The Urbanist #522 - April 2013 - Shaping San Jose

LETTER FROM THE POLICY DIRECTOR

0SPUR SPUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chair Anne Halsted Executive Vice Chair David Friedman Vice Ch• lrs Alexa Arena Andy Barnes Emilio Cruz Bill Rosetti Lydia Tan V. Fei Tsen Secretary Mary Mccue Trea: urer Bob Gamble lmmedlc e Pa~t Co-Ch, Ir~ Linda Jo Fitz Advisory Council Co-Chairs Michael Alexander Paul Sedway

Board Members Carl Anthony Veronica Bell Chris Block Larry Burnett Michaela Cassidy Madeline Chun Charmaine Curtis Dz Erickson Manny Flores Geoff Gibbs Gillian Gillett Chris Gruwell Ed Harrington Dave Hartley Garrett Herbert Aidan Hughes Chris Iglesias Laurie Johnson Ken Kirkey V.J. Kumar Susan Leal Dick Lonergan John Madden Janine Mccaffery Jacinta Mccann Hyrdra Mendoza Ezra Mersey Terry Micheau Mary Murphy

Jeanne Myerson Adhi NagraJ Brad Paul Rich Peterson Chris Poland Teresa Rea Byron Rhett Rebecca Rhine Wade Rose Paul Sedway Victor Seeto Elizabeth Selfel Carl Shannon Chl-Hsin Shao Doug Shoemaker Ontario Smith Bill Stotler Stuart Sunshine Michael Teitz Mike Theriault James Tracy Will Travis Molly Turner Jeff Tumlin Steve Vettel Francesca Vietor Fran Weld Allison Wi iiiams Cynthia Wilusz Lovell Cindy Wu

CHAIRS I COMMITTEES Progr1m CommlttHs B llot An, ly. 1s Bob Gamble Dl~aster Planning Laurie Johnson Chris Poland

Housing Ezra Mersey Lydia Tan Prt ct Revh w Charmaine Curtis Mary Beth Sanders Reuben Schwartz Tran!.portatlon Anthony Bruzzone Water Polley Bry Sa rte

Regional Planning Larry Burnett Libby Seifel Oper1tlng CommlttHs Audit John Madden Building Management Larry Burnett Bu'. iness M .mbershlp Tom Hart Terry Micheau Executive David Friedman Anne Halsted

Flnan:e Bob Gamble Human Re~ources Mary Mccue Individual Member~hlp

Bill Stotler Investment Ann Lazarus M, jor Donors Linda Jo Fitz Anne Halsted Planned Giving Michaela Cassidy Sliver SPUR Dave Hartley Teresa Rea

SAN JOSE ADVISORY BOARD Teresa Alvarado Andy Barnes Chris Block J. Richard Braugh Larry Burnett Brian Darrow Gordon Feller

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Karla Rodriguez Lomax James MacGregor Connie Martinez Anu Natarajan Dr. Mohammad Qayoumi

Robert Steinberg, FAIA Lydia Tan Kim Walesh Jessica Zenk

Going (Back) Downtown My grandmother used to tell stories about taking the train to downtown San Jose in the early decades of the 20th century. She and her family would leave their farm near Niles and hop on the Southern Pacific train at the Centerville station (in what is now Fremont) and ride south to the downtown San Jose station at 4th and Santa Clara (now the edge of City Hall plaza). From there, they would walk to shops or ride the streetcars north or south to surrounding towns.

For my grandmother's family, downtown San Jose was the urban Egon Terplan is center for the agricultural South Bay. It had the west coast 's first electric SPUR's Regional streetcars in 1888 and department stores dating back to the 1860s. It was the commercial, historic and social heart of Santa Clara County.

Planning Director San Jose's downtown was long the undisputed center of activity for the city and the broader South Bay. But its role changed profoundly with the rapid rise of Silicon Valley in the decades after World War II. It is a common story that many U.S. downtowns experienced a rise from about 1850 to 1950. And it is equally known that many downtowns suffered from urban renewal, suburban competition and the consequences of the automobile post-1950.

While San Jose's downtown suffered much of the same fate, there are a few parts of the story that differ from most other downtowns. First, the downtown was essentially surrounded and swallowed up by the boom of Silicon Valley as farmland was transformed into industrial parks and suburbs. Second, downtown San Jose has long been in competition with other parts of its own city and in the fifties , experienced a triple whammy, losing its City Hall, county offices and daily newspaper - and their employees - to sites elsewhere in the city all in the span of just a few years. No other major U.S. city experienced such a specific exodus of these nearly essential downtown functions.Third, downtown San Jose established the state's largest and most powerful redevelopment agency, which led the downtown revitalization efforts from the 1950s until the agency was dissolved in 2012. The agency's decisions shaped much of the physical container of downtown - its streets, parks, buildings, transit - fhat we see today.

As SPUR continues its second year of work in San Jose, we are taking a closer look at the downtown and present in this issue some of our initial thoughts about the history and shapers of downtown San Jose, from major investments in highways to the interventions of redevelopment. Over the next year, we will produce a larger policy report on the future of downtown San Jose in which we will lay out SPUR's long-term agenda for downtown.

In a series of articles and reports on downtown San Francisco between 2007 and 2009, we explored the emerging conflict between a vision for downtown as a central business district of jobs and a central social district focused more on housing and entertainment.

The central business district and central social district visions are relevant to downtown San Jose but the strategic questions now revolve around what will replace redevelopment as the primary force for downtown revitalization. The question remains as to what will best fill downtown streets and buildings with people, investment and activity.

We are not going to return to the downtown my grandmother's family enjoyed in the 1920s but we do see that more people and businesses are choosing to go to downtown again as they have in the past. We believe strongly in grounding our ideas for downtown's next chapter in the lessons learned from the past. • Cover photo by Aya Brackett. The Urbanist is edited by Allison Arieff and designed by Shawn Hazen, hazencreative.com.

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News at

SPUR SPUR and Mayor Ed Lee honored the winners of the 32nd Annual Good Government Awards at a special event at City Hall in March.

Transportation 2030 Task Force to Define a New Future for Muni Mayor Ed Lee announced in his state of the city address that Muni would be one of the city's major focuses for 2013 and 2014. To that end, the mayor appointed SPUR executive director Gabriel Metcalf and deputy city controller Monique Zmuda to co-chair a task force charged with building a com moll understanding of the challenges Muni faces and to bring back a set of proposals to the mayor and Board of Supervisors by the end of the year. We will focus on the key investments necessary to allow MUNI to carry more riders more quickly on the core lines and to keep the system in a state of good repair. We will also try to make real progress on Caltrain, BART, the bike network and pedestrian safety.

We believe this is a good opportunity to take a step forward on the city's transportation system.

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San Jose lncentivizes HighRise Building Downtown The San Jose City Council voted to extend an incentive program to encourage high-rise residential building in the downtown by reducing the construction fees by 50 percent. Two new high-rise towers are expected to break ground in 2013, with additional towers in the pipeline. SPUR supported this extension and the city's efforts to increase density in the urban core.

SPUR's Laura Tam Laura Recognized as one of San Francisco's "Women Making History" Every March, the mayor, Board of Supervisors and Commission on the Status of Women celebrate Women's History Month by honoring women who've made a difference in San Francisco.

This year, under the theme of women in science, technology and engineering, Laura Tam,

SPUR's sustainable development policy director, was selected by Supervisor Katy Tang (and her predecessor, Carmen Chu) for her work on sustainable development and greening the city.

Mayoral Task Force Convened to Reform Housing Authority SPUR will be participating in a working group organized by Mayor Ed Lee to re-envision the San Francisco Housing Authority.

The city administrator, Naomi Kelly, and the director of the Mayor's Office of Housing, Olson Lee, are leading this effort. Smaller subcommittees will address public housing operations, the Section 8 program, governance, Hope SF & HOPE VI, social service integration and tenant leadership development. The group will submit recommendations to the mayor by July 1, 2013. •

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SAN JOSE Summary: Facing competition

Shaping Downtown San Jose

from a decentralized Silicon Valley, downtown San Jose was one of the country's largest - and longestrunning - revitalization projects.

Bringing downtown to life is the impetus for the city's next chapter.

The Quest to Establish an Urban Center for Silicon Valley

By Egon Terplan

In the early 1950s; downtown San Jose was the cultural, civic, shopping and economic hub for thenagricultural Santa Clara County. As the heart of this rich valley, downtown San Jose remained prominent from its dusty beginnings as the first civilian town in California in 1777 to its selection as California's first state capital in 1850 to the place where IBM first developed the technology for computer disks in the early 1950s.

But as technology firms began to grow around the epicenter of Stanford University, the role of downtown, and the rest of San Jose, would soon be radically transformed . As the new businesses to the north coalesced into what would later be known as Silicon Valley, San Jose grew through aggressive annexation and development, doubling in population in 10 years, then more than doubling again in the next 10. During this period, there was little regard for preserving San Jose's downtown, as large swaths of the area met the fate of the wrecking ball and employers, shops, residents and investment went elsewhere. Freeways, some of which had destroyed downtown neighborhoods, now made it easy to bypass the once-vital retail center for new modern shopping centers, malls and office parks.

San Jose became the quintessential suburb, providing its single-family homes with 300 annual days of sunshine in an environment of relative cultural tolerance and economic prosperity. But by the early 1970s, the problems of unchecked growth and suburbia were already becoming visible, and a counter movement began to try to limit the outward spread of development. Some far-sighted city leaders tried to refocus growth into downtown, and it became official policy to establish downtown San

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Jose as a major center for Silicon Valley.

By this point. however, downtown had lost its central position in the South Bay. To refocus city growth and investment in downtown. San Jose had to fight against the trend toward decentralization that afflicted nearly every major city in the United States. It faced competition from shopping malls, office parks and downtowns up the Peninsula and in suburban areas within its own city. It eventually had to contend with a height limit on buildings due to the airport flight path. It was trying to do something exceedingly difficult in the history of American cities: create a major downtown center, with high volumes of pedestrian activity, within a region that was overwhelmingly low-density and car-dependent.

Starting in the the 1980s, the San Jose Redevelopment Agency - by then the largest Redevelopment Agency in the state - used virtually all of its power and money (nearly $2 billion in public investment alone) to try to make San Jose's downtown match the scale and the amenities of one of the nation's larger cities .

Cities often focus on their downtowns because downtown is one of the few areas over which they believe they have control. As a result. downtowns have long been a place of experimentation. For 35 years, many of the big ideas in U.S. city planning were tried out in San Jose. The downtown San Jose of today bears little resemblance to the one in 1970, just as portions of downtown of 1970 bore little resemblance to the historic core that existed into the mid-1950s.

As SPUR enters its second year of working in San Jose. we decided to take a look back at the forces that have shaped the city's downtown to help inform a

Research assistance by Jason Su.

Right, an aerial view of downtown San Jose in the 1950s with Santa Clara Street shown running to the east past the iconic BofA tower at 1st Street. San Jose State is towards the top right of the image. Much of the existing fabric shown in this image was subsequently redeveloped into new office, housing or retail. Some of the buildings shown are no longer there and the lots remain vacant today.

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larger report we are developing later this year that will sketch out our agenda for downtown San Jose. This article summarizes what we have learned thus far.

Our overarching argument is that downtown San Jose confronted a series of large forces of decentralization and disinvestment that undermined its historic importance within the city, county and region. Without the interventions of a strong redevelopment agency, which was established in 1956, San Jose would have a very different downtown, and potentially one with fewer amenities, jobs, visitors and residents than there are today.

Mistakes were certainly made: Buildings were demolished. Businesses closed. Blocks were left unfinished with vacant lots. And some of the existing downtown culture was pushed aside.

But the intention was always to reestablish downtown as a major center for the South Bay. While downtown San Jose cannot claim to be a traditional central business district (CBD) or job center, it is certainly emerging as a more likely candidate for the South Bay's central social district (CSD), particularly with its array of arts and cultural venues and emerging residential areas in the downtown core.

There are implications that come with that role, which we will explore in our subsequent reports. This article explores the ways San Jose became the downtown it is today through the following themes: ~ ~ ~ ~

~ ~

The suburbs swallow downtown The highway undermines transit City hall leaves and comes back Retail leaves and doesn't return Redevelopment leaves a mixed legacy A new downtown cultural district emerges

The suburbs swallow downtown The starting point for understanding the history of downtown San Jose is examining its role during the first half of the 20th century. Downtown was the business, civic and social center of the agriculturally rich Santa Clara Valley. It w.as the crossroads - the place where Santa Clara Street passed through from east to west and bisected First Street to form a symbolic town center.

A century ago, downtown was bustling. The city had the first electric streetcar system west of the Rockies. St. James Park, created in 1868, was full of lush foliage, including American elms, and elegant fencing surrounded the park. The Bank of Italy (now Bank of America) tower, which was built in 1925 and remains the defining feature of the skyline, rose above the fields of fruit tree blossoms in springtime.

The building housed the bank's first branch (outside 6 APRIL 2013

of San Francisco), a decision made by bank founder A.P. Giannini, who was born in San Jose. The Bank of Italy continued to grow for decades based on its business relationships with agriculture in the Santa Clara Valley, the "Valley of Heart's Delight."

Downtown San Jose was the center of economic and sociaf life in the Santa Clara Valley through World War II, but all of this began to change with the emergence of .Silicon Valley to the north . The City of San Jose soon became the bedroom community for Silicon Valley, rather than its business center. As farmland was converted to subdivisions and office parks, San Jose found itself enveloped by Silicon Valley, its downtown becoming just one node in a series of historic walkable town centers between San Jose and Palo Alto, 16 miles away. Ambitiously modeling the city on Los Angeles, San Jose's progrowth machine was focused on annexation and outward suburban growth, not on downtown .

The city's population ballooned from 95,000 in 1950 to 450,000 in 1970, and what was once a 17-square-mile city mushroomed to 136 square miles.

As the city grew, the notion of what comprised downtown San Jose expanded to the point where the "city center" was so large that growth within that space undermined the actual historic center. The 1965 master plan defined an area of "Central San Jose" that was 16.7 square miles, including Naglee Park, Willow Glen, the Rose Garden District and the area around the city and county buildings at First and Hedding streets.

Through the 1960s, city leaders continued. to pursue an outward growth agenda, but there was a growing awareness of the negative impacts of horizontal growth. Pro-growth City Manager Dutch Hamann retired in 1969, and in 1970 the city council adopted an urban development policy that promoted infill rather than outward growth . The City of San Jose established an urban growth boundary in the 1970s and then began a long process of focusing city growth in areas with existing infrastructure, including downtown. The conditions were then set in place for significant development and revitalization of the downtown.

But making that revitalization a reality has been more difficult. In addition to the competition between city and suburb that every city in the United.States faces, San Jose has suburbs within its own borders that compete for attention and investment. Due to an overall desire to grow the job base, the city has continued to plan and support growth throughout the city, an approach that undermines the centrality of downtown San Jose. Even the current "Envision San Jose 2040" general plan, a far-reaching and strong

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statement for achieving density, reductions in driving and a more urban form, only assumes that 10 percent of future job and 8 percent of population growth will occur within the downtown. Most job and housing growth is projected to take place in outlying areas, including nearly 70 "urban villages." The suburbs that swallowed downtown remain its competition.

The highway undermines transit

In the late 19th century, San Jose had the first electric streetcar system west of the Rockies. The contemporary version - a light rail system - was i! 'tegrated as part of a complete redesign of 1st and 2nd Streets.

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San Jose debuted its electric streetcar system in 1888, replacing the horse-drawn carts that had been the dominant mode since 1868. When this system was complete (the first such system west of the Rockies), electric trolleys ran up and down First Street, San Carlos (then Stevens Boulevard) and Santa Clara Street. Riders from downtown could reach Palo Alto to the north and Los Gatos to the south.

In 1934, the city moved its rail tracks from Fourth Street to the west end of downtown, where it built Cahill Station . The goal was to get the tracks - and the passenger and freight trains - out of downtown, where they ran directly along city streets. But the result was to put the city 's train station beyond the western edge of the downtown core. When Highway 87 was later built between Cahill (later renamed Diridon) Station and the downtown core, this left the city's train station a half mile to a mile away from most downtown destinations.

In 1938, the city ceased operating the streetcars.

Instead, 14 "modern buses would purr up to the curb to take on passengers" as the papers of the day noted . Reflecting the sentiment at that time, newspapers argued that the streetcars were the victim of the automobiles " that finally choked them out of existence." Accommodating the car was seen as simply inevitable and meant that modern cities would cast aside old traditions to make space for the car. For a city about which the San Jose Mercury News had written in a 1938 headline, "Transit History Made Here," the shift to automobile travel was a major transformation .

In the 1960s, San Jose converted two-way neighborhood streets in and around downtown into pairs of high-capacity one-way streets to deal with the heavy traffic as people drove from south San Jose to North San Jose through downtown and adjacent neighborhoods. These conversions were intended to protect the downtown from being overrun with traffic, but in practice this allowed car travelers to pass through - and around - the downtown more quickly, thus degrading the quality of the street for non-drivers.

But it was really the freeway and expressway projects that transformed the South Bay and

changed downtown mobility. The Santa Clara County Expressway System was first financed by a $70 million bond election in 1961. Interstate 280 (originally approved in 1955) began construction during the 1960s and was completed in the 1970s.

Where it passed downtown to the south, it had a series of extensive off-ramps whose construction led to the destruction of hundreds of homes and businesses in the downtown area. This cleared area eventually became the right of way for Highway 87, connecting south San Jose with the north.

Throughout this time, the county was attempting to grow a transit system. In 1973, Santa Clara County Transit District consolidated its various bus systems (including San Jose City Lines and Palo Alto/Peninsula Transit) under one umbrella and began planning for major investment in light rail. A "Rapid Transit Development Project, Phase I (RTDP)" study began in 1971 and was approved by the voters in 1976 as part of the first Measure A half-cent cent sales tax for transit in the state. Every four years between 1976 and 1992, voters continued to approve updates to this master plan, demonstrating their interest in a multi-modal transportation system that combined different types of rail with bus, bicycle and pedestrian planning.

But the emphasis on freeways undermined this emerging transit vision. By approving sales tax Measure A in 1984, Santa Clara County became the first "self-help" county in the state. The initial impetus for the sales tax measure was to upgrade Route 237 (the east-west route at the northern edge of San Jose) from a four-lane highway with traffic signals to a grade-separated freeway. When the full sales tax funding measure was put together, it also included upgrades to other state highways, including adding lanes to Highway 101 and extending Highway 85 from Cupertino south east to Highway 101, a road that had been drawn on Caltrans' highway fantasy maps since the 1960s.

While the combination of projects secured support from voters in the entire county, the highway investments made it even easier to bypass downtown and thus undermined attempts to remake downtown as a central district, as well as a parallel set of goals for successful light rail ridership.

When light rail opened in 1987, it connected Santa Clara and San Jose, much as the streetcar system had 100 years before (it connected to downtown in June of 1988). Further, the Transit Mall on First and Second streets turned out to be highly successful from an urban design perspective (a position that is not shared by all). But from a transit perspective, the trains moved too slowly, limiting potential ridership. Since San Jose's job center is North San

Light rail photo by Aya Brackett. 1908 streetcar photo from the Charles McCaleb Collection. cou rtesy History San Jose Collection: Charles Mccaleb Collection

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In 1958, City Hall abandoned downtown and its 1888 architectural gem of a building - to move to this new modernist greenfield several miles to the north.

Jose, not downtown, would-be commuters from south San Jose have to crawl through downtown en route to jobs in the north. As a result of both the slow speed and the limited number of downtown jobs, the rail system only serves a tiny fraction of work trips and remains among the least productive rail systems nationwide. The initial projections of 40,000 daily riders by 1990 were cut in half prior to the opening of the first line, mostly due to the investment in freeways . Actual ridership reached 20,000 in 1993 and in recent years has ranged from 32,000 to 34,000 daily. At about 750 passengers per mile, the 42-mile light rail system in Santa Clara County carries far fewer people than comparable rail systems. Denver's 35-mile system carries nearly 1,900 per mile. San Diego's 53-mile system carries over 1,700. Sacramento's 37-mile system carries over 1,300 per mile.

Additional local decisions further harmed potential light rail ridership. For example, the redevelopment agency helped fund the extension of Highway 87 north of downtown as part of a goal to get more cars out of downtown . But like the one-way streets, the expanded highway made it easier to drive around , not through, downtown.

Local voters have continued to be generous in their support for transportation, with transit (light rail expansion and eventually BART) as the primary beneficiaries. The political leadership has also 8

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shown significant support for expanding transit, particularly with the investments to build a light rail system with downtown San Jose at its center. Yet the numerous freeways paid for and built by the county prior to completing the transit system have made automobile travel the intractably preeminent mode of transportation.

Downtowns in U.S. cities work because they can aggregate large numbers of people in one place and they can provide a high -amenity pedestrian environment for people once they are there. Almost by definition, then, that means that downtowns need to be able to get lots of people in without a car. If everyone drives, then the cars take up so much space on the streets that the pedestrian environment is no longer pleasant, and parking those cars takes up so much space in the buildings that the potential density of people goes down. This points to the challenge that downtown San Jose has to overcome in trying to create a central place for people within a region that is very reliant on cars.

City hall leaves and comes back In 1958, San Jose moved its city hall out of downtown to a newly built office park and civic center on North First Street, nearly 2 miles to the north. The form of the new city hall area was emblematic of the era: The new public buildings were on a superblock surrounded by low-rise buildings THE URBANIST

In 2005, City Hall returned to downtown in the form of an austere building by influential architect Richard Meier.

and new landscaping (a midrise modern building was added in 1976). The city then demolished the former city hall, a historic structure that had stood in the center of Cesar Chavez Park since 1887. It would be nearly half a century before city hall returned downtown, in 2005.

The county offices followed city hall out of downtown, as did the daily paper, the Mercury News.

This exodus removed hundreds of public sector and newspaper workers from downtown. Such jobs are typically a core part of the critical mass of employees in a downtown and provide a solid base of shoppers at downtown stores. Some speculated that the city's decision to move to an area where it could co-locate with county staff reflected the ambitions of the growth machine - and the desire of some for San Jose to merge with the county.

The challenge of keeping jobs downtown was not unique to San Jose. After the 1950s, nearly all downtowns throughout the United States struggled to maintain their share of jobs. What makes San Jose distinct is that its own city hall left. That, in combination with the fact that San Jose never maintained a significant share of jobs in either the public sector or in business services, traditionally the hallmarks of downtown employment, meant that downtown San Jose could not establish itself as a traditional central business district (CBD).

In contrast to the popular narrative that technology THE URBANIST

firms have always preferred corporate campus settings, some of the earliest technology employers were, in fact, once in downtown San Jose. IBM established its first San Jose manufacturing facility at 16th and St. John (east downtown) in 1943 and its first West Coast research and development facility at 99 Notre Dame (just north of the recent residential development The Axis) in 1952. It was here that IBM developed the initial technology for computer disks.

But in 1957 IBM moved out to a 190-acre site on Cottle Road in south San Jose.

Recent decades have seen major attempts to make downtown an attractive site for corporate headquarters. In the early 1980s, the redevelopment agency (RDA) negotiated with Steve Jobs to bring Apple to downtown. The RDA was willing to give land and build parking for Apple, but Jobs allegedly wanted the RDA to build the whole office building, a subsidy that was too much of an investment for the RDA. Office development began to grow again in the mid-1980s, with space for traditional business services jobs such as accounting, legal and consulting. Many of these businesses went to new class-A buildings along Santa Clara Street or Almaden Boulevard, a wide street that is part urban downtown, part corporate office park. San Jose's downtown captured several million square feet of new class-A office space, but this remained

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a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions of square feet built in office parks and corporate campuses throughout Silicon Valley.

An ongoing challenge throughout these years was direct competition from the corporate campuses which were surrounded by seas of free parking and which many employers preferred . Downtown sought to compete on suburban terms by building significant parking , but it was not successful.

A second overarching challenge for downtown has been its limited leasable area within the allowable building envelope. The airport flight path limits a building 's height, the high water table limits underground parking, and the high parking expectation (three per thousand square feet) requires significant space for car storage. A typical office building might have three levels of parking below ground, a lobby and retail on the ground floor, fi ve floors of parking above and then eleven floors of office. This sample 17-story building has eight total floors of parking.

This is not to say that San Jose has not been highly attractive to technology companies, including Cisco, Brocade and eBay. However, these companies have been locating in North San Jose rather than downtown . Adobe, which arrived in downtown in 1996, is a notable exception - one that required $35 million in subsidies from the redevelopment agency.

Despite criticism of such subsidies - and the insular design of the headquarters - Adobe did repay the RDA $11.3 million (per their agreement).

In recent years. thanks to inexpensive space and historic buildings, downtown has begun to attract startups like Pinger and co-working facilities like NextSpace, which cater to entrepreneurs and small firms . Downtown now boasts more than 80 technology companies. Since the return of city hall in 2005, the story of downtown as a job center is far from over.

Retail leaves and doesn't come back

1

"Catalyst for Change - A History of Civic Plazas in

San Jose," Dolores Mellon, 2006, Redevelopment Agency of the City of San Jose 2

Macy's attempted to buy locally-owned Hart's De-

partment Store. But at the time, the family owners of Hart's determined that thei r store was too profitable and the land too valuable to sell. Hart's lasted 102 years and closed for good in 1968.

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Like many historic downtowns in the United States, downtown San Jose was the city's primary shopping district through World War II. Saturdays were the busiest, when farmers and visitors from outside the area came to do their shopping. First Street was the principal commercial street, starting with J.C. Penney at Santa Clara and heading south to include Blum 's, Woolworth's, Hale Brothers, Goldeen's and Sears, Roebuck and Co. south of San Carlos . Another major retail destination was Hart's, a large, locally owned department store at Santa Clara and Market, which wasfoundedin1866 .

Downtown retail began to decline in the 1950s.

Most significantly, the city council reversed its policy of opposing large-scale retail development outside of downtown , which allowed for the development of Valley Fair a few miles west of downtown in 1956.1 The anchor tenant for Valley Fair was Macy's, which had first opened in the Bay Area in 1947 and almost opened in downtown San Jose shortly thereafter. 2 In the 1950s and 1960s, shopping centers began opening everywhere but downtown . Places like Town and Country, Eastridge and Vallco Fashion Park were established as major regional centers, while ever y new neighborhood had cheap orchard land that was converted into a small shopping center with a supermarket and a dozen or more stores.

Over the course of about 15 years starting in 1956, retailers led an exodus from which downtown has never recovered. All of the major department stores closed (Hart 's in 1968 after 102 years in business. J.C. Penney in 1972) or moved to one of the new malls .

The retailers that remained were primarily furniture and jewelry stores. Many of those who continued to shop in downtown had far less discretionary income than those who frequented the surrounding suburban areas.

For years, the city actively tried to bring major retail players back. Yet the owners of the very same shopping malls that had helped undermine downtown shopping were the ones who fought the percei ved new competition when the redevelopment agency sought to bring downtown retail back .

Two examples illustrate the different challenges of bringing back retail. First is the construction of the Pavilion shopping and entertainment center in 1989, the most notable attempt to inject life into downtown shopping. The RDA put up $10 million of the $30 million cost to construct the building . Although the Pavilion aimed to be a high-end shopping center (the lease with the developers called for a mi x of tenants that "shall equal or exceed " the quality of stores at Stanford Shopping Center and other upscale malls). it attracted few shoppers. had the wrong mi x of tenants and lacked the planned-for anchors at its north and south ends. The developer subsequentl y abandoned the project. In addition to the mall 's design fla ws. downtown simply had too few workers. tourists or high-income shoppers to make the Pavilion a success .

By the late 1990s, the interior of the 27,500-squarefoot center had found new life as a server farm , with city officials eager to capitalize on the fiber-optic line running directly under the building.

Second , in the late 1990s, the city and the RDA began working with Palladium Company, a New York developer, to master plan four key downtown sites (including around St. James Park) with 2.7

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Even into the late 1950s and 60s, downtown remained the largest shopping district in the county. The scene on South 1st Street is shown at right.

million square feet of office, retail and housing. This billion-dollar deal fell through in early 2002 when the developer pulled out. While the failure was blamed on the still-sluggish economy, the developer's decision was also affected by the development of Santana Row, a high-end shopping center that recreates an urban shopping experience with sidewalk cafes and a "park once" strategy. Located across the street from the Valley Fair Mall (4 miles east of downtown), Santana Row was successful in attracting the high-end national and international retailers that city officials had long targeted for downtown. While Santana Row directly hurt downtown retail efforts, its success also proves that there is a strong desire for a retail experience that replicates a mixed-use street environment in Santa Clara County.

Today, downtown retail is showing signs of rebirth.

Merchants like Philz Coffee on Paseo de San Antonio demonstrate how one popular business can reshape an entire block. Trendy Japanese retailer Muji plans to open its first U.S. store outside of New York City and San Francisco in the Fairmont Hotel. San Pedro Square Market is a wonderful - and thriving food-oriented redevelopment of a historic building.

But while it is unlikely that downtown San Jose will become a major retail destination, it is possible that as residents and jobs grow incrementally, the retail (including restaurants) to support those people will follow.

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Redevelopment tries everything but leaves a mixed legacy In 1981, San Jose's redevelopment agency became the first in the state to successfully receive an exemption in state law to merge all the tax revenues from its three redevelopment areas: downtown, North San Jose (Rincon de los Esteros) and Edenvale (an industrial area to the south). This move provided the financial backing for the nearly $2 billion total investment in downtown revitalization efforts from the 1980s until the redevelopment agency's closure in 2012.

The strategy seemed brilliant. Under redevelopment law, the RDA was allowed to take the "increment" in property tax growth and use that revenue stream as a backing to sell bonds to build infrastructure or make other key investments to support revitalization. Since North San Jose and Edenvale were primarily industrial business parks, the infrastructure needs were minimal. And because they were largely undeveloped before becoming redevelopment areas, the property tax take of the RDA was very high. This allowed the RDA to take the property tax revenues from these other areas and invest them in downtown.

The irony here is that investment downtown was enabled by opening up growth in places away from downtown, which inadvertently harmed downtown's ability to capture a big share of the city 's overall jobs and other activities like retail or housing.

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Downtown San Jose Downtown San Jose today is about a square mile that extends from Diridon Station in the west to the "new" City Hall in the east and from Interstate 280 in the south to approximately Julian Street in the north.

After decades of investment, much of the basic infrastructure of streets, transit, open space and cultural facilities is in place. There remains significant opportunity to add additional development and people. Whether the new buildings and population reinforce downtown as a central social district (i.e. entertainment and residents) or a central business district (i.e. jobs) is a major question for downtown's future.

• • • • =parks and dedicated open space -

•-

• =definition of boundary of downtown in Envision 2040 Plan.

---

=Current route of VTA's 522 Rapid bus and future Alum Rock I El Camino Bus Rapid Transit

- - - =Current VTA light rail =Proposed BART to downtown San Jose =Caltrain alignment and Diridon station =Proposed high speed rail alignment and station

Thus far we have described San Jose's efforts to lure jobs and retail to downtown. Housing has been a different challenge, and one that was not pursued as early on. Unlike other U.S. cities, San Jose's downtown had no adjacent high-density neighborhoods with thousands of nearby residents to come spend money downtown. Until 1957, only 10 percent of annual construction in the city was multifamily housing. Then, in the 1950s and 1960s, the construction of freeways and urban renewal destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses throughout downtown. By 1990, there were few residents in the immediate downtown and a limited number in surrounding neighborhoods.

There was an opportunity - and a need - to build residences in and around downtown as a way to support RDA goals of revitalizing retail. But there was limited market support for downtown residential development. In 1980, the new head of the redevelopment agency, Frank Taylor, sent out a brochure to try to interest developers in building housing around St. James Park. In his previous job in Cincinnati, such an offer would have garnered response from 10 to 15 developers competing for the opportunity to build; in San Jose there was not a single response to the request.

Given that initial failure, there were concerns about the strength of the downtown residential market. The first major downtown residential project in the 1980s was the construction of town homes along Third and Fourth streets next to San Jose State. This was an historic area that had been torn down in the 1960s to make way for new development. Although the RDA claimed it initially wanted to do high-rise housing, the market would only support town homes, given that this was the first major market-rate housing in many years . The area was thus built out at moderate densities, taking up a major portion of the available land area in downtown.

In the 2000s, developers turned their attention to making downtown San Jose a place for highrise residential development. The timing was bad, however, with the first major projects (Axis, The 88, 360 Residences) opening just before the market collapse in 2009-2010. While not yet providing enough of a critical mass of residents to transform downtown into an urban neighborhood, they do create a sense of possibility for future high-quality urban apartment living.

Downtown San Jose continues to struggle with a classic dilemma: There are not enough dining and retail amenities to support a high demand for residential development, and there are not enough residents to support restaurants and shops. There

APRIL 2013

13

SAN JOSE

is no easy solution to this catch-22, but over time cit ies like Los Angeles and San Diego have been able to move past it by adding people and amenities wherever possible, until a critical mass is achieved in their downtowns.

The biggest physical legacy of the RDA may be its investments in streets, plazas, and open spaces.

The RDA built Cesar Chavez Park with its tree-lined pathways, established the pedestrian-oriented Paseo de San Antonio and partially restored the diagonal paths in St. James Park. And when the Army Corps of Engineers wanted to turn the Guadalupe River into a wholly concrete flood channel , the RDA got them to abandon the plan and instead developed the Guadalupe River Park.

Today, San Jose residents are divided about the RDA's legacy. The agency is criticized for pushing out existing businesses in order to deliver a blank slate to new investors. It is also criticized for oversubsidizing private development, which some say drove up land prices to the point that development was not financially viable without RDA subsidies . Still others argue that the RDA's approach was too formulaic pursuing the same stale ideas of convention center plus international brand hotel , downtown shopping pavilion, sports arena and movie theater complex that are popular in other cities - and was not creative or inventive enough in imagining a unique role for San Jose's downtown . Finally, others point out that just as downtown was struggling during the dot-com bust in 2002, the RDA began shifting investments out of downtown as part of the " Strong Neighborhoods Initiative." While the approach may have spread redevelopment funds to more of San Jose, it did not generate much new ta x increment for the agency and further sucked energy and attention away from the downtown . Despite these criticisms, which could apply to much of the culture of redevelopment in the United States, it is undeniable that the San Jose Redevelopment Agency used its unprecedented power and money to try to build downtown San Jose into an important place, and future efforts will build on the legacy of those prior investments.

A new downtown cultural district emerges Of all the efforts at revitalization, San Jose's focus on downtown as a destination for visitors is among its great successes. This involved two key ingredients: establishing a critical mass of international brandname and historic hotels to support conventions and building or rehabilitating anchor cultural venues such as museums.

In the early 1980s, when the Holiday Inn was the only brand-name hotel downtown , the RDA made an

14 A PR IL 2013

effort to attract the Fairmont Hotel to the center of downtown adjacent to Cesar Chavez Park. In 1989, the not fully complete Fairmont hosted the state American Planning Association conference, and from the unfinished penthouse of the hotel, local and visiting planners felt as if they were on the cusp of the long-awaited revitalization .

To a certain extent they were: The office tower at 50 West San Fernando was then under construction, and within a few years, the RDA would invest in the historic St. Claire and help save the Hotel De Anza (a former convent built in the 1920s) on Santa Clara Street. They supported the Marriott and the Hyatt adjacent to the convention center. When the Fairmont wanted to expand, the RDA even moved the historic Montgomery Hotel 187 feet south (at a cost of $8.6 million) to make way for the new tower. The price tag for achieving the concentration of hotels was high: The Fairmont alone received $38 million in subsidies in its first 10 years.

But while San Jose was able to attract a concentration of hotels in the core of downtown, the city upheld a moratorium on new hotels outside of downtown throughout the 1980s. This attempt to control suppl y during the fast-growing 1980s meant that hotels opened in adjacent cities throughout the county rather than San Jose.

The concentration of hotels was necessary to support the convention center, which the RDA believed should be downtown and the RDA used its powers to acquire land and help finance the upgrading of the aging facility. In 1989, the agency completed the McEnery Convention Center.

In addition to hotels, downtown successfully attracted key cultural destinations . The Children's Discovery Museum, which opened in 1990, was Mexican architect Ricardo Legoretta's first project in the United States. The San Jose Museum of Art added a new wing in 1991 , and the Tech Museum of Innovation opened in 1998. The Cal ifornia Theatre reopened after a major rehab in 2004 (it had been purchased by the RDA in 1985). These, in combination with the Repertory Theatre and the 1934 Civic Auditorium, give downtown a strong presence in music, theater and art. In the 1980s, the City began providing grants through its hotel ta x to help build the capacity of local cultural organizations.

In sports, the HP Pavilion (the Arena) brings thousands to downtown who would not necessarily visit one of the other institutions. The Arena is significant on several levels: Spatially, it is west of Highway 87 and so is the first modern expression of downtown's extension toward the Diridon Station area. It also fills the existing downtown streets and restaurants on

The popular Friday farmers' market at San Pedro Square has helped bring a lot more people downtown. Photo by Aya Brackett.

3

See: www.spur.org/publications/library/article/

framingthefutureofdowntownsf03012007

THE URBANIST

game nights, being . designed intentionally to rely on parking east of 87 to encourage patronage of downtown restaurants and bars. For those not accustomed to downtown on a daily basis, coming on a game night makes downtown look and feel like a lively and exciting destination. The many visitors also help fill the excess parking in the many downtown garages.

In the past. nightlife had been a competitive strength for downtown , though some of its successes did not appeal to everyone. Downtown San Jose was a major center for live music in the 1970s and 1980s and for nightclubs in the 1990s. In recent years, there has been greater emphasis on encouraging smaller live music venues and diversifying the after-hours options provided for residents and visitors. Except on sports nights, there is much less downtown nightlife than there once was. Some of these larger-scale nightclubs were pushed out by market conditions; others were pushed out when the RDA tore out buildings expecting higher and better uses, and some nightclubs were closed down by the police.

In recent years there has been renewed growth in downtown nightlife and live music. There is opportunity to build on this, particularly due to the presence of San Jose State University and the role of students in helping anchor live music districts like Sixth Street in Austin, Texas. But while SJSU is downtown 's single largest anchor and activity center, it has never become enough of a source of identity for the downtown. This is due in part to it being largely a commuter school without a student neighborhood.

Were some of the campus parking garages replaced with student housing , the campus would be livelier and downtown would benefit from the spillover.

Today, there are signs of a more organic resurgence of urban life in downtown. lstACT Silicon Valley and the San Jose Downtown Association have long promoted the SoFA (South of First Area) district as a center for arts. San Jose Jazz and local music promoters are reprogramming multiple downtown venues for live music. The most recent pieces of civic infrastructure are the 2003 Martin Luther King Library and Richard Meier's city hall , which opened in 2005. While city hall was a long overdue statement from the city, the library project is arguably more significant in the attempt to reshape downtown as a social district. By being a literal connection between the downtown and the university (one can enter from the street or from the center of SJSU), the library is also an important resource for the growing yet small downtown residential community.

Cultural attractions, from museums to clubs, have been a real success. They draw both residents and tourists, and they draw people to downtown for THE URBANIST

reasons other than work. This is an area of strength for the city to build on .

Looking ahead Over three decades, planners and decision makers in San Jose worked against the broader tide of suburbanization and decentralization, trying every downtown-revitalization strategy in the planning profession's toolbox.

Planners sometimes speak about the contrast between central business districts and central social districts. 3 Traditional central business districts are primarily places of work while central social districts bring people together for living, recreating, shopping and cultural attractions. The reality is that downtowns are rarely only one or the other. Most downtowns have combinations of uses and serve a variety of purposes. Downtown San Jose has the potential to attract more jobs, more retail, more students, more visitors and more housing . Planners may not be able to control the ultimate mix . It will not likely become a traditional central business district, but downtown San Jose can be a place with many more jobs and should be an important urban node - potentially the central social district and primary urban center - of the South Bay. ¡ As SPUR looks ahead to its work in downtown San Jose, we offer the following lessons from recent history:

Respect what you have and build on it. Too much of downtown's indigenous culture did not receive the support or respect it should have and was therefore lost.

Focus investment in a narrower area so there is a sense of completion. Too much of downtown still suffers from a lack of connectivity, as attractions and subareas feel diffuse and limited in scale.

Limit growth elsewhere. Downtown's potential will always be constrained if other areas of the city remain the focus for most new development particularly jobs.

Downtown today has the basic infrastructure of an urban center, but it lacks sufficient population in the form of jobs, residents or visitors. Bringing the downtown to life remains the major impetus behind the next phase of revitalization.

SPUR is excited to join with so many others who are taking on the daunting but essential challenge of creating a central urban place within a region eager to embrace its urban future. •

APRIL 2013

15

INTRODUCING ...

New SPUR Board Members

Geoff Gibbs

counsel and director of business development for Hughes Space and Communications. Geoff was chief counsel to U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Braun and was responsible for judiciary, telecommunications, labor and military affairs. He was California state director for Clinton for President in 1992. He also served as special counsel to the California State Assembly. In addition, Geoff was the director of global business development for The

Walt Disney Company.

Geoff serves as a commissioner on the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC). He is also a member of the YMCA of the East Bay board of directors.

Geoff holds an M.B.A from the University of California, Los Angeles; a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley; and a B.A. from Harvard University. Geoff was a 1985 Rhodes Scholar.

Ed Harrington was general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) until his retirement in September 2012. The SFPUC provides water to 2.5 million customers in the San Francisco Bay Area, along with sewer

and an operating budget of $800 million and is in the middle of a $4.6 billion rebuild of the water system.

During the 4-1/2 years that Ed was general manager of the SFPUC, he was also the chair of the Water Utility Climate Alliance, composed of 10 large

and stormwater services in San Francisco and hydroelectric and solar power generation for municipal purposes in the city.

The SFPUC has 2,300 employees

water utilities in the United States with 45 million customers and focused on providing leadership and collaboration on climate change issues affecting water

utilities and the customers they serve. From 1991 to 2008, Ed was the controller for the City and County of San Francisco, managing the City's budget, payroll, accounting and auditing programs. As controller, he started the City Services Auditor function, which provides audit, performance management and strategic planning services to city departments.

Of Counsel, Hanson Bridgett Geoff Gibbs' years as a big-firm attorney, in-house counsel, government lawyer and business development executive have equipped him with a broad array of tools to solve clients' complex legal problems.

Before joining Hanson Bridgett, Geoff started his career as an associate at O'Melveny & Myers in their Los Angeles office.

He then served as in-house

Ed Harrington

16 APRIL 2013

THE URBANIST

I I

Vijay Kumar Vice President and Bay Area Manager, CH2MHILL

Vijay Kumar focuses on promoting the sustainable growth of communities using innovative and creative solutions to the transportation and utility needs of the communities. Currently, Vijay is vice president and Bay Area manager of CH2HILL, an employee-owned global engineering and project delivery company with 30,000 people. For the

Susan Leal Chief Strategy Officer and Senior Vice President for Water, North America, AECOM

Susan Leal is chief strategy officer and senior vice president for water, North America at AECOM. She is a water utility expert and author specializing in identifying realistic and creative solutions to the water-related challenges.

Susan recently concluded two years as a senior fellow of the Advanced Leadership Initiative at

Hydra Mendoza Education and Family Services Advisor to Mayor Edwin Lee Commissioner, San Francisco Board of Education

Hydra Mendoza is a strong advocate and supporter of public education. A parent of two children in public schools. a former preschool teacher and an education advisor. Hydra has been a co-chair of her children's school site council (SSC), vice -president of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and THE URBANIST

fourth year in a row, CH2HILL has been named one of the "World's Most Ethical Companies" by the Ethisphere Institute. He was awarded XBG Synergy Award for his outstanding contribution to the company.

Vijay has a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and masters degree in civil/environmental engineering. He is a registered professional engineer in the State of California. He is acting as executive sponsor of the Conges-

tion Management Working Group in San Francisco that is developing traffic congestion relief strategies supported by the Business Council on Climate Change.

Vijay is an active member of the Water Policy Board of SPUR, and he is also active in the Water Committee of the .Bay Area Council. He currently serves as the co-chair of the national board of the City Hall Fellows, an organization that engages diverse, talented young people in the work of cities.

Harvard University. As part of her fellowship, she co-authored Running Out of Water, a proactive book focused on solutions to our looming water crisis. She continues to serve as an associate of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard.

She is a member of the advisory board of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley, where she also received her B.A . and J.D. Ms. Leal also sits on the board of governors

of the Savannah Ocean Exchange and the board of Futures Without Violence.

As former general manager of San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission, Susan led the efforts for a dramatic upgrade of the Bay Area's water system and outdated wastewater system. She previously served two terms as the elected treasurer of the City and County of San Francisco and as a member of the San Francisco Board of Stlpervisors.

an active classroom volunteer. She has served on key policy-changing committees for the San Francisco Unified School District, which includes the Public Education Leadership Project, an innovative joint effort of the Harvard School of Business and Graduate School of Education.

Hydra was the former executive director and a founding member of Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco. a national organization that engages parents and

c~mmunity members to s'lfppor.t, promote and improve public education. In 2005, Hydra was fir.st appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom to his Policy Council on Children, Youth and Families and later as his education advisor and liaison to the San Francisco Unifi~d s路chool District. which was a newly created senior-staff -level position in the Mayor's Office.

Hyd.r:_a continues her work under Mayor Edwin Lee as his education and family services advisor.

APRIL 2013

17

INTRODUCING: NEW SPUR BOARD MEMBERS

Rich Peterson Founder and Principal, Goodyear Peterson Rich is a founder and principal of Goodyear Peterson, LLC, a San Francisco-based public affairs firm that advises an array of international and local clients on important political and communications matters. Prior to Goodyear Peterson, Rich was an active investor in , and manager of, multi-family real estate in the Silicon Valley and remains a licensed real estate broker

Rebecca Rhine Executive Director, Municipal Executives Association

Rebecca Rhine is the executive director of the Municipal Executives Association, a role in which she has helped the organization redefine its mission , vision and core values. She leads the organization in an ongoing dialogue with the mayor, elected officials, the media and the public about public policy and services.

Rebecca has over 20 years

Paul Sedway Paul Sedway has been a member of SPUR and an urban planning consultant for over 50 years.

He has served on its board and Executive Committee, is currently co-chair of its advisory council and was co-chair of its Regional Planning Committee. He serves on the Mayor's Market Street Redesign Advisory Committee and on the Executive Committee of the San Francisco District Council of the Urban Land Institute.

18 APRIL 2013

in the State of California.

Rich has served in important volunteer, oversight and fiduciary roles on behalf of the City of San Francisco. From December 2007 to May 2010, Rich served as an appointed trustee to the San Francisco Employees' Retirement System (SFERS), acting as elected board president in his final year. From January 2004 through October 2007, he served as an appointed commissioner to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency.

Recognized as among the most productive political organizers in the Bay Area, Rich has assisted on behalf of a multitude of candidates and ballot measures over the course of the last eight years. Prior to founding Goodyear Peterson, Rich served as a Finance Committee chair during both of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's mayoral campaigns and was president of Mayor Newsom's Inaugural Committee following his reelection in 2007.

of experience working with both public and private sector labor unions including extensive experience in collective bargaining , organizing, public policy, communications, mediation and arbitration, administration, staff supervision and short and long-range strategic planning.

Prior to her role at the MEA , Rebecca was the assistant national executive director for public policy and strategic planning for the American Federation of Television

and Radio Artists (AFTRA). She also held leadership posts in the Service Employees International Union Local 1000 and the American Federation of Teachers.

Rebecca holds a B.A. in administration of justice and an M.S . in human resources management from San Francisco's Golden Gate University.

Paul was the founder and principal of Sedway Cooke Associates, at one time the largest planningonly consulting firm in the nation.

Locally, the firm undertook the first major planning studies for Hunters Point Shipyard , Chinatown , downtown, Geary Boulevard and environs, and Alcatraz Island, as well as the San Francisco and Bay Region ocean coastline.

Paul served as national vice president of the American Institute of Planners (AIP) and was on

the national board of directors of the American Planning Association (APA). Elected to the inaugural class of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners in 1999, he received the National Distinguished Service Award from APA and was named " Planner of the Year " by its California Chapter.

THE URBANIST

Douglas Shoemaker President, Mercy Housing California

Doug currently serves as president of Mercy Housing California, one of the largest nonprofit housing providers in the state. Mercy develops, manages and provides services to senior, family and supportive housing throughout California .

Prior to Mercy, Doug served as the director of the Mayor's Office of Housing (MOH), San Francisco's housing finance and community

Molly Turner Head of Public Policy, Airbnb Molly joined Airbnb in 2011 as the

first employee on the Public Policy team. As an advocate for the Airbnb community, Molly handles government and legislative affairs for the company, which has a presence in over 33,000 cities worldwide. She has co-founded three coalitions, including the Bay Area Sharing Economy Coalition, the New York Peer Economy Coalition and the National Short

Francesca Vietor Environment Program Officer, San Francisco Foundation Francesca serves as the program

officer for the environment at the San Francisco Foundation . focusing on efforts to improve the environmental health and well-being of vulnerable communities, building community resilience in the face of climate change and protecting the natural environment. Francesca is also a commissioner on the THE URBANIST

development agency. He led various key mayoral initiatives there,

foster youth. He directed the de-

End Homelessness and the launch of the city's effort to address

velopment of housing plans for the Candlestick Point/Hunters Point Shipyard Plan, Treasure Island and the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan.

Prior to joining MOH, Doug served as deputy director of the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California. Doug serves on the b0ard of governors for California Housing Consortium and the Northern California Leadership Council for Enterprise Community

homelessness among emancipated

Partners.

Term Rental Advocacy Center.

She is currently chair of the Policy Committee for the Bay Area Sharing Economy Coalition.

At Airbnb, Molly also man-

partnership was Airbnb's recent Super Storm Sandy relief efforts with the New York City Mayor's

including the launch of HOPE SF, San Francisco's groundbreaking effort to revitalize five distressed public housing sites into mixed income communities.

As senior staff to the mayor.

Doug led a wide range of interagency housing policy work, including the city's Five-Year Plan to

ages research initiatives. such as economic and housing impact studies, as well as various joint

Office.

Prior to Airbnb, Molly worked in San Francisco city government, conducting an analysis of Community Benefit Districts for the

studies with academic institutions.

She manages partnerships with municipal government agencies, nonprofits, local merchants associations and tourism bureaus throughout the world. One such

Office of Economic and Workforce Development. Molly holds an M.A. in urban planning from Harvard University and a B.A . from Dartmouth College.

San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, where she leads policy-making for the City and County of San Francisco's water, wastewater and municipal power services.

Before these roles , Francesca was executive director of the Chez Panisse Foundation. where she advanced nutrition education and food justice issues.

Previously, she was president of the Urban Forest Council, president of the Commission

on the Environment and chair of the Mayor's Environmental Transition Team . She has worked for several nonprofits, including the Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace, and she has served on many boards, including the Center for Environmental Health, Commonweal and the Environmental Working Group.

Francesca holds a Bachelor of Sciences degree from Georgetown University and she pens a blog for The Huffington Post.

APRIL 2013

19

INTRODUCING: NEW SPUR BOARD MEMBERS

Fran Weld

& Rouse in Baltimore. At Struever,

Director of Real Estate, San

Fran led the sustainability and historic preservation departments of the vertically integrated construction and development company. Her projects included the rehabilitation of the Durham Athletic Park, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena and the entitlements of the public-private Southwest Waterfront in Washington , D.C. An active member of the Urban Land Institute, SPUR, the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition, and

Francisco Giants

Fran joined the San Francisco Giants' Mission Rock team in 2011.

A Boston native turned Giants fan, Fran started her career in the American League with the Red Sox's Ballpark Planning and Real Estate Development Group. After a successful bid to rescue Fenway Park and its surrounding neighborhood from the wrecking ball, Fran joined Struever Bros. Eccles

Allison Williams, FAIA Architect

In a career spanning more than 30 years in corporate practice, Allison Williams has designed significant large-scale projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, nationally and internationally. The breadth of her work spans civic, corporate and cultural facilities, places for research and education, and mixed-use and high-density developments.

Allison's studio design leader-

20

APRIL 2013

ship has influenced the work of both Skidmore Owings & Merrill (1980-1997) and Perkins+Will (1997-2012) where, with consistent recognition by her professional peers, she evolved to partnership levels. She has strategically directed design, inspired and mentored teams in hands-on collaboration and emerged as a creative talent.

She was a recipient of the Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design . She received both her Masters of architecture

the SF Bicycle Coalition, Fran is a former member of the boards of Preservation Massachusetts and Friends of Fenway Studios.

She holds a B.S. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an M.B.A. with a concentration in public management from Stanford's Graduate School of Business.

and Bachelor's in the practice of art at the University of California, Berkeley. Williams was elevated to Fellow in the American Institute of Architects in 1997 and served on Perkins+Will's board of directors from 2010-2012. She is a member of the Harvard Design Magazine Practitioners board and past-chair of Public Architecture's board of directors .

THE URBANIST

~MFAC

()SPUR

Thank You Thank you to everyone who joined in support of the 2013 Good Government Awards on Tuesday, March 19, 2013 at San Francisco City Hall's North Light Court.

SPUR would like to thank all winners and nominees for their outstanding leadership!

Visit SPUR's blog to learn about our incredible winners spur.org/blog

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URBAN FIELD NOTES

Case Study #56:

City as Canvas We live in urban environments dominated by blank surfaces. From sidewalks to utility boxes, these surfaces have the potential to evolve from their original functions and become canvases for promoting local artists. In doing so, they can help cultivate community and beautify neighborhoods. San Jose, among other cities, has been utilizing these spaces in partnership with a number of organizations.

The Art Box Project collaborates with community and local artists to transform utility boxes into works of art. The Property Based Improvement District (PBID) sponsored the photo-wrapped utility box

22

APRIL 2013

On the streets of downtown San Jose, even the most ordinary surface can become a work of art.

Caseworker: Cecilia Lavelle

concept and began implementing it downtown in 2011. San Jose's Downtown Foundation has been instrumental in transforming the city's streets: In 2003, it started the Downtown Doors project, a public youth art exhibit and competition involving local high schools. Selected student works were enlarged

Fl Dana and Naglee Streets, in

and installed on blank surfaces of downtown San

Ill Park and Naglee, across from

Jose. Projects like these have demonstrated that underutilized urban surfaces have the ability to capture the personality of a neighborhood, beautify

the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum: Artist Michelle Waters' Egyptianthemed utility box adorns a Rose Garden corner with the Egyptian symbols of life and rebirth.

the surrounding environment and foster a greater sense of community and civic pride.

front of the Rose Garden Library: Artist Lacey Bryant recreates the flowers and bees that grace the nearby Rose Garden.

THE URBANIST

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II Taylor and Seventh, Japantown: Taiko drums and maneki-neko cats. The artist, Yurika Chiba, is a Taiko drummer, and his eyecatching painting brightens up this Japantown corner.

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South First and East San Carlos:

"Elder" by artist Jessica Graef from Pioneer High School.

D

East San Carlos and South First streets: Stone and brick walls

appear to be holding up Original Joe's, the classic Italian restaurant that's graced this corner since 1956.

D

East Santa Clara and Second streets: A mirror image of the

actual Cheesesteak Shop across the street.

E

Meridian and Willow streets:

Perky coffee cups by artist Kristin Abbott, installed at a busy Willow Glen intersection, make you want to partake in an afternoon pick-me-up.

mSouth First and East San Carlos: "Mailbox" by artist Sun Min Park from Leigh High School. •

Ceci Lavelle is an intern for SPUR San Jose.

THE URBANIST

APRIL 2013

23

MEMBER PROFILE

A Passion for Public Space Placemaker Mary Mccue (left) and her

Mary Mccue

favorite book about cities.

What makes a great public space? Few know better than Mary Mccue, who, as President and CEO of MJM Management Group, has been working to create some of the best of them for over 20 years.

How did you first get interested in cities?

I spent my early childhood in Buffalo, New York's second most populous city, and even then was fascinated by how architecture and public spaces danced together. The Olmsted Park and Parkway System touches many parts of the city.

It was created in the late 1800s by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and was the nation 's first system of public parks and parkways . I recognized how this system connected the city's urban fabric and how accessible public places for recreation, cultural events and relaxation built a sense of community. My interest in urban environments intensified after arriving in San Francisco. I was captivated by how the Flood Building's brilliant architecture energized, activated and embraced the streetscape.

I studied how the Embarcadero Center transformed that location and the public participation process that shaped the project.I bring my lifelong passion about and fascination with public spaces to work every day at MJM 24

APRIL 2013

How did you first learn about/get involved with SPUR? I was fortunate to work with gifted people who served as mentors when I began working at Yerba Buena Gardens. People like Helen Sause, the late Red Kernan and Cathy Pickering all pointed me to SPUR for its research and analysis of Yerba Buena and other urban environments, and encouraged me to participate in dialogue that would help improve our public spaces . It's where I met former SPUR Executive Director Jim Chappell and whom I continue to work with today. SPUR connects all sectors involved in designing, managing and activating public spaces - community, city agencies, developers, private property owners and nonprofits - and its work has changed the way we think about urban living.

character, style and culture that must be accounted for in planning, activating, operating and maintaining a site. Public spaces should be accessible to all and celebrate diversity to achieve the greater social good.

Defining community objectives documenting and understanding a community 's unique needs - is critical to a location's long-term success. Everyone must win . You must apply a holistic approach to activate and re-envision public spaces so they are energized , comfortable, clean, safe and sociable. There also must be a long-term operational focus . The architecture must be adaptable to different uses over time.

You must consider preventive maintenance planning; careful yet creative event production management; staff development that stresses a balance between initiative and responsibility; and rigorous training programs to reinforce the need for thoughtful planning, documentation and fiscal practices. Communication, coordination and preparing for future change are essential to long-term success.

You're devoted to making urban public spaces thrive. What are the essential ingredients to make that happen?

Every public space has its own

What are some common mistakes cities make in attempting to activate public space?

Public spaces should have many moods and activities and not be

Management Group (MJMMG).

limited to a narrow range of uses.

They should be designed so that every time someone returns, the experience they're seeking will be positive. That could be a quiet moment or attending a festival. We've been going to civic places for the same reasons for hundreds of years - to enjoy a performance, picnic, play games or read a book. We're doing the same things today with modern twists. We might download a book, rent a game there or purchase food on site.

It's important that cities design spaces with flexible use areas and adapt to changing times to propel a diversity of activities.

What city have you not worked with that you'd be eager to (and why)?

Detroit. It needs and wants public places to underpin its urban wellness and catalyze its ability to heal. Campus Martius Park in downtown was .redesigned and has become an active civic gathering point for residents with gardens, lawns and entertainment. I met a man who was reviving an abandoned factory now surrounded by greenery, who said that creating active public spaces at the site would add considerable value to the community. The community is open to new ideas - people are THE URBANIST

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make a dramatic difference there.

I'm sure this an impossible question, but what is your favorite urban public space?

I truly love all the public spaces I'm involved with. Every time I'm in one of them, it's my favorite place.

Two others stand out. Cazenovia Park, called "Caz" locally, harkens to my roots growing up in Buffalo.

It's nearly 190 acres of natural beauty with something for everyone - swimming, basketball, gardens, events, stone bridges and historic architecture. In Paris, I love how the nearly 56 acres of Luxembourg Gardens are designed and used . There are intimate settings and expansive areas for large gatherings. People of all ages using the park are comfortable and joyful.

Favorite city?

Of course, it's San Francisco.

The community cares. It has a respect for design and public processes. By being involved

in our neighborhoods, we improve our public spaces. For example, Yerba Buena Gardens downtown is a gem because its activities and designs are based on community input. It's why there's the Children's Creativity Museum, extensive play areas, an outdoor amphitheater for youth performances and public events, and a bowling alley and an iceskating rink.

Favorite book (or work of art or film) on cities?

William "Holly " Whyte's City: Rediscovering the Center is a

brilliant study on how people use urban spaces. His film, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, is a study of what causes people to gather in certain public places and not others. Both are witty and wise and inform us of people's behaviors, which we can incorporate into urban design. •

SITELAB urban studio Cubic Transportation Systems, Inc. Caltrain SamTrans San Mateo Transportation Authority Sterling Bank & Trust Trumark Companies

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Jacqueline Armada Lindsay Baker Eric Baldosser Ken Barnhart Tim Bates Erik Battista lmron Bhatti Patricia Boomer Jeff Brandenburg Jeff Brink Serena Callaway Clayton Carlson Eric Chen Patrick Co Jonathan Cohen Sarah Coleman Stephanie M. Cowles Ruth Cueto Garcia Rachel Dearborn Altaire Deleon Solenne Demarle Alexis Dongallo Nick Doty Elizabeth Dougherty Todd Edelman Jeffrey Fassnacht Allison Filice Rodney Fong Ritu Garg Judy Val Gelb Michael Gould Sheffield Hale lmani Hamilton Marc Haumann Katherine He Amanda Higbie Carol and Todd High Gloria C. Hoo Amanda Howell Amy Huang Doneliza Joaquin Stuart Jones

Lisa Marie Kalmbach Steph Kawachi Helen Keomany Haena Kim Meryl Klein Lev Kushner Katherine Kwok Jonathan Lachance Marissa LaMagna Stuart Law Kate Lazarus Arnold Lee Carole Leita Heather Lerner Marianna Leuschel Aubra Levine Suzanne Levine James R. Lightbody Catherine Lim Emily Lipoma Kathleen Livermore John Lumea Kurt Lutter Ilyse Magy Armen I. Malazian Ryan Maliszewski Brandon Matthews Brie Mazurek Christopher McMahon Hydra Mendoza Steven Mitchel Amanda Moffitt Leslie Molina Zakiya Moten Julie Navejas Anthony Negrin Cameron Nelson Mary Newson Caitlin O'Connor Ted Olsson Jason Pellegrini Leslye Penticoff Gregory Polchow Sterling Poole

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CITY NEWS FROM AROUND THE GLOBE

Urban Drift ~

The Cantilever Is Too Extreme

Belgian photographer Filip Dujardin designs virtual buildings using Google SketchUp, a 3-D modeling tool, and Photoshop.

At first glance, the photographs of these buildings ( like the one at left), seem almost "normal " if very modern; their structural implausibility is revealed only upon close examination. The laws of physics, gravity and material are ignored in service of these exqu isite architectural compositions. www. filipdujardin.be The Nation's Infrastructure Is Crumbling a Little Bit Less

Reading Between the Lines The Tube continues to celebrate its sesquicentennial in style.

Transport for London has teamed up with Penguin to create a series of 12 books, each inspired by a different Tube line, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the London Underground. A select 路 group of culturally sophisticated straphangers was selected to share their experiences of the English capital in 15,000 words or less. Each book is available for 拢4.99 (about the price of a Tube ride). shop.tfl.gov.uk/ designcollections/ tube150.html If You Imagine It, They Will Come Public transportation in Miami is pretty dismal. How dismal?

In Ma rch, students from a local university, in hopes of bolstering

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the meager transit options in their city, created a fake train station complete with vendors, music, crowds and imaginary trains running on a regular basis.

Says Anna McMaster, one of three Florida Atlantic University urban planning graduate students who organized the two-day event, " We just wanted people to start talking about it." The first in a series of simulated train "arrivals" aimed to show people how great it would be to have trains running .

McMaster explains that it was her group's intent for the public to mistakenly get its hopes up." We wanted it to be a little confusing ," she says. "Once they feel that disappointment. they will be like 'Well, why don't we have this? '"

America 's roads , bridges, water systems and energy networks have long been in poor repair.

The American Society of Civil Engineers, which releases a report every four years that evaluates the problem in a letter-grade format, awarded the nation a D in its last report. published in

2009. The latest Report Card for America's Infrastructure offers an unexpected bit of good news though it's not that good, as the grade has merely inched up to a D+. It is the first time in the 15 years they 've been giving it, that the grade has improved.

"Smalt Infrastructure Gains Are Observed in Engineering Report," by John Schwartz, New Yark Times,

3/19/2013

~ Food on the Grid Based in Sweden, Atelier Food links food with sustainability, energy, culture, urban development and transportation and seeks new solutions and innovation through food . Created by international chefs and leaders in communication , science, culture and business, the project explores global solutions and innovation through cooking, food labs and the irresistible photographs of Petter Johansson (below). pjadad.com/atelier-food -still-life

"Miami's Public Transit Is So Bad, Advocates Have Been Reduced to Building Fake Train Stations," by Sarah l askow. Grist.org, 3/13/13

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