Merchants share cinema concerns

Worries about parking and traffic paramount

(Published January 2000)

By John Baker

Staff Reporter

As a proposed downtown cinema and shopping complex is edges a bit closer to reality, some downtown merchants are repeating concerns that not enough attention has been paid to potential parking problems, nor has there been enough public comment.

"To put it simply and concisely, we have concerns that the parking needs for this project are going to be so huge that ... the parking structures needed to support it are going to be just gargantuan, out of character with the city and very expensive to build," said downtown business owner Bill Vinci, part of a group that has expressed concerns with the project's scope.

In addition, detractors of the project said city officials have underestimated traffic problems the complex may cause and have not adequately considered what such a cinema-retail complex would do to the "character" of Redwood City's downtown.

"Basically I think people have in their mind's eye like (Palo Alto's) University Avenue or some kind of other walking mall downtown city they've seen," Vinci said. "(But) with a project this big, this much (pop), if it doesn't have anything to do with movies, it isn't going to exist.

The city proposes to build a two-story, 20-screen cinema with 3,500 to 5,000 seats and about 70,000 square feet of retail space on the 2100 block of Broadway by late 2001.

The next opportunity for public comment will be at an upcoming Planning Commission meeting announcing the preparation of the project's environmental impact report. That hearing will be held Jan. 18 beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers at Redwood City Hall, 1017 Middlefield Road.

A brief article in the Peninsula section of the San Francisco Chronicle on Jan. 5 raised concerns among some. In summary, the article said city officials have chosen Field Paoli of San Francisco and Fehlman LaBarre of San Diego as the architectural team to design the "On Broadway" project. That was old news, according to city officials.

"The architect has always been part of the (negotiating) team that got selected," said Deborah Nelson, director of Community Development Services.

But what really rankled some in the city, both in the public and private sector, was an assertion in the article that construction would begin at year's end, pending an environmental review of the site.

"It distressed me; I didn't like seeing that article," said Mayor Ira Ruskin. "It was inaccurate and it made it sound like the cinema deal was a done deal and it's not. We have not gotten all the information we need ­ or any of the information we need ­ to make a final decision."

Ruskin said, for example, the city has seen no parking or traffic studies, nor working drawings or plans. City officials suspect a marketing company representing the architects sent the Chronicle and the paper did not fully check its facts.

Although not a done deal, city officials only have few obstacles left in their way. In May, councilmembers - acting as the Redevelopment Agency Board - granted the Innisfree Companies an exclusive nine months to come to a final agreement with city to develop the land. The time involved is required for the developer to do the Environmental Impact Report on the area before entering into a "disposition development agreement" and to begin, if not complete, the architectural review process.

Innisfree, in turn, has entered an agreement with Century Theaters to occupy the cinemas when the complex is built. Century has not yet officially declared whether it will close its Century Park 12 complex off Whipple Road in Redwood City when the downtown complex is built. Speculation, however, is the old complex will shut down and possibly be developed in an "auto mall."

The mere fact that so much of the project is speculative upsets some critics. The Citizens with Cinema Concerns Coalition - also known as 4C - says there has been far too few opportunities for public input in the process and not enough heed paid to potential problems. The 4C, which formed last summer, has circulated a petition expressing its concern and says it has not received so much as a phone call from the city government.

"The silence is deafening, in any way that you want to look at it," said Vinci, part of the 4C leadership. "Whether they feel compelled to respond to us and acknowledge our concerns - which I thought they would've done so by now - we've gotten a considerable amount of press. The people have signed our petition."

Vinci, who said the membership roster of 4C reads like a "who's who" of downtown business, indicated he felt there was a "dysfunction" in city government when it came to the cinema project.

"Quite frankly, as professionals and individuals, they don't really seem to understand how to agree to disagree," Vinci said. "There has been an absolute lack of healthy debate. In general, the perception of 4C and myself has been an 'us vs. them' mentality. (As if) you're either for this project, you're onboard and you're within the circle of wagons or you are negative."

Ruskin agreed there needs to be more discussion.

"I think that we have not informed the public as well as we would have liked," the mayor said. "There was a lot of business in the past months, (but) the elections are over and the holidays are over. I'm going to proceed right now to begin a clear information campaign to the public to let them know exactly what is happening with the cinema project, what the chronology is ­ what has happened to date and what is going to happen."

Vinci said the city has yet to demonstrate that the public even wants such as project. He said few, other than some he called "land speculators," have unreservedly come out in favor of the cinema-retail complex as it is currently proposed.

"I don't understand why they, because they're the only ones in a position to force this issue, aren't demanding to know who's in support of this project right now," Vinci said. "When it comes to the downtown merchants, I can give you a hell of a lot more signatures than this group can.

"We as a group ... have been very disciplined in presenting ourselves in a positive way. We want something to happen ... to see is there support out there? Is this a good idea?"

The road to the selection of the site was a long one. In 1997, the Redwood City School District ended a two-year search for new quarters by buying a centrally located property - once site of the Way-to-Go furniture store - at 2107 Broadway. The School District purchased the lot and buildings for approximately $2.3 million and was facing spending another $1.9 million to renovate the building, according to a school district spokesman.

But when theater developers in the summer of 1997 suggested the property might be a potential theater site due to its central location and proximity to existing parking structures, Redwood City officials and the school district entered negotiations. An agreement was reached in April 1998 that resulted in a trade of unused city-owned land, and $2.4 million to make up the difference in the value of the land, for the Way-to-Go property The school district has since moved into new headquarters on Bradford Street.

Redwood City hopes to get the money it paid for the downtown property back by selling the land to Innisfree.

"The city's hope is that we will be able to negotiate a deal (in the nine months)," Pat Webb, Redwood City's economic development director, said last spring. "The developer is paying for the project. If the city gets (its) money back for that building, the Redevelopment Board would then choose to put that into a public parking structure."

Although the city has said it will build a parking structure over an existing lot on Middlefield Road, adding about 500 spaces, some business leaders questioned whether that would be enough. The 4C has stated there is a potential that the city might may more for a parking garage than it will get for the sale of the property.

Vinci said he thinks that an appropriate movie-cinema could be "great" for his pizzeria in the 2600 block of Broadway, but is concerned with a potential lack of "synergy" if the city is not careful.

"If you build it and it's great, I'll get fringe benefits. I don't think it will be," Vinci said. "If you build it and it sucks, which is my concern, I'm going to be left on the only block of downtown that has any character."

However, city officials said they have studied several cities nationwide, including Pasadena and Santa Cruz, and found new cinemas often turn dilapidated downtowns into jewels.

Meanwhile, the land sits largely undeveloped, the Way-to-go building being used as a meeting place for the Police Athletic League.

"The concern is that with this type of approach, a lot of things happen; not the least of which is the city has been sitting on 5.5 acres of downtown real estate for now about three years," Vinci said. "It's creating its own weather system; it's creating its own economic depression. In the mid-Peninsula and Northern California, we're not in a recession right now, if you would just get out of the way, (downtown) would help itself."