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Artist's rendering from ELS Architects of Santa Rosa Plaza's B Street entrance.
A more conservative remodeling of Santa Rosa Plaza won tentative approval from a city board Thursday but also criticism that it didn’t do enough to help bridge the barrier the mall creates between the east and west sides of downtown.
Simon Property Group returned to the city’s Design Review Board on Thursday for feedback on what it called a “completely fresh” approach to the facelift it wants to give the brick-covered mall, which opened in 1982.
Gone are the large, bright, square facades at the east and west entrances to the mall, which board members last year likened to “billboards.”
They’ve been replaced with more modest updates. A three-foot cornice will be added to the existing archway off B Street, and the brick around the existing entry will be reclad with tan concrete tiles.
“It’s not an aggressive counterpoint to the downtown and the historic district. It’s more of a comfortable and traditional approach,” Jamie Ruskin of ELS Architects said of the new design.
Several board members praised the plan as welcome improvements. But two were sharply critical of the failure of the plan to do more to improve “connectivity” through the mall, including the board’s former chairman, who was demoted over the issue.
“I’m disappointed,” Ken MacNab said after the meeting. “If people can’t get to their employment on the other side of the mall, I don’t know what incentive there is to get on that train.”
Passengers using the future SMART train station in Railroad Square will need to walk through the mall to get from one side of downtown to the other or, if the mall is closed, will have to walk around it.
MacNab was chairman of the design board when it required a connectivity study as a condition of approval of a portion of the project the mall hoped to complete before Christmas.
The mall objected to that requirement, and later withdrew its application, claiming it wouldn’t make the exterior improvements at all if it had to go through the design review board. Mayor Ernesto Olivares demoted MacNab in October over the decision. The City Council overturned the decision in December, sharply rebuking the board for overstepping its authority and failing to work collaboratively with the mall.
Councilman Jake Ours said he was pleased Simon Property Group had decided to submit a new application.
“They must have heard what we said because we did say we screwed up pretty badly,” Ours said Thursday.
Asked about the mall’s change of heart, Kelly Hartsell, a Simon regional vice president, said “because of our relationship with the city, we didn’t want to walk away.”
She acknowledged the mall was frustrated with the previous process. Much of what the 700,000-square-foot mall is trying to do, such as improving lighting and accentuating the entrances, should help draw people into and through the mall, she said.
“We really feel like we are adding connectivity as part of the redesign,” Hartsell said.
You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com.
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Steve Klausner:
If you know the exact amount of RE-development funds that were expended for the mall and in what ratio compared to the private money involved, I would love to know.
As for the “design review board” sticking its nose into matters, the function of the mall continues to achieve its purpose: retail shopping.
So, any RE-development funding that may have been used got its pay back.
The government “design review board” has zero purpose in getting involved. They have neither the expertise nor the legal groundwork to stick their nose into matters of private property since the mall continues to function as a mall.
As for displacing property owners of the distant past, you can thank your criminal bureaucrats because they would have been the ones who approved that aspect of the project. Or, looking at a different aspect, you know as well as I do that those displaced property owners were paid for their property. It was not stolen from them.
Message to the local government: get out of our lives.
The mall’s “Food Court” is solidly straddled in mid-air, above Santa Rosa’s 3rd Street.
I guess that’s PRIVATE PROPERTY too?
Let’s just sell airspace above the entire town and allow giant retail buildings to hover — Jetson’s style. And then defend the rights of business to operate on PRIVATE PROPERTY.
Yeah, that’s a great idea.
@Money Grubber
Alas, the public and private tend to blur when Redevelopment Funds are involved. Taxpayers funded the building of Simon’s mall, hence they think they still have a say so in how it operates.
Who would have thought at the time that anyone would need or want a walk through passage. This was a perfect solution. Underclass housing was torn down and the mall walled off the derelict Railroad Square from the shiny east side of town.
Brian Brazoot does not understand a single thing, obviously, about PRIVATE PROPERTY.
The mall does not belong to you nor your bureaucrat buddies, Brian.
Don’t like what you see? Tough. Move away.
In a better locality, the bureaucrats would have lawyers breathing down their dirty collars for pretending that they should have any input at all on upgrading PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I might add that its none of your business nor the governments if the PRIVATE MALL OWNER wants to charge people to park ON PRIVATE PROPERTY.
In a healthy economy, this out-of-scale, obstructionist mall would be a clear target for re-development. A city with cash in the bank would buy it and raze it — returning to a people-friendly downtown plan.
Simon should do the responsible thing and proactively look for more ways of minimizing the monstrosity’s strangling grip on Santa Rosa’s downtown.
Otherwise, people could chose NOT to shop there, and Simon’s investment would quickly plunge.
How about re-thinking the occupation of city airspace above 3rd Street (aka, The Great Food Court in the Sky)?
I don’t mean to sound like a shill for Simon, but why shouldn’t they be permitted to ugrade an aging facade without also having to make substantial and unrelated modifications to their building? If I want to spruce up my house by putting some new windows out front, do I also have to open up a pathway from my backyard to the front so my neighbors in back don’t have to walk around the block?
First off Santa Plaza has to be one of the most dull malls I have ever seen. Seriously, how many t-shirt shops and foot lockers can you have? The usual run of the mill junk. I was laughing when they said to pay for parking…hell, it is free and I don’t even go there. I just head down to Marin to do my shopping. Santa Rosa is looking more and more like Vallejo…it is a dying city. Crime and social welfare on the rise and the working middle class moving out…seen this in just about every run down California City…just call it Vallejo East.
@Joan Doroto
No, you won’t have to walk, didn’t you read ballot? A mini bus will pick you up on the corner, drop you off at the SMART station, and another bus will take you to your job in San Rafael.
Or, you could pay to park at Santa Rosa Plaza, after all your train ride is next to free.
The City of Santa Rosa can’t expect me to walk from the new SMART train terminal to my home 5 miles away in the dark and rain of winter can they? We need the mall open with its lights, great shopping, bicycle parking and green stores.
Many people are afraid to walk at night in the downtown area now. How is this going to improve with the new train station and a closed mall? In fact, I am worried about the people who will be hanging around the train station looking for a handout or hassling women passengers.
Where is all of this in the grand plan?
Life is all about JOB SKILLS.
Notice that the various bureaucrats have zero skills to be making any decisions such as this one regarding a mall?
Government job titles mean nothing.