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A futuristic downtown

Mar 28, 2008
By Sheila Sanchez





		A woman walks by the old Granada Theatre in downtown Morgan Hill.
		Photo by: File Photo








		An artist's rendering of the Third Street promenade.








		The annual Taste of Morgan Hill festival offers something for everyone.

By the year 2030, downtown Morgan Hill will look a lot different than it does today. Predictions in the city's ambitious draft 2008 Downtown Specific Plan include more ground floor space for retail and restaurant uses, more residential developments and interestingly more restaurants that serve alcohol. Only 11 percent of eating houses in the city's core sell alcohol compared to 29 percent countywide.

The predictions are based on real solid data that shows 70 percent of the city's population of 38,000 own a home, have median household incomes of more than $95,000 making it well suited for family-oriented retail.

Despite all this, the city experiences a low per capita retail sales rate, indicating that residents are shopping elsewhere and sales tax leakage is high,

city officials say.

The forecast for the city's core could be even more dramatic, according to city officials, if double tracking occurs along the Caltrain line and ridership increases.

Also, if the city develops tourist and visitor areas, such as a sports-recreation-leisure regional draw and a private high school plus other high-profile destination sports such as the American Institute of Mathematics, the downtown, for sure, would be unrecognizable in the next two decades.

If the California high-speed bullet train travels at 220 mph through the Pacheco Pass alignment, then tourists would also be drawn to the downtown.

With the purchase of the Granada Theater last December, the city is considering activating the theater use, which would also draw residents to the downtown.

The heart of the downtown is situated between Dunne and Main avenues. The main commercial area is between Main Avenue and Fourth Street for ground floor retail and along East Third Street. The entire downtown area, however, is approximately 2,265 acres along both sides of Monterey Road, encompassing most of the center of the city.

Morgan Hill City Manager Ed Tewes said the downtown is "the soul of the community. A place where a community comes together to create community where there's shopping, entertainment and activity making it a vital and viable civic space."

Tewes explained the downtown area is relatively constrained bounded on one side by the railroad tracks, which he considers a limiting factor, but that challenge is one the city council has addressed and mitigated by making sure those who work at the future South County Courthouse and Justice Center on Butterfield Boulevard are connected to the downtown through a plaza area that will be soon under construction.

Johnson Real Estate Services is helping the city envision the downtown's future. Together with city officials, the consultant believes that adding more house in the downtown area, entertainment uses and office workers, along with parking, the downtown can become a more vibrant, mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly place.

The city projects it will need 523 "retail only" parking spaces by the year 2030. The city's parking consultant, DKS, is recommending that residential units provide parking at an overall rate of 1.5 spaces per unit. One speculation is that the block where the city's Community and Cultural Center is located, with its 232 parking spaces, could have a parking structure which could provide 500 spaces with two levels of parking and more than 700 with three levels.

Expect higher density, too, in the downtown, with dwelling units three or even four stories high, particularly along Monterey Road and Depot Street.

Morgan Hill residents can, therefore, prepare to go to the polls to consider a ballot to modify the city's Residential Development Control System. The system is set to expire in 2020. City officials are recommending that 500 downtown housing allotments be approved and an increase in the population cap by 1,000. The issue could be before Morgan Hill voters as early as this fall.

A petition would need to be circulated soon to obtain signatures supporting the system revisions so that by July the measure would qualify for the ballot.

Without changing the city's growth control restrictions, it would be difficult for a developer to become interested in building housing downtown because downtown housing development projects, which are mixed used projects, higher density, attached housing, are difficult to do in phases over time, said Morgan Hill's Community Development Director Kathy Molloy Previsich.

Typically a developer will need to go to a bank, finance the project and build the project all at once, but the city's growth control system would prevent builders from getting all the allocations they may need to build the number of housing units to create a vibrant downtown residential population, Molloy Previsich said.

Tewes agrees: "These mixed-used projects cannot be built over a series of years like a suburban subdivision with phases ... because of the type of housing product we're talking about - building houses at the same time we're building retail on the ground floor, those projects have to be integrated and began and finished together … The Measure C process is not very conducive to that so this plan recommends that there be modifications ..."

The challenge is to do it within three to five years, Tewes said, adding that the city needs to have the major downtown landmark sites move forward with redevelopment, that involves finding a master developer and reaching agreements with key property owners.

For example, the so-called "SunSuite property" at the corner of East Third and Depot streets, owned by Morgan Hill developer Rocke Garcia, is a major landmark site. Tewes said the city's challenge is reaching an agreement with Garcia to have retail on Third Street and high density residential behind it.

"Reaching a deal is going to be challenging and critical," Tewes said.

In December, the RDA spent $10.6 million to buy the Granada Theater, the Downtown Mall and several other properties and parking lots from private owners, but there are challenges to assemble that site and find a master developer who can accomplish the kind of vision for the downtown with retail on the bottom floor and residential and parking behind it, city officials said.

Other drastic changes in the future for the downtown, according to city officials, is the narrowing of Monterey Road from four to two lanes north and south.

The proposal is being studied by the Master Transportation Impact Analysis, with results to be presented in the environmental impact report on the Downtown Plan.

City officials say the advantages of having only two lanes downtown are that the street becomes much more pedestrian friendly and people, rather than cars, are the focus of the Monterey Road right of way.

Sidewalks, therefore, would be wider. Bike lanes and construction of angled parking could be added. The median would not be necessary and pedestrians would have only a short distance to cross the street.

The Morgan Hill Planning Commission considered the downtown plan March 11 and March 25. The Morgan Hill City Council will consider the commission's recommendations at its April 2 meeting and then an environmental impact report will be conducted, Tewes said.

Leading the ambitious effort is Molloy Previsich, who said Morgan Hill residents should be excited because the council, acting as the city's Redevelopment Agency, increased its tax increment cap and issued $110 million in bonds and committed to spend from $20 to $40 million on downtown projects.

"Given that the RDA has these financial resources, then it really increases the likelihood that the goals and visions of the plan can actually be achieved working with private property owners and developers," Molloy Previsich said.

Overtime, through the year 2020, the RDA is expected to spend $300 million in the downtown, she added, but the first bonded amount that's available is $110 million.

A downtown task force worked for a couple of years on the plan. There was a 2003 design plan that contained a vision statement developed by the community taskforce adopted by the city council and now the new 2008 Downtown Specific Plan has upgraded that document.

"This is the council's top priority," she said. "All city staff are very geared up working across departments as a big team to do whatever is necessary to support this private, public partnership to get downtown revitalized and make it a spectacular place.

"We're going to have a lot more outdoor dining and beautified streets and some striking new buildings hosting a whole variety of uses that it's going to be exciting to come to a mixed used area that's pedestrian friendly and the community's living room, where a lot of activities and events will happen.

Sheila Sanchez
Sheila Sanchez is the editor of the Morgan Hill Times. She can be reached at ssanchez@morganhilltimes.com.