sides.

The one-block stretch of Mendocino Avenue bisecting the square would be removed. Hinton Street, fronting Flavor Bistro, and Exchange Street, fronting the Empire Building, would be reinstalled on the east and west sides of the square, respectively.

The streets would have parking on both sides and sidewalks wide enough for patio dining.

The additional parking is a key difference from the current design, which critics say is too expensive and lacks support from downtown merchants. The 47 new spaces would more than double the number in the design approved by the previous council, but would also shrink the amount of park space in the interior of the square.

Key to the new proposal is that the group has committed to paying local engineering firm Carlile-Macy to complete the necessary construction drawings, retired Carlile-Macy founder Richard Carlile said.

The group also has suggested that the city has ways to finance the first phase of the project, such as by borrowing against future parking revenues.

In September, city staff is likely to present to the council an array of financing options that could ensure the project moves forward, said Charles Evans, a downtown building owner.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin ?McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.?mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. ?On Twitter @srcitybeat.