Traverso's, Santi say Fountaingrove Village has too few spaces for booming businesses

Michael Traverso thought he had left parking problems behind when he moved his popular food and wine store from downtown Santa Rosa to a small shopping center in Fountaingrove.

Little did he know that he would be immersed in a parking brouhaha in which customers are exasperated, employees are frustrated and the neighbors are fuming.

When lunch hour comes, there are simply not enough parking spaces at Fountaingrove Village, a shopping center some business owners say was hurting before it landed Traverso's and Santi Restaurant.

There's no parking on the four-lane street in front of the shopping center at Fountaingrove Parkway and Stagecoach Road. The neighbors on a quiet residential street don't want cars in front of their homes. And the golf and athletic club across the parkway says it can't spare any spaces.

"Parking is really the lifeblood of a shopping center like this," said Traverso, co-owner of the popular gourmet food store, which moved to the Fountaingrove area a little more than a year ago. "The lack of parking was one of the major factors that drove us from downtown."

Employees at Santi, which moved to the shopping center two and a half months ago after a decade in Geyserville, have resorted to cramming their cars like sardines in a fire-lane area and a small stub-street on Stagecoach Road. In some cases, shopping center employees have used parking spaces at the Fountaingrove Golf & Athletic Club without the club's permission.

Shortly after Santi opened, the 120-seat restaurant's employees tried to free up shopping center parking spaces by parking in nearby Vintage Circle just east of the center and off Parker Hill Road. That move provoked an angry response from residents, with at least one leaving notes on cars threatening legal action or police involvement.

Doug Swett, the proprietor of Santi, said the last thing he wanted was to anger local residents, which he considered part of the "built-in clientele" when he decided to relocate to the shopping center.

"We wanted to be wonderful neighbors," he said. "We have ticked off some that refuse to eat here."

The parking problem occurs during the lunch-hour crunch, from about 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Swett and Traverso both agree that an additional 10 to 15 parking spaces would go a long way toward relieving the problem.

Approved in 2004, Fountaingrove Village called for 21 attached single-family residential units and about 20,000 square feet of office and retail space, said Jessica Jones, a city planner with the Community Development Department. Based on these uses, the zoning code required the project to make available 138 parking spots, including at least one covered parking spot per residential unit, she said. The developer, CarCo Investments, came in with 142 total spots.

"They were actually over-parked for that code," Jones said. "They provided more than what was required of them."

But planning analysis at the time did not take into account having a large deli and a major restaurant as anchor tenants.

Swett said that when he first saw the site he thought there might be a problem with parking. But he said he was told it would be worked out.

Both Swett and Traverso said the shopping center owner has been receptive to their concerns, but they're still waiting for a solution.

"We're starting to hear that people are avoiding us at a certain hour," Traverso said.

Neither Kevin Carinalli of CarCo Investments nor property manager Kim Smith could be reached for comment.

Marie Esposti-Winter, co-owner of Loft Salon, said that in some ways the parking problem is a blessing because so many customers are now coming to the shopping center.

"It makes me happy because all of our businesses are doing well," she said.

She said that some of her customers at the salon make a day of it at the center, often having lunch at Traverso's or Santi.

"The parking has definitely been a problem," she said. "I spent half an hour one day driving around myself."

Business owners said they would like to see on-street parking allowed on Stagecoach Road in front of the shopping center. Another suggestion is that the existing parking lot be reconfigured to allow more spaces.

Jones said such a proposal would have to go before the city's planning division.

"If they wanted to try to add more on-site parking, they would need to come to the planning department, and I'm not aware of them submitting anything for that," she said.

Robert Sprinkle, the city traffic engineer, said he has not heard of any requests to allow parking on Stagecoach Road, although he does recall someone inquiring if parking was allowed on the street.

"We'd have to look at the area," Sprinkle said. "It's not just saying &‘OK, you can park here.' ... It could be an opportunity to make things better, or it may not be."

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com.