In an effort to hear from the community, developers for the Scotts Valley Town Center project hosted an open house last weekend. The information flow was one-sided, however, because the developers did not disclose any requirements they may have in developing the project. Rather, according to the developers, the idea behind the event was to start a conversation with the community on their vision for the project.
Held at the Scotts Valley Community Center, the open house consisted of “information stations” in which members of the development team discussed and gathered input on the fundamental components of the project that will need to be balanced in the final design- with stations representing housing, retail, open space, and the overall configuration of the site. The developers were careful in these conversations not to disclose any project requirements, particularly the “bottom line” number of housing units that may be required for the financial feasibility of the project.
“The great thing about this open house is I get a strong feeling people really want this project built,” said Jim Reed, Mayor of Scotts Valley, gesturing to a crowd of about 70 to 80 people. “This development team seems very amenable to what I expect will be difficult conversations in the future and it will be a collaborative process. I think these guys are good listeners.”
Reed went on to explain, the project only gets built if the developers can make it happen.
“Our challenge will be to squeeze the developer so we can get what we want, at the same time there has to be profit in it for them to make it worthwhile,” Reed said.
Not available at the open house were any copies of the conceptual site plan discussed at length with the city council when Palisades Builders, Inc. was chosen as the city’s developer back in March. When Palisades Builders, Inc. was chosen after a competitive process, the city council made clear that no plan was getting approved at that time, yet a good deal of the discussion in their choice of the developer focused on the conceptual site plan that Palisades Builders, Inc. presented.
While this preliminary plan was necessary to win the city’s approval back in March, Doug Ross, CEO of Palisades Builders, Inc. said at the open house, “It’s premature to have a plan before you get the community input. We are beginning with a clean slate at this point- and we want to end up with a Town Center that everyone can be proud of,” Ross said.
Back in March, Palisades Builders Inc. presented a conceptual plan with 288 units of different types of housing, with some units wrapped around parking structures in buildings as tall as four floors, and about 32,000 square feet of commercial space designated for retail, restaurant and a “market hall”, planned around an oval town green open space, at a total cost of roughly $180 million.
Jim Reed related a story of when he first moved into the Sky Park neighborhood 20 years ago, a realtor gave him a newspaper clipping about plans for a new town center not far from their neighborhood, and, “We were really excited. Ever since then, for the last 20 years, the town center has been the issue that has really motivated me,” Reed said.
Explaining that many factors conspired against other proposals made by several developers over the last 20 years, including the slow relocation of propane facilities and weathering a deep economic recession, Reed said this was the first developer to actually reach an agreement with the City of Santa Cruz for the sale of two large parcels owned by the City of Santa Cruz on the roughly 14-acre project site. The negotiated price for these two parcels is not yet public, but is estimated to be in the neighborhood of $8-10 million. “We know they are serious, and we look forward to working with them- as shown with the recent ENA,” Reed said.
Reed was referring to the Exclusive Right to Negotiate agreement the City of Scotts Valley recently entered into with the Scotts Valley Town Green Land, LLC, the project-specific legal entity that Palisades Builders, Inc. has created to develop the project. The ENA requires the developer to produce a detailed description of the project including the proposed design and square footage of each building, as well as a financial plan including sources and uses of funds for the project, all due within four months, with the possibility of extensions to six months.
The “information station” for retail featured a prominent graph showing when more retail sales were made over the internet than sales in “bricks and mortar” retail outlets nationwide- the year was 2007. The rapidly declining trend line of retail sales made in “bricks and mortar” retail stores, declining more than 30 percent since 2006 with the so-called “Amazonification of retail’, crossed the rabidly increasing trend line of internet retail sales in 2007, and has continued to rise sharply since.
This makes creating the commercial pull of “destination- experiential retail” a risky endeavor, according to Michael Cohen, the designated retail expert at the “retail information station”. According to Cohen, perishable and specialty food, especially in an open-air, community market atmosphere, remains one of the most viable retail sectors resistant to internet sales, and reiterated the idea of a “market hall ” serving as an anchor for retail, as proposed in the original conceptual plan.
“We’re thinking of a hybrid between a traditional grocery store and a food court- with a wide selection of specialty foods and restaurants, that brings the community together in a way you just don’t get in a regular grocery store,” Cohen explained.
The architect for the project, Jon Worden, compared the overall design of such a prominent project to a heart transplant. “Just as it’s very hard to do for a body- with all the connections and importance of a well functioning heart- it’s hard to do for a town, and we’re designing this project as the heart of town,” Worden said.
The development team has launched a website, www.scottsvalleytowngreen.com, to continue informing the community and gathering input for the project.
