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Napa to plan its downtown’s future; design, signs, traffic among topics

NAPA – Though historic downtown Napa has been undergoing dramatic changes with recent construction, the city of Napa wants to start work this fall on a plan for how the area will look in coming decades.

The goal is to start the process of creating a land-use document called a specific plan to define guidelines for building design, needed public infrastructure and other long-term policies to manage development in the central business district, according to Jennifer LaLiberte, senior project coordinator for the Napa Redevelopment Agency.

“We have 650,000 square feet of construction under way or being completed, so it was a major wave of new construction,” she said. “Now it’s time to take a breather and pause to see what we want to see for the next wave.”

Rather than consider proposals for taller buildings or greater densities on a project-by-project basis, as has been done, a downtown specific plan would create standards for floor-area ratios, heights, set-backs and build-to distances from streets, according to Ms. LaLiberte. The plan also would identify opportunities for more open-space areas and whether existing public infrastructure, such as parking, is up to the demands of anticipated development.

Though the study area for the specific plan hasn’t been determined yet, it could be bounded by Jefferson Street on the west, the Napa River and the Oxbow District on the east, Division Street on the south and very roughly around Jordan Street on the north, according to Ms. LaLiberte.

The city in 1969 adopted the Parkway Plaza Redevelopment Area, which includes much of that area. That 324-acre redevelopment mechanism is set to expire in 2012. In January the city adopted the Soscol Gateway area. The process will involve a request for proposals for firms to develop the report based on analyses and comment from the public and business groups over a number of months.

Signage is one topic both the Napa Chamber of Commerce and the Napa Downtown Association are eager to tackle during the public scoping sessions that will be part of the formation of the specific plan.

“Signage we’re interested in needs continuity to be more user-friendly for autos and pedestrians, and there needs to be design standards in the downtown,” said chamber CEO Kate King. “Now there are a lot of different types of signs, and A-frame signs are allowed.”

Downtown association Executive Director Craig Smith also thinks the city has a lot of A-frame signs along the sidewalks in front of businesses. The group has been looking into options for business signage, such as greater use of blade-style signs above entrances and Healdsburg-style signs mounted on poles at intersections with arrows pointing to the businesses.

“They are classy and consistent and touch all the right bases,” Mr. Smith said of the Healdsburg signage.

Also the city may benefit from more visual cues that visitors are entering the downtown area, such as an archway or some other demarcation, according to Mr. Smith.

Regarding potential for more greenspace areas such as parks downtown, Ms. King thinks the proposed public art ordinance, which would add a fee on projects to fund art, should be a more general public benefit ordinance to fund landsc saping, walkways and passageways.

More generally, parking and traffic circulation likely will be hot topics during the creation of the downtown specific plan, according to Mr. Smith and Ms. King. Earlier this year a group of downtown commercial property owners turned over to the city a traffic study that shows how the confusing arrangement of one-way streets downtown could be modified.

A specific plan also will help developers know better what the city expects in a project, according to Ms. LaLiberte.

“Rather than let private development drive the future of downtown Napa, we will drive it and have the environmental work done so when future development comes in we can tell them what we want to see,” she said.

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