Santa Rosa plans summer demolition spree of city property

Deterring prostitution and improving traffic flow are among the reasons Santa Rosa plans a summer demolition spree of city-owned buildings, including a downtown Santa Rosa restroom, a former liquor store and an old park caretakers’ cottage.

Santa Rosa officials have targeted more than 10 sites with vacant or dilapidated city-owned buildings for demolition between July and September. The city expects to pay between $200,000 and $300,000 for the work and hopes to hear from interested contractors by May 16, according to bid documents.

The unusual program of knocking down city property will follow a sweeping review of city facilities that generated thousands of pages of analysis on Santa Rosa’s property holdings. This study already has helped city officials plan for the replacement of the aging and asbestos-riddled City Hall, and Jason Nutt, the city’s transportation and public works director, cited the same analysis in explaining Santa Rosa’s summer demolition initiative.

“In many of these cases, it’s simply to eliminate an attractive nuisance,” Nutt said.

By “attractive,” Nutt’s not referring to a building’s aesthetics but rather its potential to become an unintentional host for illicit activities.

The Juilliard Park bathroom, though still in borderline fair condition, has drawn a high volume of complaints from neighbors due to concerns about drug use, prostitution and overnight camping, he said.

Several other park facilities on the city’s razing list are more dilapidated and likewise unwanted, such as a concession stand at Doyle Park and an old storage shed at Galvin Park.

All sites on the city’s list have been vacant for at least five years, Nutt said, including a Howarth Park cottage that previously housed a caretaker.

The caretaker’s house earned a very low score for future use in the city’s facilities review, with consultants recommending Santa Rosa divest from the structure within 10 years due to the amount of maintenance needed to keep it usable.

No buildings are planned to replace any of the facilities. In many cases, their absence will make way for different types of development or simply free up space.

For instance, when the city acquired a former liquor store on the southwest corner of Farmers Lane and Fourth Street, it wasn’t trying to get into the alcoholic beverage retail business.

That site is on the demo list to pave the path forward for a project with Caltrans to improve service at the busy intersection, Nutt said.

“At peak hours, you can wait several lights before you make it through the intersection,” Nutt said.

There’s also an empty house the city owns at 952 Sonoma Ave. across the street from the city’s Police Department building. Knocking it down would free up more public safety parking, Nutt said.

Other to-be-demolished buildings include boarded-up homes on land between Burbank and McMinn avenues planned for the future Roseland Creek Community Park.

There are two buildings near a city waste disposal site near Petaluma and the Marin County line that are in “very poor condition,” said Jennifer Burke, the city’s interim water director. These properties will be joined in demolition by structures on land the city bought to put some distance around a city wastewater treatment plant west of town, she said.

“We emit some noise, we emit some odor, (and) we’re always looking for properties that may be around the treatment plant to try and create a buffer,” Burke said.

You can reach Staff Writer Will Schmitt at 707-521-5207 or will.schmitt@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @wsreports.