Despite the cost and concrete, the new city plaza seems to be a big hit with more than the usual coterie of the residentially challenged that inhabited the previous plaza. People predicted that the lack of shade, the thousands of yards of cement, and the "big city" design would discourage folks from visiting, but they were clearly mistaken. On any given weekday, you'll find working folks, families, seniors, and lots of kids hanging out, having lunch, frolicking in the fountain, admiring the mural, or just lounging on the raised lawns. Hell, I've even seen people playing chess.

Last night at the Thursday Night Market, there must have been hundreds of people enjoying the casual intimacy that relative strangers indulge when they're in a public square. And it isn't hard to understand why. Just look at it; it's clean.

This is is stark contrast, alas, to the rest of the pedestrian space in Chico. Compared with the sidewalks in most of the district, the streets themselves are clean enough to eat off of. It's no wonder, then, when people are asked why they don't come downtown, that one of the first complaints (after parking; a perennial #1), is the filthy sidewalks.

Not all of the sidewalks are dirty, of course. At right is an example of a well-kept sidewalk, in front of a popular fine dining establishment that understands that you don't get a second chance to make a first impression.

It doesn't really take that much effort to maintain a clean front walk. If you visit the downtown area early in the day, before most stores are even open, you will find solitary figures, hose in hand, giving their respective stoops a good rinse. Because this water flows to the creeks, use of cleaning chemicals on the sidewalks is prohibited, which doesn't make it any easier, but regular, frequent hosing down keeps the grunge down to a faint patina. In addition to Christian Michaels, properties that regularly wash their walks include Third & Main, Pluto's, and Mayo Law Clinic. Bill Mayo hoses the sidewalk in front of his building every Saturday morning, and often continues up the street past his property line. That's civic involvement at the street level, folks.

Unfortunately not every business owner or property manager shares this sense of public duty. Maybe they can't see it. Maybe they don't care. But this mess at left is not an isolated example. A brief stroll around the businest streets in downtown reveals numerous locations that have spilled food, dog crap, cigarette butts, litter, dead leaves, and a thick, sticky layer of just plain old garden variety crud. On weekend mornings, especially, there is a variety of food and beverage products abandoned on the sidewalk, sometimes partially digested, sometimes fully, sometimes not.

I've heard a number of people say that they think the city, or the DCBA, should take care of this problem. As it happens, the city does, from time to time (maybe twice a year, budget permitting) hire a water blasting contractor to pressure wash the surface. Again, they can't use any chemicals; it must be clear water only. But hot water at high speed will take off that top layer of oily muck, and even dislodge the occasional spoor of chewing gum. Gum removal is a separate operation, requiring extra effort on the part of the contractor, and additional fees. This comprehensive cleaning took place just last spring, although you wouldn't know it to look at it now.

The specific scope of the DCBA's mission does not include maintenance of the public way. It has neither the authority nor the resources to wash the sidewalks. The DCBA does manage a litter control effort on weekends. The unflagging RIchard Elsom leads crews of people sentenced to public service around the downtown with brooms and dustpans to sweep up the detritus of urban life each week. Right now he's also conducting a more comprehensive sweep of the downtown with a group of young people in the Upwardly Bound program. More than once I've seen Richard pull up in his pickup with a shovel to scrape up somebody else's dog poop. And the DCBA manages the planters downtown, keeping them colorful and weed-free, as well. So the city and the DCBA do what they can, but ultimate responsibility for keeping a clean walk rests entirely with the street level shop or restaurant.

Maintaining an attractive appearance is not simply a matter of hosing down the walk, either. Blight comes in many forms. Things get boisterous in downtown, and sometimes windows get broken. While it may take a couple days to get it repaired, leaving it unattended for weeks at a time is simply unacceptable. It makes the entire streetscape look seedy and run down. The photo at right is but one example of deferred maintenance blighting what by rights should be a showcase. Certainly the efforts of the aforementioned Mr. Mayo and the guys who built that fine-looking facade for the Banshee deserve better.

That said, it may be that the Beach Hut folks think this is just business as usual. The truth is that that corner property sat untenanted for quite some time, and it became a refuge for all sort of debris. Neither the property owners nor the management company took pains to keep it swept and neat-looking, which may explain why it was vacant for so long. But considering what it looked like when the sandwich shop saw it the first time, they may well believe that the broken window is "no big deal".

Similarly, the photo at left is in front of the old Oser's building. The windows are filled with For Rent signs, but the walk out front practically screams "Do Not Enter". You'd think that someone eager to sign new tenants would do more to make it look inviting. A garden hose, and fifteen minutes, would make all the difference in the world.

It's the little things that make a city look nice. It doesn't take all that much time to sweep the sidewalk, wash the windows, replace burned out bulbs, and keep their signage and awnings clean and in good repair. But it does take giving a damn about how your storefront looks to the rest of the community. Perhaps further motivation is needed. Last year, a new ordinance was passed to require downtown shops to bring in their garbage cans by 9 AM. It seems a couple of places were leaving their bins on the sidewalk all day, and it took passing a law to get them to change their practice. Perhaps what is needed is a public nuisance ordinance requiring tenants -- or in their absence the property owners or managers -- to maintain a reasonably clean sidewalk in front of their premises, as well as keeping their windows, awnings and signage clean and in good repair. Instead of saddling the city with additional costs to maintain a decent downtown, make it a code enforcement issue, and maybe even generate some new revenues in the form of fines.

Here are a few more examples of downtown Chico's "Walk of Shame".

Posted by Alan Chamberlain at 06:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Tucked in behind the Silberstein Building, the elegant white edifice on Broadway across from the city plaza, is this tranquil courtyard, as serene as it is sterile, missing only humanity to give it character.

It's a shame, really, that this lovely, shaded refuge is so underultilized. It is not inaccessible, although the wrought-iron fence surrounding it tends to discourage casual visitors. This is one of the hidden gems of downtown Chico.

It is, ironically, less than half a block from Diamond Alley. It is in the same longitude, blocked by the ATM plaza behind the Bank of America, buttressed by a dumpster soffet, but otherwise an aesthetic extension of the Diamond Alley. Shaded, intimate, pristine.

It might have been a parking lot at one time. At the end of the drive fronting onto Fifth Street is a course of stylized hitching posts, with chess-piece knight horse heads atop black iron standards. So it's entirely possible that in the past, this was intended to serve as a preautomotive loading dock.

Regardless, it now serves as a quiet, dappled respite. The problem is, it's never used.

How many more of these getaways could we have in downtown, if only we recovered private parking lots? The truth is that there are acres of asphalt that could be coverted into pedestrian space.

Whenever we try to have a discussion about parking in the downtown, we hear the familiar complaint; "We don't need any new parking. There's plenty of parking in the downtown." I'm prepared to concede that argument, subject to two stipulations; it's in the wrong places, and it's in the wrong hands.

When the charrette folks came to town, they made a point of noting that there were over 4000 parking spaces in the city center. About half of which were in private parking lots. Then they made the point that parking utilization was significantly less than 85%, the magic number they recommend as the benchmark for new construction. The problem is that a great deal of the vacancy they note is in those private lots. Meantime, potential patrons of downtown businesses circle the blocks cursing the lack of parking. Thus is cognitive dissonance engendered.

One suggestion from the charrette is to negotiate with private lot owners to make space available for casual use. This is a sweet, noble, and largely impossible notion. Liability issues make it highly unlikely that owners of private lots will permit non-subscribers to park there.

It must also be noted that parking lot rentals are probably not that lucrative. It is one of the reasons there are no significant parking operations in downtown Chico. The main reason these spaces are offered to subscription is that it doesn't pencil to build on those lots, and they might as well generate something to cover the property taxes. But it isn't a business in any sustainable sense of the word. I imagine most of these "parklords" would prefer not to deal with the rental headaches at all. Especially inasmuch as most of these lots are largely unoccupied.

The solution as I see it is to encourage these landowners to divest of their profitless and troublesome parcels. If the city were to acquire these partial parcels and improve them by ripping up the concrete, planting lawns and ground covers, trees and shrubs, ivies and espaliers, it could create oases of green glades that would be catnip to the retail patron.

More on Friday.

Posted by Alan Chamberlain at 06:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A few years ago I turned 50, right about the time I got fed up with my local MD. I went back to my old Bay Area doctor, Flash Gordon, he late of Herb Caen's column and the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic. We used to play in a band together about 20 years ago, as well. Since it had been awhile, and what with my advancing age, Flash performed a complete physical. He was concerned about my heart. I had three of four risk factors; family history, elevated cholesterol level, male over 50. Actually, the words he used were "Where do you want the flowers sent?" He's a good doc, but could work on the bedside manner...

Seriously, though, we did a whole bunch of tests, and I'm actually in pretty good shape, sudden-cardiac-arrest-wise. But before we got the results of the stress echocardiogram back, Flash suggested I get more exercise. I protested, in the way of self-important middle-aged, middle-class white guys. I don't have the time to go the the gym, lots of important work to do, etc. He said "just park a little farther away from your office."

Which made a certain amount of sense, actually. Parking is tough enough in downtown as it is, without trying to play the Find-The-Closest-Possible-Space game. Now I play the Find-The-Closest-Unmetered-Space game. I'm probably getting in an extra mile a day easy.

Since I come into downtown from the east, I usually find a spot either on Third or Flume. There's about 30 spaces within a block of that intersection without meters, and it's unusual that I can't find one. If not, I'll try Fourth, Orient, etc. Even from as far away as the University of Phoenix, it doesn't take but ten minutes to get to my office on Second between Main and Broadway. Except when I run into people I want to chat with, which happens a lot, and almost never happened when I was parking in close.

As a result of all this perambulation, I've become acutely aware of the pedestrian environment in downtown. It sucks, to speak plainly. Not more than most cities, but sucks nevertheless. Ironically, it's the parking that causes this acute state of vacuum.

In the vast postwar expansion that led to the motorization of most communities, the pedestrian environment became an afterthought to the motorway. It's called a "sidewalk" after all, because it's beside the street. As streets were widened, sidewalks narrowed. And as more merchants wanted to provide close in free parking for their patrons, vast lots were created with white stripes and "Private Parking" signs sprouting from the asphalt. To be fair, many communities required developers to include on site parking or pay in-lieu fees. So it is in Chico.

End result is that the "pedestrian environment" in downtown Chico consists of cutting across parking lots. There's actually a lot of private parking in the city center, and one can get around quite a bit without walking alongside a motorway, so long as one is content to navigate around stationary autos. It really isn't that tough, since these private lots are criminally underutilized. At a time when available parking in downtown has reached a critical stage, maintaining a private lot with few occupants is about as antisocial an act as spitting on the sidewalk or smoking in a doorway..

If you go back and study the previous entries regarding the best practices of Austin, Berkeley, and other communities, one common strategy stands out; Pedestrianize The Downtown. This is what we must do if downtown Chico is to thrive as the cultural heart of the city and surrounding region.

On Wednesday and Friday, I will be proposing some specific ideas as to how we can make the downtown a pedestrian paradise. We can create an oasis of cute alleys, serene patios, vest-pocket parks, broad malls, and cozy courtyards, but first we have to rip up all the private parking. We may have to take out a few buildings, as well. With so much space currently untenanted, I think we can afford it.

Imagine, if you will, the Diamond Alley extending north to Big Chico Creek, and south to Seventh Street, with lawns, trees, shrubbery, park benches, and other amenities exclusively for pedestrians, not just some strip of cement along the road, but an actual walkable downtown, graced with cafes, shady plazas, and broad boulevards with no vehicular traffic except at crosswalks. We can get there from here. More on Wednesday.

Posted by Alan Chamberlain at 06:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Taking a quick break away from the Greater Downtown series (continuing on Monday) to rave a bit about the recent disturbance in the force called KPIG radio.

Back when I first moved to San Francisco, in 1980, I was astonished at all the great radio stations. KFOG and KMEL were both playing a lot of eclectic AOR (album-oriented-rock), and KJAZ just completely knocked me out with its jazz programming. Community-supported radio pioneer KPFA was also a great source of interesting music from out of the mainstream.

But the all-time greatest radio station in the Bay Area was KFAT. It was hard to tune in, but it was worth the static and hiss. It had an unbelievably comprehensive record collection, knowledgable DJs, and a passion for mixing it up.

That station eventually morphed into KPIG, which has kept the old-school "underground radio" tradition alive. Based near Santa Cruz, they still have real live DJs who pick out their own music based on whatever they want to play. They take requests, mix in weird audio clips, comedy bits, and listener comments left on their answering machine. It's radio insanity, in a good way.

And now, it's in Chico. Broadcasting at 96.7 on the FM dial, it replaced some boring corporate format hip hop station. It just went live this week, and it is now the favored preset on every radio I have any control over. It has replaced KCHO, KZFR, KVMR, and everything else for the foreseeable future. I expect it will be the same for a great many people in Chico, and our cultural consensus will be forever altered because of it. I have heard a lot of music I've always loved and haven't heard for years. I'm also hearing a lot of great music I'd never heard before. It's like being hooked up to an IV drip of hip.

It's also a stone gas to hear the traffic reports. They'll be going on about the long backup at the maze, the overturned big rig on 17, the injury accident in the East Bay, etc., then say "...and in Chico, everything seems to be moving along just fine..." Traffic reports in Chico; so not done.

Long squeal the pig!

Posted by Alan Chamberlain at 09:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Chico can be fairly criticized for its contentious and frequently divisive politics, but we're in the Tee Ball League compared with Berkeley, California. As Carolyn Jones of the San Francisco Chronicle notes, it's a civic deliberation that "bickers over everything from vacant lots to old-growth eucalyptus". These are the big leagues of acrimonious local politics.

So it was with considerable interest that I read about a new project in downtown Berkeley that has no opposition. Particularly since it is not some trivial vacant lot, but a 19-story hotel and condominium complex right between the BART station and the University, to be called the Berkeley Charles Hotel.

Part of the reason there was no controversy surrounding this project is because the Berkeley Planning Department created a Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee to oversee plans for the city center. Traditionally conflicting parties all have a seat at the table, and collaborate on creative solutions rather than scheming to thwart their respective political enemies' ambitions. Maybe Chico could learn something from this.

A Bank of America branch currently occupies the site on Center Street in Berkeley, between Shattuck and Oxford. It is an unattractive structure, as modern bank buildings tend to be. As Lesley Emmington Jones of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association observed, "Everyone knows that B of A building is a planning mistake. That site needs something with complexity and life." Sound familiar?

In addition to the hotel, which will be the tallest building in Berkeley (topped only by the Campanile bell tower on campus), the project will include a relocated Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. There will also be a conference center, jazz club, restaurant, and a B of A branch. It will contain 210 hotel rooms, 50 market-rate condominiums, and is expected to cost about $150 million. Design principles include:

Use the highest standards of design and green building principles to accommodate diverse uses and activities compatible with the downtown’s character

Locate the primary pedestrian entrance to the hotel on Center Street to enhance the pedestrian corridor leading to the UC campus and leave Center Street available for pedestrian-only use in the event that the community decides to create a pedestrian plaza or daylight Strawberry Creek

Be sensitive to existing building scale and streetscapes by creating an activated street edge consistent with heights of buildings located on the site in the past and other buildings along Center and Shattuck

Limit the width of the higher portions of the building and set them back from the street edge in order to create an attractive building composition and maximize solar gain

Employ sound principles of transit-oriented planning with building height generally consistent with existing taller buildings at the intersection of Center and Shattuck, a major transportation hub

Strongly encourage visitors and staff to use nearby public transit, and locate parking below grade to maximize pedestrian benefits

I bring this up because it gives me hope that Chico can overcome it's reflexive factionalism, and come together to imagine a city center that reflects the otherwise congenial and kind-hearted population. I've spoken with the property owner for Bank of America for Northern California, Kathleen Read. She agrees that the current structure for Chico Main (as the branch is referred to within the company) has all the charm of the Oakland City Jail, and that the bank needs far less square footage than it owns for its operation on that site. I've also spoken to the trustee for the trust that owns the land under the bank and the parking lot behind it, and he said that if the bank is agreeable, he'd be willing to lease the land to the city if it was interested in putting a project on the site. I've since forwarded this information to Tom Varga, Capital Project Services Director for the City of Chico.

Obviously a 19-story hotel is out of the question for Chico, but perhaps something grand and magnificent in the 4-5 story range, with retail on the ground floor (including a B of A branch, although I understand their old building at 2nd and Broadway is seeking a stable ground floor tenant), commercial and office space above, and residential units on the upper floors, with great views of the plaza, the campus, and the greater downtown.

Stranger things have happened; just ask Berkeley.

Posted by Alan Chamberlain at 06:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

They say a smart man learns from his mistakes, but a wise man learns from others’ mistakes. I’m sure it will come as a surprise to some, but the opportunities and challenges facing Chico’s downtown are not unique. From tiny villages to metropolitan centers, urban planners have been beset and bedeviled by many of the same fundamental issues. It is instructive to examine what other communities have tried in the past, what has worked, and what has not.

Austin, Texas may not seem at first glance to have that much in common with Chico, but despite the difference in size, in terms of downtown revitalization, they both face similar challenges; parking, traffic, open space, retail stimulation, cultural legacy preservation, etc. The good news is that Austin is about a year or two ahead of us. Better news is that Austin has already studied the best practices of other communities. The best news is that they’ve put nearly everything they’ve done online.

One thing that is interesting about Austin is that there are several different groups that are involved in downtown revitalization. While it may appear that there is overlap, each group serves distinctly discrete interests. And while there is some redundancy, this is actually a good thing; if you wear a belt and suspenders, the pants don’t fall down.

From the official perspective, the city of Austin has empanelled a Downtown Commission. This is a standing advisory board that furnishes policymakers with decision support. It coordinates with the City Council’s Downtown Subcommittee, reviews pending ordinances, regulations, and project initiatives affecting the downtown, and furnishes recommendations to the Council and other commissions as appropriate. The Commission also developed and revises the Downtown Neighborhood Plan. Note that this is a neighborhood plan, rather than a business or marketing plan. Certainly the plan includes important discussion of the commercial aspect, but it is, first and foremost, a neighborhood with a business district, not the other way around. Priorities identified in the plan include:

• Make downtown the center for a variety of uses and activities which create a vibrant 24-hour environment. Promote downtown as:
o a regional retail center
o the location of local, state and federal governmental offices
o the location for high density office development
o the location for housing for all income groups
o the location for the music and entertainment industry
o the location for art and cultural activities
• Promote the utilization of the Convention Center and surrounding area to develop tourism and economic opportunities associated with conventions.
• Develop a transportation system which focuses on downtown and permits movement within the area.
• Develop urban design guidelines which enhance Austin's distinctive character.
• Encourage development of parks and open spaces.
• Ensure a safe environment.
• Develop a marketing plan.

It specifies objectives for Land Use, Urban Design, Transportation, Economic Development, the Environment, and Public and Human Services.

The business community is represented by the Downtown Austin Alliance, which is similar in mission and provenance to the DCBA. They describe themselves as being “devoted to promoting and maintaining a safe, clean, attractive, accessible, and fun Downtown environment, making Downtown the destination for Austinites and visitors.” They sponsor events, host programs, and coordinate between the private and public sectors.

There is also the Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association, which describes itself as “the voice of downtown Austin residents.” Their mission is to improve the quality of Austin's urban life, by
• organizing resident social events
• promoting a range of downtown housing options
• protecting public spaces and historical assets
• supporting pedestrian-oriented development policies
• addressing safety and public nuisance concerns
• encouraging mixed-use residential development
• communicating the economic and cultural benefits of a vibrant, densely-populated downtown to elected officials and the community at large.

Between these three organizations with their separate charters and constituencies, the burden of executing a strategy for revitalization and improvement is shared, with a sustainable long-range consensus for the future.

Chico can learn a lot about how to define and deliver a plan for its own downtown by studying what Austin has done and is doing. This is demonstrated by the fact that Austin studied a number of other successful downtown initiatives and cherry-picked the best ideas they uncovered. Chico can piggy-back on that effort, as well. Some of the findings from studying other markets include:

Madison, Wisconsin
• Promote partnerships between downtown businesses
• Communicate with policymakers and integrate businesses and business issues into the city development and planning process
• Promote pedestrian movement through the downtown area
• Stores are encouraged to remain open until 9:00 pm

San Diego, California
• Both department stores and national chain retailers in an innovative downtown center
• Creation of a BID to encourage re-investment and provide central marketing and security
• Use incentive funds to attract a downtown grocery store as well as to include affordable housing as part of the mix
• Create a clear identity for its downtown as a tourist and convention destination

Portland, Oregon
• Established a dedicated position to oversee retail recruitment and retention
• Meets with local and independent retailers in order to preserve and strengthen existing businesses and to attract new businesses

Boise, Idaho
• Publicly funded structured parking
• Wide sidewalks to invite outside dining
• Downtown seen cognitively and subconsciously as a special place worth paying more for.

Washington, D.C.
• Capital contribution to fund tenant improvements, which allows the landlord to lower the rental rate to attract these key tenants

Charlotte, North Carolina
• Short-term startup rent subsidies

As we see, there are some common strategies that communities large and small can use to increase the vitality of the downtown, not simply as a central business district, but as the cultural, social, and civic hub of a city and a region. Some may argue that Chico is too contentious to ever achieve any agreement about what its downtown should be. Some might say the same thing about Berkeley, California, but they've made signficant progress in developing a common vision for their downtown area.

More on Friday.

Posted by Alan Chamberlain at 06:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For anything purposeful to be accomplished, it must first be imagined. The animating principle to any project or program is called a vision because it can be seen in the mind. The future of downtown Chico is in the minds of those who ask “what if?” Vision is not a clear finished print so much as a fluid cascade of images unfolding like a Quicktime slide show.

When the now infamous charrette consultants presented their recommendations to the city council, many downtown stakeholders testified in the public hearing about the need for a unifying vision for the future. Indeed, the council directed staff to recommend a process for producing such a thing. There has been some sentiment that it should properly emerge as an element of the general plan revision. While I certainly agree that a general plan without a comprehensive element defining city planning and development standards for the central business district is incomplete, I am not persuaded that the question of articulating a clear and compelling narrative about the future is the likely outcome of what will certainly be a contentious and competitive political negotiation. Any general plan is a portfolio of compromises, not an exciting science fiction movie describing an impossibly benignant utopia.

But that’s what is needed right now; a small-town Star Wars epic narrative that inspires, unifies, and animates initiative.

Much closer to the mark, I think, is the idea that a method for collaborating to arrive at a consensus about the city center will be a critical component of the city’s overall economic development strategy. This makes sense, inasmuch as economic developers, by temperament and habit, combine idealism with pragmatism. There are numerous organizations working on growing the economy of Chico and the North State, and all of them are right about something. They seek different paths to the same outcomes; increasing commercial activity, capital formation, wealth creation, and sustainable workforce expansion.

Recently, the City of Chico recruited Martha Wescoat-Andes as Economic Development/Redevelopment Manager. In recent months she’s been gathering ideas and interests and concerns from a wide variety of stakeholders in the local economy, especially the folks who have been the boots on the ground of the economic development effort here for decades. Wescoat-Andes recently presented a summary of her findings to the city council all-day budget hearing, which was refreshing in contrast to other departments’ sobering and often grim portents for the city’s financial state. She advised that the solution to projected budget shortfalls lies in expanding the economy, creating more jobs, and collecting more revenues. She's right.

Accelerating the transformation of the city center into a dynamic commercial corridor must certainly be a critical component of a strategy for growing the economy. So I’m hopeful that the process of planning and executing such a strategy will help to crystallize a common colloquium for how the downtown will fulfill everyone’s expectations.

It is worthwhile to reflect on the irreducible elements of any successful and healthy community. These are the “must-haves” without which no community can expect to thrive. These elements manifest across three domains or dimensions; Social, Civic, and Economic.

In the Social dimension, relationships are interpersonal, neighbor to neighbor, in which we combine our resources and share our experiences. In the Civic domain, interactions create public policy, and relationships are citizen to citizen, through which we combine our risks and share our obligations. The exchange of value, vendor to customer, defines the Economic domain, wherein we combine our rewards by sharing a marketplace. A truly successful vision of the future, therefore, must include scenarios in each of these dimensions. A strategy that only provides for economic growth, but does not address social and civic consequences, is shortsighted. Similarly, any plan for solving social challenges, or resolving political differences, absent integration with the underlying economic dynamic, is unlikely to produce desired outcomes, and may inflict unintentional damage. So, while the economic development community synthesizes its long-range priotities, I have a few ideas of my own.

A vision should be aspirational. It should be grand in its scope, and bold in novelty. It should answer the question, “what if?” Herewith are some brief vignettes of the future that I have collected, some from the recommendations of others, some from my own fevered imagination.

Social
• The Chico Performing Arts Center, in the Senator Theater, opens with a gala featuring appearances by Mother Hips, Mystic Roots, Spark & Cinder, etc. The Center, a partnership between the City of Chico, Associated Students, and the Chico Theater Coalition, provides an intimate venue for music, theater, and variety programming.
• The Chico Social Services Network establishes operations downtown, providing information and referrals to public, private not-for-profit, and professional agencies and support resources. This “one-stop-shop” is a partnership between the City of Chico and a coalition of social services agencies including the Jesus Center, ARC, WTC, Catalyst, Caminar, Enloe Hospital, Butte County Mental Health, etc.
• Children’s Playground offers a fully-staffed summer day camp program featuring athletics, arts and crafts, circus performance skills, nature study, and collaborative team-building exercises. A partnership between City of Chico and Boys & Girls Club.
• The Chico Art and History Museum is slated to be constructed on Main between Third and Fourth Streets, adjacent the City Council chamber, replacing the Historic Seedy Tavern District along Main. Distillery stocks plummet.
• The Saturday Farmer’s Market is relocated in the City Plaza, encircling the park with their exhibits, doubling the Market in size, and establishing a complementary weekly arts, crafts, and performance festival unrivaled throughout California.

Civic
• In partnership with, and using the facilities of, CSU-Chico, Phoenix University, and the City of Chico, the Downtown Hospitality Association launches the Chico Convention Center, attracting conferences, workshops, seminar programs, and other large group affairs to Chico.
• The inaugural conference at the new CCC is an urban planning program. The cities of San Luis Obispo, Davis, and Eugene, OR, send delegates to study Chico’s success and best practices in downtown revitalization.
• The City of Chico breaks ground on the eastern parcel of the city hall parking lot to construct a new administrative services building that will house city, county, and CUSD offices, and integrate operations providing citizens with streamlined government services.
• The new parking structure north of Second Street, and east of Wall Street, is officially opened. With spaces for over 500 cars, it features pay-as-you-go metering, video surveillance, solar energy collectors, and public art.
• The Chico City Council approves a proposal to construct three new four-story mixed-use projects at the intersections of Second and Salem, First and Main, and Fourth and Main. The structures will reflect design features of the historic buildings that had previously occupied those parcels, including the Park, Oaks, and Butte hotels. These new projects, with the Diamond Hotel, will complete the “Four Corners” program of renovating/replicating the historic buildings that once anchored the downtown core.

Economic
• Commercial occupancy is consistently at 95%, with new properties being developed to service increasing demand. New buildings are fully leased before they are even finished, and many have waiting lists.
• The Chico Innovation Collaboratory, a public/private partnership to stimulate technology incubation in the old Oser’s building is home to over a dozen early-stage emerging growth companies, and has graduated five that have located their operations in the greater downtown area. Informed by famous urban planner Jane Jacobs' observation that “new ideas need old buildings”, the partnership integrates the efforts and resources of the CSUC Engineering Department and internship program, City of Chico, and various economic development organizations.
• Tot Village, a daycare and preschool service in downtown expands operations, and begins offering after-school recreational programs, tutoring services, and assisted study halls for K-8 students.
• The Downtown Fitness Center, a co-ed gym with cardio machines, weight training facilities, yoga and dance classes, launches a new racquet sports center.
• Chico Creeks Concierge, a personal services firm serving the growing downtown workforce, announces a partnership with a major dry-cleaning firm, expanding its portfolio of outsourced support services.
• The Upstate Wine Center, a downtown tasting room operated by the Nuovo Toscano Winegrowers and Vintners Association, celebrates the tenth winery to produce award-winning vintages in the Tri-County terroir.
• To serve the growing residential population in the downtown, Chico Fine Foods grocery celebrates its grand opening. The locally-owned market stocks a variety of grocery and drugstore products, and features locally grown produce.

These are only a few ideas. Some of them may even be bad ideas. The only antidote to bad ideas is better ideas. Got any? Post them here.

Posted by Alan Chamberlain at 06:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

If you listen to "America The Beautiful" while traveling around the region, it's hard not to think you're soaking in it. In the center of all this splendor is Chico. And in the center of Chico, downtown.

Framed by Bidwell Park, Bidwell Mansion, Chico State and the south campus neighborhoods, anchored by the plaza and city offices, and distinguished by historic architecture, the central commercial core is the economic hub and cultural commons of Chico, and the crossroads of four active traffic corridors. The health and vitality of the region is reflected in the health of downtown Chico.

This has not always been a favorable indicator. Downtown has had its problems, like most city centers over the past few decades. It has suffered setbacks inflicted by sprawl and mall. But on the whole, our commercial center has been sustained by a nearby campus population, city and county offices, and a determined merchant community.

Over the past decade, it has undergone convulsive transformation. Ten years ago, there were two theaters showing first run films. The central square was shaded by an ancient canopy, and modestly furnished with a gazebo and benches. Halloween was a glorious street festival enjoyed safely if spiritedly by families, students, and visitors alike. And you could fire a cannon down Main Street at high noon on any given weekday in July with little risk of hitting anyone. Traffic congestion was as rare as parking was abundant.

Of course, ten years ago, Chico had half the population, you could buy a house for less than $100,000, and strangers still smiled and exchanged greetings on the street. Times have changed, Chico has grown, and downtown bustles with commercial – and criminal – activity.

There have always been petty pot dealers in the plaza. But recently hypodermic needles were found in Children’s Playground. There have always been homeless folks needing support, but today there is a cohort of career panhandlers blocking sidewalks, menacing shoppers, and asserting a Constitutional right to be a pest. Where once was thriving hospitality shared by students, townies, families and visitors, downtown after dark has become a haven for mean drunks, violent predators, and criminal enterprises.

Do these portents reflect the values and priorities of the larger community and the agricultural region surrounding it? Is this the downtown Chico wants? Or is it the downtown Chico deserves?

Of course, downtown has also improved in many ways. Many dilapidated buildings have been renovated. The plaza, while transformed into a completely different venue than before, will be a durable commons for civic events. The problems of traffic congestion and parking, while complex, indicate impressive growth in economic development.

Still, the tolerance of malignant conduct, the decreasing public safety at all hours but especially at night, and the acceptance of a nihilistic subculture belligerently confounding neighborliness presages a deterioration in the health of downtown, and the community as a whole.

There was a time when the Chico Police Department was headquartered in the city center. While this is no longer logistically advantageous, the relocation of the CPD on Humboldt left a deficit of oversight and enforcement in downtown. As Chico has grown, enforcement resources are stretched thin to cover the city. But downtown has a special significance. The absence of foot patrols, bicycle patrols, and an enabling infrastructure in downtown have led to a sense of safety and immunity for those who would exploit others’ vulnerability.

The people who live and work downtown have taken many steps to incrementally improve the neighborhood; windows that were broken or boarded up now shine from a restored hotel. Shopkeepers clean the sidewalks in front of their stores each morning, after disposing of the discarded cardboard furniture of the chronic beggars. New businesses continue to locate in downtown, and some grow larger.

Where civic spirit has succeeded, policy has failed. Where private investment has been generous, public investment has been parsimonious. Where concerned citizens have formed watch groups, public safety agencies have ignored antisocial behavior.

Much of the success in downtown can be credited to the work of the Downtown Chico Business Association. The Thursday Night Market, the Concert in the Park, the various special events from A Slice of Chico to Treat Street to Christmas Preview and more showcase downtown’s vitality and perpetuate a lively culture of citizen participation. But DCBA’s resources are limited, the scope of its operation constrained, and is frankly competing with commercial interests in other areas of the city. While the success of the DCBA program is impressive, more remains to be done.

The city council is expected to act with vision and perseverance to protect and strengthen the city core. Recent new investment in increased police presence is a welcome initiative, and it is hoped that more resources will be allocated to maximize its effectiveness. New ordinances dealing with panhandling, drug dealing, riding bikes and skateboards on the sidewalk, public nuisance, etc., are not needed. We have plenty of prohibitive legislation; what is needed is consistent, uniform enforcement of existing laws. This is, as with most policy issues, a matter of money. But a government’s first obligation is to protect its citizens. While there exist many other worthwhile programs needing funding, maintaining a baseline level of comfort and convenience in the city’s core is a minimum requirement, not a luxury. The city council received some sobering news at the recent all-day budget workshop. The city is going broke, spending more than it brings in, and the police department needs another $45 million over the next decade to maintain minimum service levels. Whether the money is raised through increased taxes or asset divestment, or saved by cutting other programs, surely a prudent investment in upholding the laws on the books is not too much to ask.

Posted by Alan Chamberlain at 06:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When my wife and I first visited Chico ten years ago, it was the downtown that we found most charming. I grew up in Columbia, Missouri, a medium-sized college town in a river bottom valley with an agricultural economy. It, like Chico, was sufficiently distant from major urban centers that it was the principal destination for regional residents for commercial, cultural, and social fulfillment. My first impression of Chico is that it was very much like my own hometown.

Coming into the downtown from the Esplanade, our first stop was at Madison Bear Garden (pictured above), which reminded me a lot of a place in my old home town called Ford's Theater. Of course, Chico resembled the Columbia of my youth, which has grown and evolved substantially since I left there in the mid-70’s, and Chico today has changed significantly since I relocated here. But there are some valid parallels between the two communities, and my activism in Chico’s planning discussion is informed by a desire to avoid the mistakes that were made in my birthplace, while hopefully implementing some of the practices that proved successful.

One of the important similarities the two towns share is the proximity of the downtown with the University campus. They are side-by-side, and the presence of the student, faculty and staff populations are an essential feature of downtown life. Both communities have received some notoriety as being “party towns”, and both have struggled with the problems caused by over-served youth. The city halls of both cities are also located in their respective downtowns.

There are differences, as well. Columbia’s downtown is the location of the county seat, police headquarters, and the main firehouse. Chico’s safety services are located elsewhere, and Oroville hosts county administration. These distinctions notwithstanding, the similarities to the town I grew up in were striking when I first came to Chico. So much so, that I noticed some eerie analogs to haunts of my youth.

Duffy’s, for example, was called The Tiger Club when I was an irresponsible youth. Scotty’s was represented by a roadhouse on the outskirts of Columbia that was called “Gladstone’s Manufacturing Company”. As I say, Chico’s Madison Bear Garden is nearly identical to Columbia’s Ford’s Theater, complete with tons of old junk on the walls, excellent burgers, and great drink specials. The venerable rock and roll palace in Columbia had a number of different names, although the most memorable to me was The 18th Amendment, and was very much like LaSalle’s, complete with enclosed courtyard and separate poolroom. As I say, my assimilation to Chico was rapid and effortless.

When I opened my first business in Chico, I had no thought of locating anywhere but the downtown area. I was fortunate that office space was plentiful and cheap. My first location was 42 cents a square foot, and right in the middle of 2nd Street between Main and Broadway, easily the hippest block in the Tri-County area. It was funky, bohemian, and drenched in Chico’s celebrated “slack”. My office was surrounded by art studios, and there were plenty of food and beverage operators close to hand. Parking was abundant and just ridiculously cheap compared with the Bay Area, whence I’d migrated. Parking in downtown San Francisco was about $6 an hour in 1998; in Chico an overtime parking ticket was only $7. I also found a rental parking space a couple blocks away for $25. Between its affordability and a vibrant cultural scene, downtown was the unbeatable choice for locating my recording studio.

I was also delighted with the many programs and special events that took place downtown; both the Saturday and Thursday markets, the concerts in the plaza, the parades, car shows, sidewalk sales, and other “street fair” occasions like Taste of Chico and Slice of Chico. It just seemed to me that the downtown was the beating heart of the whole community, and the surrounding region.

There remains a great deal of untapped potential for this area, however. Retail and restaurant operators, especially, complain about conditions which hurt their businesses. The presence of so many vagrants, the shabby state of the sidewalks, the residue of the party scene, and the lack of consideration shown by skateboarders and cyclists on the sidewalks discourages many patrons from visiting downtown. Parking has become significantly less available, and traffic congestion has increased exponentially, such that many people prefer not to come downtown at all. Motorists trying to traverse the central corridor on their way elsewhere, frustrated by traffic, race through town endangering pedestrians. All of these conditions have led to a situation where downtown businesses are patronized primarily by other downtown business owners and their employees. There’s a critical absence of patron churn, as more and more customers choose to patronize the other nine commercial corridors in Chico.

There’s also a surfeit of empty space in the core of the city. In the six-square block area bounded by Salem, Wall, First and Third Streets, more than 60,000 square feet of commercial space is untenanted. This is a grim portent; empty space attracts nuisance, and deterioration of a central business district can be rapid as more “missing teeth” appear in its face. Chico’s downtown is at a critical inflection point. It could tip either way; towards increased health and vitality, or towards disorder and decay.

The time has come for people who have a stake in the downtown to get involved in a civic deliberation about its future. The DCBA has done a great deal, of course, but the scope of its portfolio is narrow (by ordinance, it is restricted as to what it can and cannot do), and its resources are constrained. Its geographic boundaries are as limited as its mission is explicitly business-centric. There is more to a successful downtown than shopping and dining. In order for downtown Chico to fulfill its promise, more than business interests must be involved.

More on Friday.

Posted by Alan Chamberlain at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When famous urban planner Stefano Polyzoides spoke recently at Laxson Auditorium, he said that Chico's "most underutilized asset is the downtown." Everyone seems to agree that Chico's central business district is great. But as Polyzoides points out, it could be greater.

In the coming weeks, I will be exploring ideas for improving and sustaining Chico’s downtown. I’ve been engaged in a number of discussions with downtown businesses, city staff and elected officials, residents and landlords, and other stakeholders in the central business district.

I should disclaim at the outset that I sit on the Downtown Chico Business Association Board of Directors, and serve on its Executive Committee. That said, the purpose of this series of blog entries is not exclusively interested in strictly commercial dynamics, although they will certainly play a part.

I previously discussed the need for public involvement and private investment in the city center in a blog last October. I wrote then that "Chico’s commercial, cultural, and historical center integrates social, civic, and economic domains to connect commerce, the academy, and city government with the residents of the city and region. Unlike other commercial districts, downtown offers an inclusive environment to serve as a public commons." I believe that this is the best, highest purpose for any downtown, and Chico is fortunate that its central core has served so well in this capacity.

As this series continues, I will be sharing best practices from other successful downtowns, innovative ideas contributed by other folks I've met with locally, and a few humble suggestions from Modesty Forbids. Please feel free to add your own comments if you are so inspired.

Posted by Alan Chamberlain at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)