Companion article:  An absolutely awful building design for the Gateway Area Plan

Can we have buildings with human-scale design elements here in Arcata?

Yes, we can. We have to ask for it. These design elements have to be incorporated in the Gateway Code — the form-based code that defines the “look and feel” of the Gateway area.

Unless we specify what we want for the buildings along the L Street corridor, then it’s a free-for-all situation. The developers will build they want, and what this potential jewel of Arcata looks like will be up to whatever they want.

The section of the L Street corridor that runs from 7th Street to 11th Street is designated as a “woonerf” in the Gateway Area Plan. This is part of the 10-block Samoa-to-Alliance length that is a linear park and part of the Great Redwood Trail network — from Blue Lake all the way to San Francisco.

“Woonerf” — pronounced with a “V” — is a shared space for all users. Walkers, bikers, strollers, rollers, sitters. People meeting, people talking, shoppers, diners, children playing, outdoor gatherings, street fairs. It’s kind of like what already exists on the L Street corridor near the Creamery and in front of the Pub, and more. The linear park sections of the L Street corridor won’t have any motor-vehicle traffic, and the woonerf sections will. Speeds are limited to 5 or 8 mph — car drivers are “residents” of the street. Eye contact and human interaction keeps things safe. There is no car parking, and stopping is permitted only for deliveries and handicap drop-offs. Tap / Click for more on woonerfs, the 2010 Rail with Trail feasibility study, and the L Street corridor. 

The design criteria for a successful woonerf and linear park

The Gateway Plan is all about building housing, so people have a place to live. And it’s also about creating a new center of activities for Arcata, with parks, shops, restaurants, places of employment — all of it walking and biking distance from existing downtown, existing food stores and businesses, and the university. It has all the ingredients for a modern, low-car-use lifestyle.

To successfully generate these goals, good planning is essential. See: A successful woonerf and linear park in the L Street corridor needs Gateway Code policies

The Gateway Code must reflect what we want:  Light, airy designs, with open courtyards and graduated building heights that allow sun and light to come into the public spaces.

Building heights along the L Street corridor should be limited to 3 or 4 stories maximum for a distance of at least 30 feet from the building’s façade.

Ground-floor commercial spaces — for restaurants, shops, neighborhood-oriented businesses, walk-in realms — should be required. Just as there are no ground-floor residences on the Plaza, similarly there should be no apartments directly facing the L Street corridor on the first floor. People living on the second or third-floor could have a large outside patio that overlooks the activities below.

What kind of apartment buildings could be built along the woonerf?

To find a suitable design for an apartment complex that could be built along the L Street woonerf, we need look no further than to the largest local builder and developer, Danco. Their “Alvarado Garden Apartments” project in San Pablo, California, contains many of the design elements that we’d like to see here in Arcata.

[San Pablo is a small city that’s part of the San Francisco Bay, East Bay area — ten miles north of Berkeley, north of Albany, and almost entirely surrounded by the City of Richmond. It has a population of about 30,000, and a size of about 1,680 acres. Arcata is about 5,800 land acres.]

The Alvarado Garden Apartment complex

Design elements we are seeing here

Note: We are looking at design elements, not the style of the Alvarado Gardens apartments. Whether a Spanish Mission orange-tile roof architectural style is suitable for Arcata is not the issue.

You can use your imagination to envision a building with similar design elements — and perhaps with flat roofs for upper-story patios, perhaps with Creamery-Building style parapet design.

The Alvarado Gardens complex has:

• Single-story along the street frontage.
• Mostly three-story. Four stories (50 feet height) maximum, with ~90% of the building at three stories or less. Graduated building height. Deep setbacks before three and four stories are reached.
• Open plaza area. A new public gathering space.
• Large internal courtyard is a centerpiece of the development.
• Open air walkways between apartment units and sections of the complex.
• Commercial spaces at the ground level. Spaces for local entrepreneurs, neighborhood retail, food uses, community service providers.
• Friendly and inviting sidewalk area.
• Varied roof line to break up the building massing.
• Respect for existing adjoining single-story structures.

The architect is SGPA Architecture & Planning in San Francisco. (Contact:  Glenn Wood, gwood @ spga.com)

The project itself is 100% affordable housing. There are 100 units with an 1850 sq.ft. community room.

• 48 one-bedroom units, 539 square feet
• 26 two-bedrooms, 786 square feet
• 26 three-bedrooms, 1,017 square feet

Note on Danco:  I am not promoting Danco in this article. Their architect has come up with a project that fits many of the design elements that would be good to see here in Arcata for the woonerf section on the L Street corridor.

Danco has constructed many of what what can be considered lower-to-medium quality projects here in Humboldt. (I find the low-income “townhomes” project in Samoa to be particularly unpleasant.)

Clearly Danco is capable of a higher level of architectural design and a higher level of construction than we commonly see here in Humboldt. It could be said that the East Bay Area market would simply not accept rentals and commercial spaces that were built to the all-too-common lower standards of the Northcoast. We shouldn’t accept low standards either. Let’s ask Danco to bring us the quality of design and construction that we know is possible for them, that we know they are capable of.