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Change of Direction on Pacific Avenue Highlights ‘Evolutionary’ Opportunities The direction of travel on Pacific Avenue will be switched from north-bound to south-bound between Locust and Cathcart Streets if Monday night’s recommendations of the Transportation and Public Works Commission (TPWC) are implemented by the City Council. This measure, a watered-down version of an August 2011 recommendations by Robert Gibbs to improve downtown’s retail productivity by improving traffic circulation, hopes to increase retail sales and to improve conditions for bicyclists and pedestrians. Public comments at the TPWC hearing reflected the community’s continuing ambivalence about what downtown ought to be and a broad spectrum of citizen's wants and expectations. Some continued to argue for more pedestrian orientation and a “park-like” feel. The Chamber and merchants advocated for improvement of its downtown'svalue as a commercial center. Changes in retailing throughout the U.S., local shopping habits, increased cost of housing, proposed housing projects in the downtown, and expansion of non-retail employment all suggest it is time for a re-evaluation of the downtown’s opportunities, needs, and identity. What should be the identity of our downtown? Described as the City’s “living room” by the 1990-93 committee planning for downtown’s reconstruction following the 1989 earthquake, it has gone through boom (the dot-com era) and bust (the Great Recession) with curiously little retail evolution. The overall character of Santa Cruz’s downtown has remained much the same since its reconstruction more than 20 years ago. Behavior issues and street ambiance have been ongoing themes. Vacancy at the Rittenhouse building has been a constant reminder of the narrow range of our retail market. Sale revenues and commercial rents have reflected economic cycles but show little relative improvement vis a vis other communities against whom we benchmark. The Gibbs analysis in 2011 found that the city’s retail leakage was an astounding 85%. A portion of this can be attributed to out-commuters and another portion to inordinately high housing costs. But compared to other communities similar to us, our downtown retail provides few opportunities to buy “essentials” and, with few exceptions, a relatively narrow range of price and value. The theory and practice behind Gibbs’s initial recommendation regarding Pacific Avenue traffic circulation was evidence of the success of the conversion of one-way streets in retail areas to two-way in dozens of cities across the U.S. Gibbs’s advicewas founded upon increases in sales in cities that made such conversion. Gibbs projected that if Pacific was converted from one-way to two-way traffic sales would increase by at least 20%. This recommendation was initially received by the City with some enthusiasm. But subsequent testing of the fire department’s new tiller truck (with two drivers, one in the front and one in the back) found that it could not make necessary turns through downtown without crossing into the oncoming lane of traffic. There were possible remedies to this: the purchase of a fire vehicle with similar capacities that could make the necessary turns; moving the location of the downtown fire station to reduce these traffic conflicts. However, the City chose not to persue the two-way street recommendation. However, the City did then turned solving another circulation problem identified by both Gibbs and the national real estate brokers hired to support attraction of retailers to downtown: the “collision” of south bound and north bound one-way streets between Locust and Church streets. This complexity compounded by the east-west streets intersecting Pacific not aligning requiring turns on to Pacific. The resulting serpentine routes of travel through downtown make it difficult to the “uninitiated” to get to specific locations or to find parking near their intended destinations. These traffic patterns force shoppers off of Pacific and out of downtown... some “never to return.” They are serious deterrents to visitors trying to explore downtown and, according to Gibbs, have a negative impact on retail sales. Gibbs, other retail consultants, and store-locator representatives have routinely criticized this complicated traffic pattern. It has, frankly, been a source of amusement and the stimulus for deprecating humor by many of them. The large “Do Not Enter” signs near the sidewalks on Pacific at Church and Locust streets have frequently been photographed by them. These ‘tells’ from outside retail experts have been neither subtle nor positive. Spearheaded by the City’s Downtown Commission and and shepherded by Jesse Nickell, the local principal for Barry Swenson Builder and member of the Downtown Commission, the proposal to convert Pacific to one-way from north to south from Water Street to Cathcart (where it become two-way) has been moving haltingly through downtown conversations and public process for nearly four years. The Chamber raised a small fund to obtain further counsel from Robert Gibbs regarding the effectiveness of the conversion. He continued to advocate strongly for a two-way street but opined that converting to a continuous one-way the length of Pacific Avenue would be a lesser but still significant benefit to downtown retail performance. The Downtown Commission reviewed this project several times. It heard from a number of merchants regarding the importance of making these changes without eliminating parking. And it considered and abandoned a larger project that would have modified the intersection controls at the Water street intersections with Front Street, Pacific Avenue, and Center Street. The Commissions report was considered by the City Council last year and referred on to the TPWC for study and evaluation and consideration of adding the suggested bi-directional bicycle lanes. Based upon these recommendations the Public Works department developed a more detailed proposal including these additional issues. The submitted plan made some additions (e.g., a short two-way traffic pattern between Commercial Way and Cedar Street on Walnut and the removal of five parking spaces.) Public comment on this proposal at the TPWC hearing on Monday continued several long-standing themes regarding downtown, some positive for retailers and other commercial interests, some not so. These included: Bicycle traffic. The plan provides for a “contra-flow” bicycle lane on the east side of Pacific Ave. This will permit bicycles to travel both with and against the flow of traffic in a marked lane. This is a positive on a variety of levels – getting north-bound bicyclist off of the sidewalk, encouraging bicycle commuting to work, and slowing both bicycle and auto speeds through downtown. Pedestrian Mall. Notwithstanding a vast and growing amount of evidence that pedestrian malls are the death knell of downtown retail, some residents and at least one TPWC commissioner still advocate for converting the City’s primary retail area to a pedestrian and bicycle – and, perhaps, public transportation – configuration. In the absence of downtown universities or high-rise urban commercial and apartment buildings conversions excluding automobile traffic have proven to be fatal to retail areas. Parking. The Gibbs Report’s rule of thumb is that a street parking space is worth $400,000 per year in retail sales to nearby retailers. While this number is interrelated with other factors, it is inarguably of very significant value to local retailers to have parallel parking spaces along Pacific and other downtown streets. Notwithstanding objections to the removal of five parking spaces as a result of this conversion, no member of the TPWC even commented upon this concern. Downtown Identity. More broadly, there was surprisingly little lip of service given to commercial interests in either the public comment or the Commission’s discussions. Bicyclists seemed to be the largest represented interest group. Walking-Mall advocates were second. Downtown residents were third. With the exception of Nickell’s comments from the perspective of a larger downtown property owner and member of the Downtown Commission and those of Pacific Cookie Company founder Larry Pearson and the Chamber’s CEO, little was said about the commercial role of downtown. Overall the conversion of one-way streets on Pacific to run continuously from north to south will be a benefit to Downtown. But a strategic conversation and continuing study of the nature of downtowns in general and of Santa Cruz in particular, of local retail opportunity, of the environment necessary to attract workers to Santa Cruz, and of the integration of these issues into increased downtown housing represents a significant opportunity for improving our overall economic and social environment. Report on Downtown One-way Existing Pacific Ave However, the City did then turned solving another circulation problem identified by both Gibbs and the national real estate brokers hired to support attraction of retailers to downtown: the “collision” of south bound and north bound one-way streets between Locust and Church streets. This complexity compounded by the east-west streets intersecting Pacific not aligning requiring turns on to Pacific.