City Unveils Design Concepts for Downtown Livermore
Livermore – City Staff has released for public review and comment two draft concepts for re-development of an 8.2-acre site at the heart of downtown. The “Eastside” concept would build a 125-room boutique hotel on the Southeast corner of S. Livermore and Railroad Avenues. A “Westside” concept places the hotel on the Southeast corner of L Street and Railroad Avenue. Both concepts feature a new multi-level parking garage near the intersection of L and First Streets and a centrally located village green surrounded by an expansion of Blacksmith Square’s historic one-story brick buildings and tree lined courtyard. Once built, Livermore ‘s downtown will have a similar vibe to other Wine Country Destination towns such as Healdsburg and Paso Robles.
Affordable workforce housing would be built in areas not chosen for the hotel, parking, and open space. Enthusiastic representatives from the ranching, scientific, winegrowing, hospitality, business, teaching, interfaith ministry, and performing and visual arts communities praised the two concepts as being attractive, forward looking and highly responsive to the diverse community input garnered from the City’s year-long outreach process. Lisa Tromovitch of the Livermore Shakespeare Festival called the plans “a dynamic expression of our city’s cultural heritage for scientific innovation, world class winegrowing, and family ranching traditions unified and amplified by the arts.” Local teacher Evan Branning was pleased to see that “the affordable housing funds used to purchase the site were being used to build much needed workforce housing for our community.” Vintner and artist Darcie Kent exclaimed, “The [outreach] process was worth it! An amazingly diverse coalition of residents was brought together in the workshops and the city’s synthesis of so many new ideas has resulted in a couple of terrific plans. Active listening, compromise and mutual respect still work in Livermore!” Although consensus elements from the public outreach are included in both designs, these draft concepts provide more space for cultural assets, less housing, and better traffic flow than earlier versions set out for citizen review and refinement. Open space, calculated to be approximately 3.5 acres under the westside option, excluding numerous rooftop patios, is one-third larger than under any previous westside design.
Draft Westside Hotel Concept | Draft Eastside Hotel Concept
Key to this additional open space is the Livermore Stockmen’s Rodeo Association proposal to build up to 100 units of affordable senior housing outside the downtown area in exchange for naming rights to a park adjacent to Blacksmith Square honoring local ranchers and veterans. This proposal allows repayment of up to $7 million in affordable housing funds used to purchase the downtown land. Either concept can repay the balance of the affordable housing debt by building an additional 130 workforce housing units within the 8.2-acre site. These units are intended for teachers, first responders and other local workers being priced out of the rental market. The eastside concept places all these apartments on the corner of L Street and Railroad Avenue whereas the westside concept calls for three smaller apartment buildings be built in various locations across the site. Both concepts envision Stockman Park as a shady and expansive village green with an outdoor concert stage capable of hosting a wide variety of civic events and cultural programs. Both provide space for a privately funded 150-seat “Black Box” theatre, a Science Center, an upscale steakhouse, artisan shops, tasting rooms and galleries radiating from the park’s circular plaza.
Ample diagonal parking is provided on new cross streets to improve access, community policing and traffic flow. Although both concepts more than triple the number of disabled parking spaces adjacent to the Bankhead Theatre, neither concept includes construction of the 352-stall parking garage adjacent to the Bankhead strongly advocated by the owner of The Independent weekly paper. On January 29, City Council is expected to finalize the Stockmen’s proposal and possibly select a hotel location. Supporters of the Bankhead garage intend to argue adding it to the westside concept and moving the proposed affordable housing on that site across Railroad Avenue. Why is this important? A Bankhead garage dispute, which would be the third major parking structure in downtown, would not delay the immediate development of most elements in the westside concept, but it would block all non-parking development of the eastside concept until resolved. This would create uncertainty for the City’s hotel developer and cost taxpayers substantially more if the garage is built.
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