Reunified Old Courthouse Square poised to make its debut in downtown Santa Rosa

After a year of surgery on the ailing heart of its downtown, not only has Santa Rosa survived the procedure, it's about to get out of bed and run a triathlon.

The city next Saturday will unveil its long-awaited reunified Old Courthouse Square, the ambitious $10.5 million project to restore the central space to its original configuration in the hopes of revitalizing the downtown core.

It won't take long to see whether the new public space - with its wide side streets, newly planted trees, benches and verdant patch of turf - is up to the challenge.

After the ribbon cutting, the repaired square will get an immediate workout. A festival follows the Saturday afternoon ceremony. The popular Wednesday Night Market moves in May 3. And thousands of elite athletes and their supporters will descend on May 13 for the Ironman 70.3 Santa Rosa triathlon, which is set to finish downtown.

The intense usage - from community gatherings, to special events designed to draw in tourists, to daily visits by the downtown lunch crowd - is exactly what Mayor Chris Coursey believes the square was designed for and needs to succeed.

“It's not just a nice park in the middle of the city. It's a place for things to happen,” Coursey said. “This is for everybody, and it will be more enjoyable if everybody uses it.”

A journey since 1854

The remarkable journey of Santa Rosa's central square is as old as the city itself. It began as an open plaza, then was home to two county courthouses before being unceremoniously split in two by a four-lane road. Now, after years of debate and stasis, it has been made whole again.

The formal space dates back to a partnership between Julio Carrillo, who in 1849 inherited a substantial portion of his family's land grant, and a merchant named Barney Hoen, who teamed up to create a new county seat. Carrillo filed the first official map of Santa Rosa in 1854, with the central square clearly labeled in capital letters “PLAZA.”

The first courthouse on the 1.5-acre square went up in 1884, came down in the 1906 earthquake and in 1910 was replaced by the larger version that lasted until 1966, when it was deemed seismically unfit and removed.

That's when the decision was made to take Mendocino and Santa Rosa avenues, both of which dead-ended at the square, and link them with a four-lane road through the center. The side streets - Hinton on the east and Exchange on the west - were removed, and, eventually, two narrow parks created.

The decision, in retrospect, is now widely viewed as having been a poor one.

“It's a little bit like cutting your heart in half,” said John Sawyer, a three-term councilman and former downtown retailer. “What do you have? You're dead.”

While the idea was to make it easier to bring traffic downtown, the reality was it only helped people drive through, Sawyer said.

Without the side streets, businesses on the east and west sides of the square suffered from inactivity. Facing competition from Coddingtown Mall, which opened in 1962, and later Santa Rosa Plaza, the downtown mall that opened in 1983 - and effectively walled off eastern downtown from Railroad Square - the city's core struggled.

“It didn't take long for the regret to set in,” Coursey said.

The city took steps to make downtown more pedestrian friendly, like narrowing Fourth Street to two lanes and throwing a few kinks into it, forcing it to meander and slow traffic.

But continued competition from new shopping options on Santa Rosa Avenue kept many independent merchants from thriving. In the mid-1990s, those additions included Santa Rosa Marketplace - home to Costco and Trader Joe's - and the Santa Rosa Town Center, home to Bed Bath & Beyond.

To some, reunification was the obvious solution, one repeatedly validated by visiting architects and urban planners.

“Every single expert who ever came to Santa Rosa and talked about the potential for downtown said it starts with the square,” Coursey said.

But consensus remained elusive, despite the efforts of myriad groups seeking to improve the downtown business climate, including the Downtown Partnership Commission, Downtown Business Association and Downtown Development Association.

In the early 2000s, a coalition of downtown interest groups and businesses convinced the City Council to study the reunification concept. Those spearheading the effort included Bernie Schwartz, owner of California Luggage, Richard Carlile, founder of engineering firm Carlile-Macy, and Bill Dodson, president of CityVision.

By 2004, the council made it an official goal and agreed to pursue a federal grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission if private groups would raise a quarter of the cost, then expected to be $4 million.

The grant didn't come, but the city kept trying. It applied again, unsuccessfully, in 2006. That same year the city offered $100,000 for a design competition, a process that two years later resulted in a $550,000 design contract awarded by the city to SWA Group of Sausalito.

That blueprint called for limited accessibility for cars on the side streets and flashy features like light arbors, kiosks and a 25-foot-tall glass water wall. By then, however, the nation had begun sliding into a recession that would leave the city on perilous financial footing for the next several years.

A simpler solution

The project went largely dormant until roughly 2012. By then, the city's finances were improving and then-Mayor Scott Bartley, an architect who took a keen interest in the project as a planning commissioner, pressed for completion of several key elements that kept the proposal moving forward. An environmental study was ordered up, along with design upgrades that would allow surrounding streets to handle resulting traffic changes.

Shortly before the 2014 election, the City Council approved the project, despite a new price tag of $17 million. The other dominant concern at that time was Bartley's suggestion that, absent sufficient funding, the project would need to be done either through donations or in phases - or that it would be contingent on both those variables.

That didn't sit well with many downtown merchants and property owners, who worried the area would become a perpetual construction zone, with the city chipping away at the project year after year as money or political will allowed.

“Anybody who took a serious look understood that trying to raise $17 million over some unknown period of time and building it in phases wasn't going to be good for the downtown,” Coursey said.

Schwartz said the lack of sufficient parking and an open-ended construction period made him “go off like a car alarm,” warning executives at Exchange Bank and developer Hugh Futrell, who was deep into his nearby Museum on the Square renovation project, of the perils of such an approach.

The result was a new push by a group of influential downtown business and property owners calling themselves the Committee to Restore Courthouse Square. They sought a return to a simpler, more traditional, less expensive design that could be completed in a single construction season.

Supporters pointed to the look of squares in popular tourist towns of Sonoma and Healdsburg as proof that simpler was better.

While other pushes fell flat for a variety of reasons, this one came during what Coursey calls a “serendipitous convergence of events.”

One was the 2014 council election, which saw a major change at City Hall after Bartley and Councilwoman Robin Swinth chose not to run. Coursey and Sawyer, both strong proponents of the project, were elected, along with Tom Schwedhelm, who as a former police chief was no stranger to public safety issues downtown.

Another factor was the new city manager, Sean McGlynn, whose experience in the arts community and large cities including New York and El Paso helped him understand that well-designed and maintained public spaces can have positive economic and cultural impacts on a community.

Then there was the money.

The city's budget picture by 2015 had brightened considerably due to a rebounding economy and housing market. It was also buoyed by the sale of city property on which the Hyatt Vineyard Creek Hotel and Spa sits, netting the city about $7.2 million. Chief Finance Officer Debbi Lauchner helped the council find a way to borrow the remaining funds necessary to complete the project.

Together, these conditions put the council in the position to finally greenlight the project.

For Sawyer, the moment represented a chance for Santa Rosa to leave behind the identity crisis that has gripped it for years. At times, the city can't seem to decide whether it wants to be the small town it was 50 years ago or embrace its role as the fifth-largest city in the Bay Area.

“We acted boldly,” said Sawyer, who hopes reunification will attract more developers to build downtown housing. “I wanted to take some ownership and take a bit of risk and say ‘This is important. It's about who we are and who do we want to be.'”

An imperfect project

Once the public realized the project would happen, feedback vocal and intense, especially among those who felt the wider streets with parking on both sides sacrificed parkland for parking spaces.

Many were dismayed by the number of trees that needed to be removed to reunify the square. About 91 of the 114 trees in the old bifurcated square - including eight of 30 redwoods - were felled during the project. They were replaced by dozens of shade trees considered a better fit for an urban setting.

Concerns about the plan to reroute most traffic along B Street also drew complaints.

“Early in the process, we were just hoping to avoid a public lynching,” said Curt Nichols, the project manager and partner at civil engineering firm Carlile-Macy, which was selected to design the new square.

The resulting design has been widely but not universally praised.

The patch of grass near the center, designed to mimic the footprint of the courthouse toppled by the 1906 earthquake, has underwhelmed some. The 45,000 gray concrete pavers installed throughout the square have also struck some as a bit blah.

Former Mayor Bartley, who had urged the council to stick with the original design, called the latest version “austere,” though he stressed he was thrilled to see the square take shape.

“The fact that it's done, hallelujah! Is it perfect? Everything can always be better,” Bartley said.

In fact, the project isn't finished, though it's now five months overdue and $500,000 over budget in large part because of the wet winter and design changes made midstream.

A week before the grand opening, some of the signature features at the center of the square have yet to be installed. They include four 14-foot-tall, Luther Burbank-themed light towers. It's possible the towers will be in by Saturday, but as of late last week, Nichols said they hadn't been assembled by Richmond sculptor Michael Bondi and were awaiting parts.

The original design also called for four mature crepe myrtle trees around the turf, surrounded by circular benches. This element was removed until council members had a chance visit the completed space and decide whether they made sense.

Two other key features have yet to be installed. One is a redesigned fountain to display artist Ruth Asawa's beloved history and marine life panels, which graced a fountain in the old square for 30 years. They're now in storage. The space has been plumbed to be ready for the new fountain at the south end of the square, but no money has been budgeted for it. It's expected to cost $500,000.

The other project is an undetermined art installation at the north end of the square, also unbudgeted. The cost has not been projected.

Still, austere to one person is simple and clean to another. The council specifically called for the new square to have “clear sightlines,” devoid of the berms and elevation changes that characterized the former space.

“The simplicity of the current design, I think, is its biggest strength,” said Lois Fisher, a Windsor-based urban designer. “There is going to be so much flexibility there. Gluing those two sides together is going to make the programming effortless.”

The city parks department will maintain the space while discussions with the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber continue on how to best manage the square. The department has already received 14 applications for special event permits.

Former councilman and urban designer Steve Rabinowitsh said he likes the design for its practicality and attractiveness.

“If you look at most squares in Europe, they are totally hardscaped, maybe with a fountain in the middle,” Rabinowitsh said.

The design was intentionally created as an “open canvas” that could grow and change with the city it anchors, Nichols said.

“I'm not sure that a really active downtown square is really ever completed,” Nichols said. “It evolves with time and how the community feels it's best to use it.”

Passing by the former Flavor restaurant building on separate days, two downtown patrons offered differing views on the new square.

Santa Rosan Victoria Braveheart lamented the loss of the many trees that once stood on the site.

“This is my hometown and I really liked it better the other way,” she said.

But Cheryl Franklin of Rohnert Park said the new space is safer without traffic running through it and provides “a destination” where all kinds of events can take place. She expressed excitement that one day a new Asawa fountain will grace the square.

“I always looked forward to seeing the fountain when it was here before,” Franklin said.

For Fisher, the city's perseverance is a ray of hope.

For years, she said, Santa Rosa has been divided by a “series of gashes” - Highway 101 separating east from west, Santa Rosa Avenue bisecting the square, the fortresslike Santa Rosa Plaza mall sitting between them. All have sapped downtown of a sense of place.

“This is reversing that trend and saying ‘We value public spaces. We value the public realm. And we're going to turn our attention to creating beautiful spaces again instead of just dividing them up,'” she said.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 707-521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @srcitybeat.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to accurately reflect City Manager Sean McGlynn's work history.