Downtown Stockton Chase-Starbucks to move forward

By Roger Phillips

Record Staff Writer

STOCKTON — The northeast corner of Fremont and El Dorado streets, across from Stockton's old City Hall, for years has been a weed-strewn empty parking lot that is surrounded by a wrought-iron fence and adjacent to a long-abandoned bank branch.

It seemed it might remain that way, too, after a 4-2 vote by the Planning Commission in December that ratified city staff's recommendation against a proposal for drive-through branches of Starbucks and Chase Bank where the parcel of land at 520 N. El Dorado Street now sits vacant.

But the proposal's developers appealed to the City Council, which last week unanimously overturned the Planning Commission's decision — conditionally — after lengthy discussion and despite a continuing recommendation against the project by Stockton officials.

In the end, the council decided the potential for new jobs and additional tax revenue outweighed reservations about whether the project's design was out of step with efforts to make downtown friendlier for pedestrians and bicyclists.

"I'm OK with doing this on a limited basis but we've got to look at balance," Councilman Dan Wright said. "If we're going to have a vibrant, vital downtown, at some point we've got to look at the design elements."

Last week's council discussion and vote encapsulated the push and pull the city is feeling as it seeks to foster a welcoming business climate while simultaneously creating conditions for an organically local rebirth of downtown as a walker's paradise.

David Kwong, the city's director of community development, said the proposed project — similar in appearance to an existing Starbucks/Chase drive-through at March Lane and Feather River Drive — was too "suburban." The City Council listened and then drew its own conclusion.

"The proposal is great from a standpoint of anywhere else in the city," Kwong told the council. "We looked at it from the perspective of being in the greater downtown Stockton area. We don't believe that it had the urban context we were looking for and was envisioned within the downtown here."

Among city officials' concerns is that the design of the building is set far back from the property line, a traditional characteristic of suburban strip malls. The proposed stucco exterior of the building also did not match "the surrounding building context," according to the city.

One councilmember, Jesús Andrade, went so far during the City Hall discussion as to say he "nearly puked" on himself when he saw the proposed beige stucco in a rendering of the development.

Responding to the city's concerns, Gavin Reid of Orange County-based Frontier Real Estate Development said bank security requirements would prevent amending the proposal so the project could be moved closer to the street. He did, however, agree to the council condition that the project's look be urbanized with bricks and awnings.

Reid promised his firm would work "to ensure compatibility with the character and look of the adjacent developments" and said he would work with city staff to ensure the design is "desirable and fitting to the surrounding area."

Representatives from Chase and Starbucks also appeared at last week's meeting.

A Chase spokeswoman said the bank plans to close its branch at 400 E. Main Street — a building that is in the ongoing process of becoming the home to Stockton's new City Hall — when the El Dorado branch opens. She said the current downtown Chase branch is "struggling" and the new branch, when it opens, will create six to 10 new full-time positions in addition to the seven employees at the current Main Street branch.

The Starbucks spokesman was unable to answer one way or the other when asked if the coffee outlet at the movie complex a few blocks to the south would remain open when the new El Dorado store is ready.

He said the Starbucks at the movie complex employs 10 baristas, four shift supervisors and one manager. The new store will employ 20 baristas, four or five shift supervisors and a manager, he said.

Reaction to the plan is mixed even among those who advocate for downtown's redevelopment.

Jasmine Leek, founder of the Third City Coalition, a downtown urbanization advocacy group, said the city would be making a mistake to reject the Chase-Starbucks developers.

"I think it's a really dangerous precedent to set when we're telling businesses to come downtown and trying to get them to invest in downtown ... when we turn them away because of a design guideline," Leek said.

But Tristan Osborn, a Sacramento-based urban planner, said design guidelines are in place to help avoid "cookie-cutter, off-the-shelf" proposals. Osborn encouraged the developers to "come to a design solution that fits within our downtown commercial design guidelines yet still protects the safety of everyone."

In the end, the council drew a similar conclusion.

"Guidelines are an interpretative matter," District 5 Councilwoman Christina Fugazi said. "I'm really supportive of this matter. It's in my district."

Before voting in the developers' favor, Wright added, "I get both sides of this argument very, very well. I would not like a downtown filled with (developments) like this. ... I don't think that's the type of vision we're trying to create here for a vital downtown."

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