Santa Rosa City Council takes big step toward reunified Old Courthouse Square

Nearly 50 years ago, Santa Rosa demolished the county courthouse that sat in the middle of a square in the heart of downtown and ran four lanes of Mendocino Avenue through the space where it once stood.

On Tuesday, after more than 30 years of consideration, the Santa Rosa City Council took its biggest step yet toward reunifying the two sides of Old Courthouse Square and creating a vibrant public space that aims to revitalize the downtown economy in the process.

“It is a signal and, I hope, a beacon of progress in downtown Santa Rosa,” Mayor John Sawyer said. “It will be a great space for people.”

The $10 million project is far from fully approved. A great deal of public input and design work needs to happen in short order for the project to break ground by June 1 as envisioned.

But the council voted 5-0 to take a series of steps Tuesday that set the city on an ambitious, one-year design and construction timetable that officials concede will be exciting to witness but challenging to pull off.

“It’s aggressive, but we definitely feel like it’s possible,” Jason Nutt, the city’s director of transportation and public works told the council.

Council members praised city staff for their willingness to try to get the entire project done in a single construction season. That includes the re-installation of Hinton and Exchange streets around the square with ample parking, as well as the yet-to-be-determined changes to the square’s interior.

Vice Mayor Chris Coursey noted that it was “absolutely true” that the council and staff were taking a different approach to the project, which he saw as a good thing.

“Because the way that we ordinarily do things has resulted in two decades of waiting for this project,” Coursey said.

Past councils have advocated, out of financial necessity, a phased approached to the project, which before the current council scaled it back was pegged at $17 million.

But downtown business leaders and property owners strongly argued for a simpler, cheaper design and more condensed construction timetable, in part so that downtown businesses, banks and restaurants didn’t have their front yards torn up for years.

They also pushed for greater parking along Hinton and Exchange streets. The previous design, selected by the City Council in 2007 after a lengthy design competition, contained limited parking on those streets.

But the idea of adding two full rows of diagonal parking spaces gave Sawyer “heartburn” because he wondered whether the trade-off of more parking and less park was the right decision.

“I look at it and I think, in 20 or 30 years, will we wish that we hadn’t put in the parking spaces?” Sawyer said. “Will we wish that we had completely utilized as much as possible that center space? That is my one concern.”

Sawyer, who said he otherwise strongly supported the project, said that when he reviewed a drawing showing parking on both sides of the side streets, it looked to him like about 50 percent was going to streets and parking and the other 50 percent to the park.

He wasn’t the only one worried the plan was parking-heavy. Former Mayor Scott Bartley, an architect who was heavily involved in the selection of the previous design, urged the council not bow to pressure from downtown interests to add parking.

“Through the design process we found out the citizens of our city wanted more than that. They wanted a public gathering space,” Bartley said.

He noted that the previous design was the result of more than two years of public outreach, and under the current timeline the city is proposing to spend just two months on public input.

Local architect Don Tomasi also urged the council not to just throw away years of previous designs on what he called “arguably the most important project in Santa Rosa in decades.”

“Do we really want to start all over again from scratch?” he asked.

But the current council has shown little interest in adopting the $17-million plan, which contains showpiece items like a 25-foot tall water wall, light arbors, and four kiosk buildings. The water wall fell out of favor not only because of the cost but because of the four-year drought, which had forced the city to turn off other fountains.

The current council instead has embraced the view of the downtown business group calling itself the Coalition to Restore Courthouse Square. It has urged that the parking on the side streets be maximized and the a simpler, more classic plaza like those in Healdsburg or Sonoma should be pursued.

Hugh Futrell, the developer of the Museum on the Square office building on the southwest corner of the square and one of the coalition’s leaders, pushed back strongly against the notion that the additional parking was excessive.

He said that the design guidelines approved by the council “are balanced, they are urbanist, they are people friendly, and they will be effective.”

His group had pledged to fund the construction drawings for the project, but now it will likely contribute $125,000 set aside years ago for the project to the effort, he said.

The Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce is set to lead outreach efforts to the community on the project, an unusual role that raised some questions Tuesday.

“This isn’t just a project that impacts business interests in the community,” said Councilwoman Erin Carlstrom, arguing that the city needs to take the lead in the community engagement process.

She noted pointedly that the city had just hired a director of community engagement, a new position recommended by a task force encouraging transparency and open government in Santa Rosa.

“And I will not sit on this council and let that work go sideways or unutilized. We worked very hard on that,” she said.

Nutt clarified that the city was partnering with the chamber but would still be heavily involved in the public outreach efforts.

Those efforts are likely to involve at least three public forums to be determined for people to give their input, as well as surveys to gather opinions. That information, which Nutt hopes to the collect by the end of the year, will then be presented to the council in January.

A design team is expected to be hired Nov. 16. To expedite the process, the council authorized City Manager Sean McGlynn to spend up to $500,000 to hire the design firm himself. Normally, the city manager only has authority to approve contracts up to $100,000.

The action will ensure the process will move swiftly, but it also will eliminate the public process that would normally surround such a decision and outlay of taxpayer dollars.

Resident Duane DeWitt suggested the process had not been terribly transparent to date, noting the input about the new design had so far taken place before the council’s three-member downtown subcommittee. Its meetings do not draw the attendance of a typical City Council session.

But subcommittee chairman Gary Wysocky pushed back against the idea that the public might not be engaged enough on the project, noting there had been good attendance at many of the seven public meetings the committee has had to date.

That committee advised staff, and the full council blessed its recommendation Tuesday calling for the final design to have several core principles.

Hinton and Exchange streets, in addition to having ample parking, should be one-way, wide enough to allow passing, walkable and inviting. They also should be able to be closed for special events.

In addition, the subcommittee envisions calming measures on Third Street, which will divert most northbound traffic around the square. They also suggested a visual barrier or screening of that prevents the glare from oncoming headlights from disrupting events.

The guidance on the interior of the square is that it be “simple open, flexible and sustainable,” as well as wired for everything, family-friendly, and include a space for a stage.

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