Sonoma County supervisors near decision on new county complex, with an eye toward downtown Santa Rosa

Momentum appears to be building toward moving more than 2,400 county employees into downtown Santa Rosa as supervisors wrestle with a decision on whether to relocate most of the county’s operations from their aging complex in the northern part of the city.

On Tuesday, the supervisors will consider three options: two parcels at E and Third streets; the former Sears Tire, Battery and Auto property at the Santa Rosa Plaza; or remaining in their current site.

Momentum appeared to be building last week for a move downtown, and of the two downtown sites, supervisors appeared most intrigued by the Sears location. The county has already signed a nonbinding agreement with the property owners, Simon Properties, for a purchase price of $20 million.

That is just a fraction of what the overall project could cost, according to a report from county staff. Officials have proposed paying a developer to design, build and maintain the new facility on a 30 year payment plan. Rebuilding the complex on the existing Administration Drive site could cost between $37 million and $46 million a year over 30 years.

Building on the Sears site and Third Street site would cost as much as 11% more annually. Under any scheme taxpayers are likely to spend well over a billion dollars.

“No doubt these numbers make you swallow hard; it’s a large number,” said Supervisor Chris Coursey, who is on the county’s ad-hoc committee responsible for studying the site options alongside Supervisor David Rabbitt.

Adding to the potential costs are neighborhood centers that at least two supervisors want in their own districts. Supervisors Lynda Hopkins and Susan Gorin are continuing to advocate for the centers, which would provide health and human services, mental health, family and youth services, and other functions like building permits.

The Sheriff’s Office, detention center and courthouse would remain at the current site.

“I do think that the distributed site model would increase the accessibility for some of our more rural residents,” said Hopkins, the board chair.

Faced with an aging complex built in the 1950s and a backlog of maintenance, the supervisors agreed in January to take a closer look at options for a new home. At the time, the Third Street site was considered the most promising of four downtown options that included the current City Hall property, the Sonoma County Library site and the U.S. Post Office on Second Street.

In interviews on Friday, a majority of supervisors expressed the most interest in moving downtown. Fairly new to the list of options, the 7.4-acre Sears site, which stretches from B street to Highway 101 and includes a Santa Rosa Plaza parking structure, offers a particular draw for its proximity to SMART and the transit mall, supervisors said.

Officials were excited about a boost to downtown businesses and the opportunity for Santa Rosa to begin addressing past urban design flaws – Highway 101 splitting the city in half and a mall taking up a large chunk of southern downtown for example – that city boosters and policy experts say have hampered the city’s growth.

The county could address those issues by building a center that improved pedestrian pathways between the increasingly thriving Railroad Square Historic District and Old Courthouse Square, officials said.

“Downtown checks most of the boxes for me than here does,” Coursey said, referring to the county’s current site.

While Hopkins and Gorin said they were not ready to say which of the downtown sites they are leaning toward, Coursey prefers the Sears site, he said.

Supervisor James Gore could not be reached for comment on Friday.

In an indication that the board wasn’t aligned behind any option yet, Rabbitt said he remained skeptical about the high prices of the downtown options.

Making large payments to a developer each year would narrow the county’s ability to pay for new programming and social services, Rabbitt said.

Even the big dollar estimates by county staff were “optimistic,” Rabbitt said. “What I want Tuesday is to talk about the dollars, “ he said. ”If we’re going to push this much money aside into an (annual) payment I want my colleagues to know what we’re not doing with those dollars.”

Rabbitt wanted to see more financial analysis before he committed to either downtown site, he said. He said he preferred the Sears site, calling the Third Street properties too small to offer sufficient parking for county employees.

Parking availability has played a big role in the debate over moving the center downtown. County officials on Friday said the city had offered as many as 500 spaces in existing city-owned parking garages. In an agreement to ensure the county follows Santa Rosa’s downtown master plan, the city would offer the spaces to the county for free for three years and then lease them to the county at market rates for the next seven years.

Rabbitt also questioned the impact the project would have on downtown Santa Rosa’s economy. The county center would largely empty out in the evenings, he said, and it was difficult to envision to what extent county workers would spend time shopping, eating and drinking downtown. Environmental goals centered on the access to public transit may also not pan out, he said, given that today only around 2% of county employees use public transit.

“I think people like the idea of downtown,” Rabbitt said, but he questioned whether the actual impacts had been thoroughly studied.

The downtown idea enjoys “steadfast” support from the city council, according to Mayor Chris Rogers. Supporters argue the daily arrival of more than 2,000 county employees carries obvious positive impacts for the city’s vitality.

That many jobs moving downtown would also spark interest from developers to build more desperately needed housing toward the city’s core, Rogers said.

“There’s a lot of possibilities here that make us excited,” Rogers said.

A county move downtown wouldn’t transform the city alone, Peter Rumble, CEO of the Santa Rosa Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, said. However, the county had the opportunity to boost the city’s economic vitality and community vibrancy.

“This is a big step forward it is not the last step forward for downtown,” Rumble said.

Both Rumble and Rogers also noted that moving the county off its current site would open that space up to housing development. County officials said the property could play host too as many as 1,500 housing units.

You can reach Staff Writers Emma Murphy at 707-521-5228 or emma.murphy@pressdemocrat.com and Andrew Graham at 707-526-8667 or andrew.graham@pressdemocrat.com.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify what is included in the Sears auto shop parcel and to remove a photo of the downtown Sonoma County Library.