0SPUR SPUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Chair Board Members Anne Halsted Carl Anthony

Veronica Bell Executive Chris Block Vice Chair Larry Burnett David Friedman Michaela Cassidy

Madeline Chun Vice Ch• lrs Charmaine Curtis Alexa Arena Dz Erickson Andy Barnes Manny Flores Emilio Cruz Geoff Gibbs Bill Rosetti Gillian Gillett Lydia Tan Chris Gruwell V. Fei Tsen Ed Harrington

Dave Hartley Secretary Garrett Herbert Mary Mccue Aidan Hughes

Chris Iglesias Trea: urer Laurie Johnson Bob Gamble Ken Kirkey

V.J. Kumar lmmedlc e Pa~t Susan Leal Co-Ch, Ir~ Dick Lonergan Linda Jo Fitz John Madden

Janine Mccaffery Advisory Council Jacinta Mccann Co-Chairs Hyrdra Mendoza Michael Alexander Ezra Mersey Paul Sedway Terry Micheau

Mary Murphy

CHAIRS I COMMITTEES

Progr1m Regional Planning CommlttHs Larry Burnett

B llot An, ly. 1s Libby Seifel

Bob Gamble Oper1tlng

Dl~aster Planning CommlttHs Laurie Johnson

Audit Chris Poland

John Madden Housing

Building Ezra Mersey Lydia Tan

Management Larry Burnett

Prt ct Revh w Bu'. iness

Charmaine Curtis M .mbershlp

Mary Beth Sanders Reuben Schwartz

Tom Hart Terry Micheau

Tran!.portatlon Executive

Anthony Bruzzone David Friedman

Water Polley Anne Halsted Bry Sa rte

SAN JOSE ADVISORY BOARD

Teresa Alvarado Karla Rodriguez Andy Barnes Lomax Chris Block James MacGregor J. Richard Braugh Connie Martinez Larry Burnett Anu Natarajan Brian Darrow Dr. Mohammad Gordon Feller Qayoumi

2 FEBRUARY 2013

Jeanne Myerson Adhi NagraJ Brad Paul Rich Peterson Chris Poland Teresa Rea Byron Rhett Rebecca Rhine Wade Rose Paul Sedway Victor Seeto Elizabeth Selfel Carl Shannon Chl-Hsin Shao Doug Shoemaker Ontario Smith Bill Stotler Stuart Sunshine Michael Teitz Mike Theriault James Tracy Will Travis Molly Turner Jeff Tumlin Steve Vettel Francesca Vietor Fran Weld Allison Wi ii iams Cynthia Wilusz Lovell Cindy Wu

Flnan:e Bob Gamble

Human Re~ources Mary Mccue

Individual Member~hlp

Bill Stotler

Investment Ann Lazarus

M, jor Donors Linda Jo Fitz Anne Halsted

Planned Giving Michaela Cassidy

Sliver SPUR Dave Hartley Teresa Rea

Robert Steinberg, FAIA

Lydia Tan Kim Walesh Jessica Zenk

LETTER FROM THE POLICY DIRECTOR

Going (Back) Downtown My grandmother used to tell stories about taking the train to downtown

San Jose in the early decades of the 20th century. She and her family

would leave their farm near Niles and hop on the Southern Pacific train

at the Centerville station (in what is now Fremont) and ride south to the

downtown San Jose station at 4th and Santa Clara (now the edge of City

Hall plaza). From there, they would walk to shops or ride the streetcars

north or south to surrounding towns.

For my grandmother's family, downtown San Jose was the urban center for the agricultural South Bay. It had the west coast 's first electric

streetcars in 1888 and department stores dating back to the 1860s. It

Egon Terplan is

SPUR's Regional

was the commercial, historic and social heart of Santa Clara County. Planning Director

San Jose's downtown was long the undisputed center of activity for the city and the broader South Bay. But its role changed profoundly with the rapid rise

of Silicon Valley in the decades after World War II. It is a common story that many U.S.

downtowns experienced a rise from about 1850 to 1950. And it is equally known that many downtowns suffered from urban renewal, suburban competition and the consequences of

the automobile post-1950.

While San Jose's downtown suffered much of the same fate, there are a few parts of the

story that differ from most other downtowns. First, the downtown was essentially sur­rounded and swallowed up by the boom of Silicon Valley as farmland was transformed into industrial parks and suburbs. Second, downtown San Jose has long been in competition

with other parts of its own city and in the fifties, experienced a triple whammy, losing its

City Hall, county offices and daily newspaper - and their employees - to sites elsewhere

in the city all in the span of just a few years. No other major U.S. city experienced such a

specific exodus of these nearly essential downtown functions.Third, downtown San Jose

established the state's largest and most powerful redevelopment agency, which led the

downtown revitalization efforts from the 1950s until the agency was dissolved in 2012. The agency's decisions shaped much of the physical container of downtown - its streets, parks,

buildings, transit - fhat we see today.

As SPUR continues its second year of work in San Jose, we are taking a closer look at

the downtown and present in this issue some of our initial thoughts about the history and

shapers of downtown San Jose, from major investments in highways to the interventions of redevelopment. Over the next year, we will produce a larger policy report on the future of

downtown San Jose in which we will lay out SPUR's long-term agenda for downtown.

In a series of articles and reports on downtown San Francisco between 2007 and 2009,

we explored the emerging conflict between a vision for downtown as a central business district of jobs and a central social district focused more on housing and entertainment.

The central business district and central social district visions are relevant to downtown San Jose but the strategic questions now revolve around what will replace redevelopment as

the primary force for downtown revitalization. The question remains as to what will best fill

downtown streets and buildings with people, investment and activity.

We are not going to return to the downtown my grandmother's family enjoyed in the

1920s but we do see that more people and businesses are choosing to go to downtown

again as they have in the past. We believe strongly in grounding our ideas for downtown's

next chapter in the lessons learned from the past. •

Cover photo by Aya Brackett. The Urbanist is edited by Allison Arieff and designed by Shawn Hazen, hazencreative.com. THE URBANIST

APRIL 2013

News at SPUR SPUR and Mayor Ed Lee honored the winners

of the 32nd Annual Good Government

Awards at a special event at City Hall in

March.

Transportation 2030 Task Force to Define a New Future for Muni Mayor Ed Lee announced in his state of the city address

that Muni would be one of the city's major focuses for 2013

and 2014. To that end, the mayor appointed SPUR executive

director Gabriel Metcalf and deputy city controller Monique

Zmuda to co-chair a task force charged with building a

com moll understanding of the challenges Muni faces and

to bring back a set of proposals to the mayor and Board of

Supervisors by the end of the year. We will focus on the key

investments necessary to allow MUNI to carry more riders

more quickly on the core lines and to keep the system in a

state of good repair. We will also try to make real progress

on Caltrain, BART, the bike network and pedestrian safety.

We believe this is a good opportunity to take a step forward

on the city's transportation system.

THE URBANIST

San Jose lncentivizes High­Rise Building Downtown The San Jose City Council voted to extend an incentive program

to encourage high-rise residential building in the downtown by

reducing the construction fees

by 50 percent. Two new high-rise

towers are expected to break

ground in 2013, with additional towers in the pipeline. SPUR supported this extension and the

city's efforts to increase density in

the urban core.

SPUR's Laura Tam Laura Recognized as one of San Francisco's "Women Making History" Every March, the mayor, Board of Supervisors and Commission on

the Status of Women celebrate Women's History Month by honoring women who've made

a difference in San Francisco. This year, under the theme of women in science, technology and engineering, Laura Tam,

SPUR's sustainable development policy director, was selected by

Supervisor Katy Tang (and her predecessor, Carmen Chu) for her

work on sustainable development and greening the city.

Mayoral Task Force Convened to Reform Housing Authority SPUR will be participating in

a working group organized by

Mayor Ed Lee to re-envision the

San Francisco Housing Authority.

The city administrator, Naomi Kelly, and the director of the

Mayor's Office of Housing, Olson

Lee, are leading this effort. Smaller

subcommittees will address public housing operations, the

Section 8 program, governance, Hope SF & HOPE VI, social service integration and tenant leadership development. The group will

submit recommendations to the mayor by July 1, 2013. •

APRIL 2013 3

SAN JOSE

Shaping Downtown San Jose The Quest to Establish an Urban Center for Silicon Valley

In the early 1950s; downtown San Jose was the cultural, civic, shopping and economic hub for then­

agricultural Santa Clara County. As the heart of this

rich valley, downtown San Jose remained prominent from its dusty beginnings as the first civilian town in California in 1777 to its selection as California's

first state capital in 1850 to the place where IBM first

developed the technology for computer disks in the early 1950s.

But as technology firms began to grow around

the epicenter of Stanford University, the role of

downtown, and the rest of San Jose, would soon be

radically transformed. As the new businesses to the

north coalesced into what would later be known as Silicon Valley, San Jose grew through aggressive annexation and development, doubling in population

in 10 years, then more than doubling again in the next 10. During this period, there was little regard

for preserving San Jose's downtown, as large swaths

of the area met the fate of the wrecking ball and employers, shops, residents and investment went elsewhere. Freeways, some of which had destroyed downtown neighborhoods, now made it easy to

bypass the once-vital retail center for new modern

shopping centers, malls and office parks.

San Jose became the quintessential suburb,

providing its single-family homes with 300 annual days of sunshine in an environment of relative

cultural tolerance and economic prosperity. But by the early 1970s, the problems of unchecked growth

and suburbia were already becoming visible, and a

counter movement began to try to limit the outward

spread of development. Some far-sighted city

leaders tried to refocus growth into downtown, and

it became official policy to establish downtown San

4 APRIL 2013

Jose as a major center for Silicon Valley.

By this point. however, downtown had lost its central position in the South Bay. To refocus city

growth and investment in downtown. San Jose had to fight against the trend toward decentralization that afflicted nearly every major city in the United

States. It faced competition from shopping malls,

office parks and downtowns up the Peninsula and in suburban areas within its own city. It eventually had to contend with a height limit on buildings due to

the airport flight path. It was trying to do something

exceedingly difficult in the history of American cities:

create a major downtown center, with high volumes

of pedestrian activity, within a region that was overwhelmingly low-density and car-dependent.

Starting in the the 1980s, the San Jose

Redevelopment Agency - by then the largest

Redevelopment Agency in the state - used virtually

all of its power and money (nearly $2 billion in

public investment alone) to try to make San Jose's downtown match the scale and the amenities of one

of the nation's larger cities .

Cities often focus on their downtowns because

downtown is one of the few areas over which they believe they have control. As a result. downtowns

have long been a place of experimentation. For 35

years, many of the big ideas in U.S. city planning were tried out in San Jose. The downtown San Jose

of today bears little resemblance to the one in 1970,

just as portions of downtown of 1970 bore little

resemblance to the historic core that existed into the

mid-1950s. As SPUR enters its second year of working in San

Jose. we decided to take a look back at the forces that

have shaped the city's downtown to help inform a

Summary: Facing competition

from a decentralized Silicon Valley,

downtown San Jose was one of the

country's largest - and longest­

running - revitalization projects.

Bringing downtown to life is the

impetus for the city's next chapter.

By Egon Terplan

Research assistance by Jason Su.

Right, an aerial view of downtown San

Jose in the 1950s with Santa Clara Street

shown running to the east past the iconic

BofA tower at 1st Street. San Jose State is

towards the top right of the image. Much of

the existing fabric shown in this image was

subsequently redeveloped into new office,

housing or retail. Some of the buildings

shown are no longer there and the lots

remain vacant today.

THE URBANIST

THE URBANIST APRIL 2013 5

SAN JOSE

larger report we are developing later this year that will sketch out our agenda for downtown San Jose. This

article summarizes what we have learned thus far. Our overarching argument is that downtown

San Jose confronted a series of large forces of

decentralization and disinvestment that undermined

its historic importance within the city, county

and region. Without the interventions of a strong

redevelopment agency, which was established

in 1956, San Jose would have a very different

downtown, and potentially one with fewer amenities, jobs, visitors and residents than there are today.

Mistakes were certainly made: Buildings were

demolished. Businesses closed. Blocks were left

unfinished with vacant lots. And some of the existing

downtown culture was pushed aside.

But the intention was always to reestablish

downtown as a major center for the South Bay. While

downtown San Jose cannot claim to be a traditional central business district (CBD) or job center, it is certainly emerging as a more likely candidate for the

South Bay's central social district (CSD), particularly

with its array of arts and cultural venues and emerging residential areas in the downtown core.

There are implications that come with that role, which

we will explore in our subsequent reports. This article

explores the ways San Jose became the downtown it

is today through the following themes:

~ The suburbs swallow downtown ~ The highway undermines transit

~ City hall leaves and comes back ~ Retail leaves and doesn't return ~ Redevelopment leaves a mixed legacy

~ A new downtown cultural district emerges

The suburbs swallow downtown The starting point for understanding the history of

downtown San Jose is examining its role during the

first half of the 20th century. Downtown was the business, civic and social center of the agriculturally

rich Santa Clara Valley. It w.as the crossroads - the place where Santa Clara Street passed through from

east to west and bisected First Street to form a

symbolic town center.

A century ago, downtown was bustling. The city had the first electric streetcar system west of the

Rockies. St. James Park, created in 1868, was full of

lush foliage, including American elms, and elegant

fencing surrounded the park. The Bank of Italy (now

Bank of America) tower, which was built in 1925

and remains the defining feature of the skyline, rose

above the fields of fruit tree blossoms in springtime.

The building housed the bank's first branch (outside

6 APRIL 2013

of San Francisco), a decision made by bank founder A.P. Giannini, who was born in San Jose. The Bank

of Italy continued to grow for decades based on its business relationships with agriculture in the Santa

Clara Valley, the "Valley of Heart's Delight."

Downtown San Jose was the center of economic

and sociaf life in the Santa Clara Valley through

World War II, but all of this began to change with the

emergence of .Silicon Valley to the north. The City

of San Jose soon became the bedroom community

for Silicon Valley, rather than its business center. As farmland was converted to subdivisions and office

parks, San Jose found itself enveloped by Silicon

Valley, its downtown becoming just one node in a

series of historic walkable town centers between

San Jose and Palo Alto, 16 miles away. Ambitiously

modeling the city on Los Angeles, San Jose's pro­

growth machine was focused on annexation and

outward suburban growth, not on downtown. The city's population ballooned from 95,000

in 1950 to 450,000 in 1970, and what was once a

17-square-mile city mushroomed to 136 square miles.

As the city grew, the notion of what comprised downtown San Jose expanded to the point where

the "city center" was so large that growth within that

space undermined the actual historic center. The 1965 master plan defined an area of "Central San Jose"

that was 16.7 square miles, including Naglee Park, Willow Glen, the Rose Garden District and the area

around the city and county buildings at First and

Hedding streets.

Through the 1960s, city leaders continued. to pursue an outward growth agenda, but there was a growing awareness of the negative impacts of

horizontal growth. Pro-growth City Manager Dutch

Hamann retired in 1969, and in 1970 the city council

adopted an urban development policy that promoted

infill rather than outward growth. The City of San

Jose established an urban growth boundary in the

1970s and then began a long process of focusing city growth in areas with existing infrastructure, including downtown. The conditions were then set in place

for significant development and revitalization of the

downtown.

But making that revitalization a reality has been

more difficult. In addition to the competition between city and suburb that every city in the United.States

faces, San Jose has suburbs within its own borders

that compete for attention and investment. Due to

an overall desire to grow the job base, the city has

continued to plan and support growth throughout the

city, an approach that undermines the centrality of

downtown San Jose. Even the current "Envision San

Jose 2040" general plan, a far-reaching and strong

I I

THE URBANIST

In the late 19th century, San Jose had the

first electric streetcar system west of the

Rockies. The contemporary version - a light

rail system - was i!'tegrated as part of a

complete redesign of 1st and 2nd Streets.

THE URBANIST

statement for achieving density, reductions in driving changed downtown mobility. The Santa Clara

and a more urban form, only assumes that 10 percent County Expressway System was first financed by

of future job and 8 percent of population growth will a $70 million bond election in 1961. Interstate 280

occur within the downtown. Most job and housing (originally approved in 1955) began construction growth is projected to take place in outlying areas, during the 1960s and was completed in the 1970s.

including nearly 70 "urban villages." The suburbs that Where it passed downtown to the south, it had a

swallowed downtown remain its competition.

The highway undermines transit San Jose debuted its electric streetcar system in 1888, replacing the horse-drawn carts that had been

the dominant mode since 1868. When this system

was complete (the first such system west of the

Rockies), electric trolleys ran up and down First Street, San Carlos (then Stevens Boulevard) and San­

ta Clara Street. Riders from downtown could reach

Palo Alto to the north and Los Gatos to the south. In 1934, the city moved its rail tracks from Fourth

Street to the west end of downtown, where it built Cahill Station. The goal was to get the tracks - and

the passenger and freight trains - out of downtown,

where they ran directly along city streets. But the

result was to put the city 's train station beyond the western edge of the downtown core. When Highway

87 was later built between Cahill (later renamed

Diridon) Station and the downtown core, this left the

city's train station a half mile to a mile away from

most downtown destinations. In 1938, the city ceased operating the streetcars.

Instead, 14 "modern buses would purr up to the

curb to take on passengers" as the papers of the

day noted . Reflecting the sentiment at that time,

newspapers argued that the streetcars were the

victim of the automobiles " that finally choked them

out of existence." Accommodating the car was seen

as simply inevitable and meant that modern cities

would cast aside old traditions to make space for

the car. For a city about which the San Jose Mercury

News had written in a 1938 headline, "Transit History

Made Here," the shift to automobile travel was a

major transformation .

In the 1960s, San Jose converted two-way

neighborhood streets in and around downtown into

pairs of high-capacity one-way streets to deal with

the heavy traffic as people drove from south San Jose

to North San Jose through downtown and adjacent neighborhoods. These conversions were intended to protect the downtown from being overrun with

traffic, but in practice this allowed car travelers to pass through - and around - the downtown more

quickly, thus degrading the quality of the street for non-drivers.

But it was really the freeway and expressway projects that transformed the South Bay and

series of extensive off-ramps whose construction

led to the destruction of hundreds of homes and

businesses in the downtown area. This cleared area eventually became the right of way for Highway 87, connecting south San Jose with the north.

Throughout this time, the county was attempting

to grow a transit system. In 1973, Santa Clara County

Transit District consolidated its various bus systems

(including San Jose City Lines and Palo Alto/Peninsula Transit) under one umbrella and began planning

for major investment in light rail. A "Rapid Transit Development Project, Phase I (RTDP)" study began in

1971 and was approved by the voters in 1976 as part of

the first Measure A half-cent cent sales tax for transit

in the state. Every four years between 1976 and 1992,

voters continued to approve updates to this master

plan, demonstrating their interest in a multi-modal transportation system that combined different types

of rail with bus, bicycle and pedestrian planning.

But the emphasis on freeways undermined this

emerging transit vision. By approving sales tax

Measure A in 1984, Santa Clara County became the

first "self-help" county in the state. The initial impetus

for the sales tax measure was to upgrade Route 237

(the east-west route at the northern edge of San

Jose) from a four-lane highway with traffic signals to

a grade-separated freeway. When the full sales tax

funding measure was put together, it also included

upgrades to other state highways, including adding

lanes to Highway 101 and extending Highway 85 from Cupertino south east to Highway 101, a road that had

been drawn on Caltrans' highway fantasy maps since

the 1960s.

While the combination of projects secured support from voters in the entire county, the highway

investments made it even easier to bypass downtown

and thus undermined attempts to remake downtown

as a central district, as well as a parallel set of goals

for successful light rail ridership. When light rail opened in 1987, it connected Santa

Clara and San Jose, much as the streetcar system

had 100 years before (it connected to downtown in

June of 1988). Further, the Transit Mall on First and Second streets turned out to be highly successful from an urban design perspective (a position that is not shared by all). But from a transit perspective, the trains moved too slowly, limiting potential ridership. Since San Jose's job center is North San

Light rail photo by Aya Brackett. 1908 streetcar photo from the Charles McCaleb Collection. courtesy History San Jose Collection: Charles Mccaleb Collection APRIL 2013 7

SAN JOSE

In 1958, City Hall abandoned downtown -

and its 1888 architectural gem of a building

- to move to this new modernist greenfield

several miles to the north.

8 APRIL 2013

Jose, not downtown, would-be commuters from south San Jose have to crawl through downtown en route to jobs in the north. As a result of both the slow speed and the limited number of downtown jobs, the rail system only serves a tiny fraction of work trips and remains among the least productive rail systems nationwide. The initial projections of 40,000 daily riders by 1990 were cut in half prior to the opening of the first line, mostly due to the investment in freeways. Actual ridership reached 20,000 in 1993 and in recent years has ranged from 32,000 to 34,000 daily. At about 750 passengers per mile, the 42-mile light rail system in Santa Clara County carries far fewer people than comparable rail systems. Denver's 35-mile system carries nearly 1,900 per mile. San Diego's 53-mile system carries over 1,700. Sacramento's 37-mile system carries over 1,300 per mile.

Additional local decisions further harmed potential light rail ridership. For example, the redevelopment

agency helped fund the extension of Highway 87 north of downtown as part of a goal to get more cars out of downtown. But like the one-way streets, the expanded highway made it easier to drive around,

not through, downtown.

Local voters have continued to be generous in their support for transportation, with transit (light

rail expansion and eventually BART) as the primary beneficiaries. The political leadership has also

shown significant support for expanding transit, particularly with the investments to build a light rail system with downtown San Jose at its center. Yet the numerous freeways paid for and built by the county prior to completing the transit system have made

automobile travel the intractably preeminent mode of transportation.

Downtowns in U.S. cities work because they can aggregate large numbers of people in one place and they can provide a high-amenity pedestrian

environment for people once they are there. Almost by definition, then, that means that downtowns need to be able to get lots of people in without a car. If everyone drives, then the cars take up so much space on the streets that the pedestrian environment is no longer pleasant, and parking those cars takes up so much space in the buildings that the potential density of people goes down. This points to the challenge that downtown San Jose has to overcome in trying to create a central place for people within a region that

is very reliant on cars.

City hall leaves and comes back In 1958, San Jose moved its city hall out of downtown to a newly built office park and civic

center on North First Street, nearly 2 miles to the north. The form of the new city hall area was emblematic of the era: The new public buildings were on a superblock surrounded by low-rise buildings

THE URBANIST

THE URBANIST

In 2005, City Hall returned to downtown in

the form of an austere building by influential

architect Richard Meier.

and new landscaping (a midrise modern building was added in 1976). The city then demolished the

former city hall, a historic structure that had stood in the center of Cesar Chavez Park since 1887. It would be nearly half a century before city hall returned downtown, in 2005.

The county offices followed city hall out of downtown, as did the daily paper, the Mercury News.

This exodus removed hundreds of public sector and newspaper workers from downtown. Such jobs are typically a core part of the critical mass of employees in a downtown and provide a solid base of shoppers at downtown stores. Some speculated that the city's decision to move to an area where it could co-locate

with county staff reflected the ambitions of the growth machine - and the desire of some for San Jose to merge with the county.

The challenge of keeping jobs downtown was not unique to San Jose. After the 1950s, nearly all downtowns throughout the United States struggled to maintain their share of jobs. What makes San Jose distinct is that its own city hall left. That, in

combination with the fact that San Jose never maintained a significant share of jobs in either the

firms have always preferred corporate campus settings, some of the earliest technology employers were, in fact, once in downtown San Jose. IBM established its first San Jose manufacturing facility at 16th and St. John (east downtown) in 1943 and its first West Coast research and development facility at 99 Notre Dame (just north of the recent residential development The Axis) in 1952. It was here that IBM developed the initial technology for computer disks. But in 1957 IBM moved out to a 190-acre site on Cottle Road in south San Jose.

Recent decades have seen major attempts to make downtown an attractive site for corporate headquarters. In the early 1980s, the redevelopment agency (RDA) negotiated with Steve Jobs to bring Apple to downtown. The RDA was willing to give land and build parking for Apple, but Jobs allegedly wanted the RDA to build the whole office building, a subsidy that was too much of an investment for the RDA.

Office development began to grow again in the mid-1980s, with space for traditional business services jobs such as accounting, legal and consulting. Many of these businesses went to

public sector or in business services, traditionally new class-A buildings along Santa Clara Street the hallmarks of downtown employment, meant that or Almaden Boulevard, a wide street that is part downtown San Jose could not establish itself as a urban downtown, part corporate office park. San traditional central business district (CBD). Jose's downtown captured several million square

In contrast to the popular narrative that technology feet of new class-A office space, but this remained

APRIL 2013 9

SAN JOSE

1 "Catalyst for Change - A History of Civic Plazas in

San Jose," Dolores Mellon, 2006, Redevelopment

Agency of the City of San Jose

2 Macy's attempted to buy locally-owned Hart's De­

partment Store. But at the time, the family owners of

Hart's determined that their store was too profitable

and the land too valuable to sell. Hart's lasted 102

years and closed for good in 1968.

10 A PRIL 2013

a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions of square feet built in office parks and corporate campuses

throughout Silicon Valley.

An ongoing challenge throughout these years was

direct competition from the corporate campuses

which were surrounded by seas of free parking and

which many employers preferred. Downtown sought

to compete on suburban terms by building significant

parking, but it was not successful.

A second overarching challenge for downtown

has been its limited leasable area within the allowable building envelope. The airport flight

path limits a building 's height, the high water table

limits underground parking, and the high parking

expectation (three per thousand square feet) requires

significant space for car storage. A typical office

building might have three levels of parking below ground, a lobby and retail on the ground floor, fi ve

floors of parking above and then eleven floors of office. This sample 17-story building has eight total

floors of parking.

This is not to say that San Jose has not been

highly attractive to technology companies, including Cisco, Brocade and eBay. However, these companies

have been locating in North San Jose rather than

downtown. Adobe, which arrived in downtown in 1996, is a notable exception - one that required $35 million in subsidies from the redevelopment agency.

Despite criticism of such subsidies - and the insular

design of the headquarters - Adobe did repay the

RDA $11.3 million (per their agreement).

In recent years. thanks to inexpensive space and

historic buildings, downtown has begun to attract startups like Pinger and co-working facilities like NextSpace, which cater to entrepreneurs and

small firms. Downtown now boasts more than 80

technology companies. Since the return of city hall

in 2005, the story of downtown as a job center is far

from over.

Retail leaves and doesn't come back Like many historic downtowns in the United States,

downtown San Jose was the city's primary shopping

district through World War II. Saturdays were the

busiest, when farmers and visitors from outside the

area came to do their shopping. First Street was the principal commercial street, starting with J.C. Penney

at Santa Clara and heading south to include Blum's,

Woolworth's, Hale Brothers, Goldeen's and Sears,

Roebuck and Co. south of San Carlos. Another major

retail destination was Hart's, a large, locally owned

department store at Santa Clara and Market, which wasfoundedin1866.

Downtown retail began to decline in the 1950s.

Most significantly, the city council reversed its policy of opposing large-scale retail development outside

of downtown, which allowed for the development of

Valley Fair a few miles west of downtown in 1956.1

The anchor tenant for Valley Fair was Macy's, which

had first opened in the Bay Area in 1947 and almost

opened in downtown San Jose shortly thereafter. 2

In the 1950s and 1960s, shopping centers began

opening everywhere but downtown. Places like Town

and Country, Eastridge and Vallco Fashion Park were established as major regional centers, while every new neighborhood had cheap orchard land that

was converted into a small shopping center with a

supermarket and a dozen or more stores.

Over the course of about 15 years starting in 1956,

retailers led an exodus from which downtown has

never recovered. All of the major department stores

closed (Hart 's in 1968 after 102 years in business. J.C. Penney in 1972) or moved to one of the new malls . The retailers that remained were primarily furniture

and jewelry stores. Many of those who continued to shop in downtown had far less discretionary

income than those who frequented the surrounding suburban areas.

For years, the city actively tried to bring major

retail players back. Yet the owners of the very

same shopping malls that had helped undermine downtown shopping were the ones who fought the

perceived new competition when the redevelopment

agency sought to bring downtown retail back.

Two examples illustrate the different challenges of

bringing back retail. First is the construction of the

Pavilion shopping and entertainment center in 1989, the most notable attempt to inject life into downtown shopping. The RDA put up $10 million of the $30

million cost to construct the building. Although the

Pavilion aimed to be a high-end shopping center (the

lease with the developers called for a mix of tenants

that "shall equal or exceed " the quality of stores at Stanford Shopping Center and other upscale malls). it

attracted few shoppers. had the wrong mix of tenants

and lacked the planned-for anchors at its north and

south ends. The developer subsequently abandoned

the project. In addition to the mall 's design flaws.

downtown simply had too few workers. tourists or

high-income shoppers to make the Pavilion a success. By the late 1990s, the interior of the 27,500-square­

foot center had found new life as a server farm , with city officials eager to capitalize on the fiber-optic line

running directly under the building.

Second, in the late 1990s, the city and the RDA

began working with Palladium Company, a New

York developer, to master plan four key downtown

sites (including around St. James Park) with 2. 7

THE URBANIST \

Even into the late 1950s and 60s, downtown

remained the largest shopping district in

the county. The scene on South 1st Street is

shown at right.

THE URBANIST

million square feet of office, retail and housing. This

billion-dollar deal fell through in early 2002 when

the developer pulled out. While the failure was

blamed on the still-sluggish economy, the developer's

decision was also affected by the development of

Santana Row, a high-end shopping center that re­

creates an urban shopping experience with sidewalk

cafes and a "park once" strategy. Located across

the street from the Valley Fair Mall (4 miles east of downtown), Santana Row was successful in attracting

the high-end national and international retailers that

city officials had long targeted for downtown. While

Santana Row directly hurt downtown retail efforts, its

success also proves that there is a strong desire for

a retail experience that replicates a mixed-use street

environment in Santa Clara County.

Today, downtown retail is showing signs of rebirth.

Merchants like Philz Coffee on Paseo de San Antonio demonstrate how one popular business can reshape

an entire block. Trendy Japanese retailer Muji plans

to open its first U.S. store outside of New York City and San Francisco in the Fairmont Hotel. San Pedro

Square Market is a wonderful - and thriving -food-oriented redevelopment of a historic building. But while it is unlikely that downtown San Jose will become a major retail destination, it is possible that as residents and jobs grow incrementally, the retail (including restaurants) to support those people will

follow.

Redevelopment tries everything but leaves a mixed legacy In 1981, San Jose's redevelopment agency became

the first in the state to successfully receive an exemp­

tion in state law to merge all the tax revenues from

its three redevelopment areas: downtown, North San Jose (Rincon de los Esteros) and Edenvale (an indus­

trial area to the south). This move provided the finan­

cial backing for the nearly $2 billion total investment

in downtown revitalization efforts from the 1980s until the redevelopment agency's closure in 2012.

The strategy seemed brilliant. Under

redevelopment law, the RDA was allowed to take

the "increment" in property tax growth and use

that revenue stream as a backing to sell bonds to

build infrastructure or make other key investments

to support revitalization. Since North San Jose and

Edenvale were primarily industrial business parks,

the infrastructure needs were minimal. And because they were largely undeveloped before becoming

redevelopment areas, the property tax take of the RDA was very high. This allowed the RDA to take the

property tax revenues from these other areas and

invest them in downtown. The irony here is that investment downtown was

enabled by opening up growth in places away from

downtown, which inadvertently harmed downtown's

ability to capture a big share of the city 's overall jobs and other activities like retail or housing.

APRIL 2013 11

Downtown San Jose

Downtown San Jose today is about a square

mile that extends from Diridon Station in

the west to the "new" City Hall in the east

and from Interstate 280 in the south to

approximately Julian Street in the north.

After decades of investment, much of the

basic infrastructure of streets, transit, open

space and cultural facilities is in place. There

remains significant opportunity to add

additional development and people. Whether

the new buildings and population reinforce

downtown as a central social district (i.e.

entertainment and residents) or a central

business district (i.e. jobs) is a major question

for downtown's future.

•••• =parks and dedicated open space

- • - • =definition of boundary of

downtown in Envision 2040

Plan.

--- =Current route of VTA's 522 Rapid

bus and future Alum Rock I El

Camino Bus Rapid Transit

--- =Current VTA light rail

=Proposed BART to downtown

San Jose

=Caltrain alignment and Diridon

station

=Proposed high speed rail

alignment and station

SAN JOSE

Thus far we have described San Jose's efforts

to lure jobs and retail to downtown. Housing has been a different challenge, and one that was not

pursued as early on. Unlike other U.S. cities, San

Jose's downtown had no adjacent high-density

neighborhoods with thousands of nearby residents

to come spend money downtown. Until 1957, only

10 percent of annual construction in the city was

multifamily housing. Then, in the 1950s and 1960s, the construction of freeways and urban renewal

destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses throughout downtown. By 1990, there were few

residents in the immediate downtown and a limited

number in surrounding neighborhoods.

There was an opportunity - and a need - to build residences in and around downtown as a

way to support RDA goals of revitalizing retail. But there was limited market support for downtown

residential development. In 1980, the new head of

the redevelopment agency, Frank Taylor, sent out

a brochure to try to interest developers in building housing around St. James Park. In his previous job

in Cincinnati, such an offer would have garnered response from 10 to 15 developers competing for the opportunity to build; in San Jose there was not a

single response to the request.

Given that initial failure, there were concerns about

the strength of the downtown residential market. The

first major downtown residential project in the 1980s

was the construction of town homes along Third and

Fourth streets next to San Jose State. This was an

historic area that had been torn down in the 1960s to make way for new development. Although the RDA

claimed it initially wanted to do high-rise housing,

the market would only support town homes, given

that this was the first major market-rate housing in many years . The area was thus built out at moderate

densities, taking up a major portion of the available

land area in downtown.

In the 2000s, developers turned their attention to making downtown San Jose a place for high-

rise residential development. The timing was bad,

however, with the first major projects (Axis, The 88,

360 Residences) opening just before the market collapse in 2009-2010. While not yet providing

enough of a critical mass of residents to transform downtown into an urban neighborhood, they do create a sense of possibility for future high-quality

urban apartment living. Downtown San Jose continues to struggle with

a classic dilemma: There are not enough dining

and retail amenities to support a high demand for residential development, and there are not enough residents to support restaurants and shops. There

APRIL 2013 13

SAN JOSE

is no easy solution to this catch-22, but over time cit ies like Los Angeles and San Diego have been

able to move past it by adding people and amenities

wherever possible, until a critical mass is achieved in

their downtowns. The biggest physical legacy of the RDA may be

its investments in streets, plazas, and open spaces.

The RDA built Cesar Chavez Park with its tree-lined

pathways, established the pedestrian-oriented Paseo de San Antonio and partially restored the diagonal

paths in St. James Park. And when the Army Corps

of Engineers wanted to turn the Guadalupe River

into a wholly concrete flood channel , the RDA got them to abandon the plan and instead developed the

Guadalupe River Park. Today, San Jose residents are divided about the

RDA's legacy. The agency is criticized for pushing out

existing businesses in order to deliver a blank slate to

new investors. It is also criticized for oversubsidizing private development, which some say drove up

land prices to the point that development was not

financially viable without RDA subsidies . Still others

argue that the RDA's approach was too formulaic -

pursuing the same stale ideas of convention center plus international brand hotel , downtown shopping

pavilion, sports arena and movie theater complex that are popular in other cities - and was not creative

or inventive enough in imagining a unique role for San Jose's downtown. Finally, others point out that

just as downtown was struggling during the dot-com

bust in 2002, the RDA began shifting investments out

of downtown as part of the "Strong Neighborhoods

Initiative." While the approach may have spread redevelopment funds to more of San Jose, it did not

generate much new tax increment for the agency and further sucked energy and attention away from

the downtown. Despite these criticisms, which could

apply to much of the culture of redevelopment in

the United States, it is undeniable that the San Jose Redevelopment Agency used its unprecedented power and money to try to build downtown San Jose into an important place, and future efforts will build

on the legacy of those prior investments.

A new downtown cultural district emerges Of all the efforts at revitalization, San Jose's focus on

downtown as a destination for visitors is among its great successes. This involved two key ingredients:

effort to attract the Fairmont Hotel to the center of downtown adjacent to Cesar Chavez Park. In 1989,

the not fully complete Fairmont hosted the state American Planning Association conference, and

from the unfinished penthouse of the hotel, local and visiting planners felt as if they were on the cusp of the

long-awaited revitalization .

To a certain extent they were: The office tower at

50 West San Fernando was then under construction,

and within a few years, the RDA would invest in the

historic St. Claire and help save the Hotel De Anza (a former convent built in the 1920s) on Santa Clara

Street. They supported the Marriott and the Hyatt

adjacent to the convention center. When the Fairmont

wanted to expand, the RDA even moved the historic

Montgomery Hotel 187 feet south (at a cost of $8.6

million) to make way for the new tower. The price tag

for achieving the concentration of hotels was high:

The Fairmont alone received $38 million in subsidies in its first 10 years.

But while San Jose was able to attract a

concentration of hotels in the core of downtown, the

city upheld a moratorium on new hotels outside of

downtown throughout the 1980s. This attempt to control supply during the fast-growing 1980s meant that hotels opened in adjacent cities throughout the

county rather than San Jose.

The concentration of hotels was necessary to

support the convention center, which the RDA

believed should be downtown and the RDA used its powers to acquire land and help finance the

upgrading of the aging facility. In 1989, the agency

completed the McEnery Convention Center. In addition to hotels, downtown successfully

attracted key cultural destinations. The Children's

Discovery Museum, which opened in 1990, was

Mexican architect Ricardo Legoretta's first project

in the United States. The San Jose Museum of Art

added a new wing in 1991, and the Tech Museum of Innovation opened in 1998. The Cal ifornia Theatre reopened after a major rehab in 2004 ( it had been purchased by the RDA in 1985). These, in combination

with the Repertory Theatre and the 1934 Civic

Auditorium, give downtown a strong presence in

music, theater and art. In the 1980s, the City began

providing grants through its hotel tax to help build

the capacity of local cultural organizations. In sports, the HP Pavilion (the Arena) brings thou-

establishing a critical mass of international brand- sands to downtown who would not necessarily visit

name and historic hotels to support conventions and one of the other institutions. The Arena is significant

building or rehabilitating anchor cultural venues such on several levels: Spatially, it is west of Highway 87 as museums.

In the early 1980s, when the Holiday Inn was the

only brand-name hotel downtown, the RDA made an

14 A PRIL 2013

and so is the first modern expression of downtown's

extension toward the Diridon Station area. It also fills

the existing downtown streets and restaurants on

The popular Friday farmers' market at San

Pedro Square has helped bring a lot more

people downtown. Photo by Aya Brackett.

3 See: www.spur.org/publications/library/article/

framingthefutureofdowntownsf03012007

THE URBANIST

THE URBANIST

game nights, being . designed intentionally to rely on

parking east of 87 to encourage patronage of down­

town restaurants and bars. For those not accustomed to downtown on a daily basis, coming on a game

night makes downtown look and feel like a lively and

exciting destination. The many visitors also help fill

the excess parking in the many downtown garages.

In the past. nightlife had been a competitive strength for downtown, though some of its successes

did not appeal to everyone. Downtown San Jose was a major center for live music in the 1970s and 1980s

and for nightclubs in the 1990s. In recent years, there

has been greater emphasis on encouraging smaller

live music venues and diversifying the after-hours options provided for residents and visitors. Except on

sports nights, there is much less downtown nightlife than there once was. Some of these larger-scale

nightclubs were pushed out by market conditions;

others were pushed out when the RDA tore out

buildings expecting higher and better uses, and some

nightclubs were closed down by the police. In recent years there has been renewed growth

in downtown nightlife and live music. There is

opportunity to build on this, particularly due to the presence of San Jose State University and the role of students in helping anchor live music districts

like Sixth Street in Austin, Texas. But while SJSU is

downtown 's single largest anchor and activity center,

it has never become enough of a source of identity for

the downtown. This is due in part to it being largely

a commuter school without a student neighborhood. Were some of the campus parking garages replaced

with student housing, the campus would be livelier

and downtown would benefit from the spillover.

Today, there are signs of a more organic resurgence of urban life in downtown. lstACT Silicon

Valley and the San Jose Downtown Association have

long promoted the SoFA (South of First Area) district

as a center for arts. San Jose Jazz and local music promoters are reprogramming multiple downtown

venues for live music. The most recent pieces of civic infrastructure are the 2003 Martin Luther King

Library and Richard Meier's city hall , which opened in 2005. While city hall was a long overdue statement from the city, the library project is arguably more

significant in the attempt to reshape downtown as a

social district. By being a literal connection between the downtown and the university (one can enter from

the street or from the center of SJSU), the library is also an important resource for the growing yet small downtown residential community.

Cultural attractions, from museums to clubs, have been a real success. They draw both residents and tourists, and they draw people to downtown for

reasons other than work. This is an area of strength

for the city to build on.

Looking ahead Over three decades, planners and decision makers

in San Jose worked against the broader tide of suburbanization and decentralization, trying every

downtown-revitalization strategy in the planning profession's toolbox.

Planners sometimes speak about the contrast

between central business districts and central social

districts.3 Traditional central business districts are

primarily places of work while central social districts

bring people together for living, recreating, shopping and cultural attractions. The reality is that downtowns

are rarely only one or the other. Most downtowns have combinations of uses and serve a variety of

purposes. Downtown San Jose has the potential to

attract more jobs, more retail, more students, more

visitors and more housing. Planners may not be able

to control the ultimate mix. It will not likely become

a traditional central business district, but downtown San Jose can be a place with many more jobs and

should be an important urban node - potentially the central social district and primary urban center - of the South Bay.

·As SPUR looks ahead to its work in downtown

San Jose, we offer the following lessons from recent

history:

Respect what you have and build on it. Too much of downtown's indigenous culture did not receive the

support or respect it should have and was therefore

lost.

Focus investment in a narrower area so there is a sense of completion. Too much of downtown still

suffers from a lack of connectivity, as attractions and

subareas feel diffuse and limited in scale.

Limit growth elsewhere. Downtown's potential

will always be constrained if other areas of the city

remain the focus for most new development -

particularly jobs.

Downtown today has the basic infrastructure of an

urban center, but it lacks sufficient population in the form of jobs, residents or visitors. Bringing the

downtown to life remains the major impetus behind

the next phase of revitalization. SPUR is excited to join with so many others who

are taking on the daunting but essential challenge of creating a central urban place within a region eager

to embrace its urban future. •

APRIL 2013 15

INTRODUCING ...

New SPUR Board Members

16 APRIL 2013

Geoff Gibbs Of Counsel, Hanson Bridgett Geoff Gibbs' years as a big-firm

attorney, in-house counsel, government lawyer and business development executive have

equipped him with a broad array of tools to solve clients' complex

legal problems.

Before joining Hanson Bridgett,

Geoff started his career as an

associate at O'Melveny & Myers

in their Los Angeles office. He then served as in-house

Ed Harrington Ed Harrington was general

manager of the San Francisco

Public Utilities Commission

(SFPUC) until his retirement in

September 2012. The SFPUC provides water to 2.5 million

customers in the San Francisco Bay Area, along with sewer

and stormwater services in San

Francisco and hydroelectric and solar power generation for

municipal purposes in the city.

The SFPUC has 2,300 employees

counsel and director of business

development for Hughes Space

and Communications. Geoff was

chief counsel to U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Braun and

was responsible for judiciary,

telecommunications, labor and military affairs. He was California

state director for Clinton for

President in 1992. He also served

as special counsel to the California

State Assembly. In addition,

Geoff was the director of global business development for The

and an operating budget of $800

million and is in the middle of a

$4.6 billion rebuild of the water system.

During the 4-1/2 years that

Ed was general manager of the

SFPUC, he was also the chair of the Water Utility Climate Alliance, composed of 10 large

water utilities in the United States

with 45 million customers and

focused on providing leadership

and collaboration on climate

change issues affecting water

Walt Disney Company.

Geoff serves as a commissioner

on the San Francisco Bay

Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC). He is also

a member of the YMCA of the East Bay board of directors.

Geoff holds an M.B.A from the University of California, Los

Angeles; a J.D. from the University

of California, Berkeley; and a B.A.

from Harvard University. Geoff was a 1985 Rhodes Scholar.

utilities and the customers they

serve. From 1991 to 2008, Ed

was the controller for the City

and County of San Francisco,

managing the City's budget,

payroll, accounting and auditing

programs. As controller, he started the City Services Auditor

function, which provides audit,

performance management and

strategic planning services to city departments.

THE URBANIST

I I

THE URBANIST

Vijay Kumar Vice President and Bay Area

Manager, CH2MHILL

Vijay Kumar focuses on promot­ing the sustainable growth of

communities using innovative

and creative solutions to the

transportation and utility needs

of the communities. Currently, Vijay is vice president and Bay

Area manager of CH2HILL, an

employee-owned global engineer­ing and project delivery com­

pany with 30,000 people. For the

Susan Leal Chief Strategy Officer and Senior

Vice President for Water, North

America, AECOM

Susan Leal is chief strategy officer

and senior vice president for

water, North America at AECOM.

She is a water utility expert and

author specializing in identifying

realistic and creative solutions to

the water-related challenges.

Susan recently concluded two

years as a senior fellow of the

Advanced Leadership Initiative at

Hydra Mendoza Education and Family Services

Advisor to Mayor Edwin Lee

Commissioner, San Francisco

Board of Education

Hydra Mendoza is a strong advo­

cate and supporter of public edu­

cation. A parent of two children in public schools. a former preschool teacher and an education advi­sor. Hydra has been a co-chair of her children's school site council (SSC), vice-president of the Par­

ent Teacher Association (PTA) and

fourth year in a row, CH2HILL has

been named one of the "World's

Most Ethical Companies" by the

Ethisphere Institute. He was awarded XBG Synergy Award for

his outstanding contribution to

the company.

Vijay has a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and masters

degree in civil/environmental engineering. He is a registered

professional engineer in the

State of California. He is acting as

executive sponsor of the Conges-

Harvard University. As part of her

fellowship, she co-authored Run­

ning Out of Water, a proactive

book focused on solutions to

our looming water crisis. She

continues to serve as an associ­

ate of the School of Engineering

and Applied Sciences at Harvard.

She is a member of the advisory

board of the Department of Civil

and Environmental Engineering

at UC Berkeley, where she also

received her B.A. and J.D. Ms. Leal

also sits on the board of governors

an active classroom volunteer. She

has served on key policy-changing

committees for the San Francisco

Unified School District, which

includes the Public Education

Leadership Project, an innovative joint effort of the Harvard School

of Business and Graduate School

of Education. Hydra was the former executive

director and a founding member

of Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco. a national organi­

zation that engages parents and

tion Management Working Group

in San Francisco that is developing

traffic congestion relief strategies

supported by the Business Council

on Climate Change. Vijay is an active member of the

Water Policy Board of SPUR, and

he is also active in the Water Com­

mittee of the .Bay Area Council. He

currently serves as the co-chair of the national board of the City

Hall Fellows, an organization that engages diverse, talented young

people in the work of cities.

of the Savannah Ocean Exchange

and the board of Futures Without

Violence. As former general manager

of San Francisco's Public Utili­

ties Commission, Susan led the

efforts for a dramatic upgrade of

the Bay Area's water system and

outdated wastewater system. She

previously served two terms as

the elected treasurer of the City

and County of San Francisco and

as a member of the San Francisco Board of Stlpervisors.

c~mmunity members to s'lfppor.t,

promote and improve public

education. In 2005, Hydra was

fir.st appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom to his Policy Council on

Children, Youth and Families and later as his education advisor and liaison to the San Francisco Uni­

fi~d s·chool District. which was a newly created senior-staff -level position in the Mayor's Office.

Hyd.r:_a continues her work under Mayor Edwin Lee as his education

and family services advisor.

APRIL 2013 17

INTRODUCING: NEW SPUR BOARD MEMBERS

18 APRIL 2013

Rich Peterson Founder and Principal, Goodyear

Peterson Rich is a founder and principal of

Goodyear Peterson, LLC, a San

Francisco-based public affairs firm

that advises an array of interna­

tional and local clients on impor­

tant political and communications

matters. Prior to Goodyear Peter­son, Rich was an active investor in ,

and manager of, multi-family real

estate in the Silicon Valley and re­

mains a licensed real estate broker

Rebecca Rhine Executive Director, Municipal Executives Association

Rebecca Rhine is the executive

director of the Municipal

Executives Association, a role in which she has helped the

organization redefine its mission, vision and core values. She leads

the organization in an ongoing

dialogue with the mayor, elected

officials, the media and the public about public policy and services.

Rebecca has over 20 years

Paul Sedway Paul Sedway has been a member of SPUR and an urban planning

consultant for over 50 years. He has served on its board and

Executive Committee, is currently co-chair of its advisory council

and was co-chair of its Regional

Planning Committee. He serves on

the Mayor's Market Street Rede­

sign Advisory Committee and on

the Executive Committee of the

San Francisco District Council of the Urban Land Institute.

in the State of California.

Rich has served in important volunteer, oversight and fiduciary

roles on behalf of the City of San

Francisco. From December 2007

to May 2010, Rich served as an ap­pointed trustee to the San Francis­

co Employees' Retirement System (SFERS), acting as elected board

president in his final year. From

January 2004 through October

2007, he served as an appointed

commissioner to the San Francisco

Redevelopment Agency.

of experience working with

both public and private sector

labor unions including extensive

experience in collective bargaining, organizing, public

policy, communications, mediation

and arbitration, administration, staff supervision and short and long-range strategic planning.

Prior to her role at the MEA,

Rebecca was the assistant national executive director for public policy

and strategic planning for the

American Federation of Television

Paul was the founder and prin­

cipal of Sedway Cooke Associates, at one time the largest planning­

only consulting firm in the nation.

Locally, the firm undertook the

first major planning studies for Hunters Point Shipyard, China­

town, downtown, Geary Boulevard

and environs, and Alcatraz Island,

as well as the San Francisco and

Bay Region ocean coastline.

Paul served as national vice

president of the American Insti­tute of Planners (AIP) and was on

Recognized as among the most productive political organizers

in the Bay Area, Rich has as­

sisted on behalf of a multitude of candidates and ballot measures

over the course of the last eight

years. Prior to founding Good­

year Peterson, Rich served as a Finance Committee chair during

both of San Francisco Mayor Gavin

Newsom's mayoral campaigns and

was president of Mayor Newsom's

Inaugural Committee following his

reelection in 2007.

and Radio Artists (AFTRA). She

also held leadership posts in the

Service Employees International

Union Local 1000 and the

American Federation of Teachers.

Rebecca holds a B.A. in administration of justice and

an M.S. in human resources management from San Francisco's

Golden Gate University.

the national board of directors of

the American Planning Associa­tion (APA). Elected to the inaugu­

ral class of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certi­

fied Planners in 1999, he received the National Distinguished Service

Award from APA and was named

"Planner of the Year" by its Cali­

fornia Chapter.

THE URBANIST

THE URBANIST

Douglas Shoemaker President, Mercy Housing

California

Doug currently serves as president

of Mercy Housing California, one

of the largest nonprofit housing

providers in the state. Mercy de­

velops, manages and provides ser­

vices to senior, family and support­

ive housing throughout California .

Prior to Mercy, Doug served as the

director of the Mayor's Office of

Housing (MOH), San Francisco's

housing finance and community

Molly Turner Head of Public Policy, Airbnb Molly joined Airbnb in 2011 as the

first employee on the Public Policy

team. As an advocate for the

Airbnb community, Molly handles

government and legislative af­

fairs for the company, which has

a presence in over 33,000 cities

worldwide. She has co-founded

three coalitions, including the Bay

Area Sharing Economy Coali-

tion, the New York Peer Economy

Coalition and the National Short

Francesca Vietor Environment Program Officer,

San Francisco Foundation Francesca serves as the program

officer for the environment at

the San Francisco Foundation.

focusing on efforts to improve

the environmental health

and well-being of vulnerable communities, building community

resilience in the face of climate

change and protecting the

natural environment. Francesca

is also a commissioner on the

development agency. He led vari­

ous key mayoral initiatives there,

including the launch of HOPE SF,

San Francisco's groundbreaking

effort to revitalize five distressed

public housing sites into mixed

income communities.

As senior staff to the mayor.

Doug led a wide range of inter­

agency housing policy work, in­cluding the city's Five-Year Plan to

End Homelessness and the launch

of the city's effort to address

homelessness among emancipated

Term Rental Advocacy Center.

She is currently chair of the Policy Committee for the Bay Area Shar­

ing Economy Coalition.

At Airbnb, Molly also man-

ages research initiatives. such as

economic and housing impact

studies, as well as various joint

studies with academic institutions.

She manages partnerships with

municipal government agen-

cies, nonprofits, local merchants

associations and tourism bureaus throughout the world. One such

San Francisco Public Utilities

Commission, where she leads

policy-making for the City and

County of San Francisco's water,

wastewater and municipal power

services.

Before these roles, Francesca

was executive director of the

Chez Panisse Foundation. where she advanced nutrition

education and food justice issues.

Previously, she was president

of the Urban Forest Council,

president of the Commission

foster youth. He directed the de­

velopment of housing plans for the

Candlestick Point/Hunters Point

Shipyard Plan, Treasure Island and

the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan. Prior to joining MOH, Doug

served as deputy director of the

Non-Profit Housing Association of

Northern California. Doug serves

on the b0ard of governors for California Housing Consortium and

the Northern California Leadership

Council for Enterprise Community

Partners.

partnership was Airbnb's recent

Super Storm Sandy relief efforts with the New York City Mayor's

Office.

Prior to Airbnb, Molly worked

in San Francisco city government,

conducting an analysis of Com­

munity Benefit Districts for the

Office of Economic and Workforce

Development. Molly holds an M.A.

in urban planning from Harvard

University and a B.A. from Dart­

mouth College.

on the Environment and chair

of the Mayor's Environmental

Transition Team. She has worked

for several nonprofits, including

the Rainforest Action Network

and Greenpeace, and she has

served on many boards, including

the Center for Environmental

Health, Commonweal and the

Environmental Working Group.

Francesca holds a Bachelor of

Sciences degree from Georgetown

University and she pens a blog for

The Huffington Post.

APRIL 2013 19

INTRODUCING: NEW SPUR BOARD MEMBERS

20 APRIL 2013

Fran Weld Director of Real Estate, San

Francisco Giants

Fran joined the San Francisco

Giants' Mission Rock team in 2011.

A Boston native turned Giants

fan, Fran started her career in the

American League with the Red

Sox's Ballpark Planning and Real

Estate Development Group. After

a successful bid to rescue Fenway

Park and its surrounding neigh­

borhood from the wrecking ball, Fran joined Struever Bros. Eccles

Allison Williams, FAIA Architect

In a career spanning more than

30 years in corporate practice,

Allison Williams has designed significant large-scale projects

in the San Francisco Bay Area,

nationally and internationally. The breadth of her work spans civic,

corporate and cultural facilities,

places for research and education,

and mixed-use and high-density developments.

Allison's studio design leader-

& Rouse in Baltimore. At Struever, Fran led the sustainability and

historic preservation depart­ments of the vertically integrated

construction and development company. Her projects included

the rehabilitation of the Durham

Athletic Park, the Rose Bowl in

Pasadena and the entitlements

of the public-private Southwest

Waterfront in Washington , D.C. An

active member of the Urban Land

Institute, SPUR, the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition, and

ship has influenced the work of both Skidmore Owings & Merrill

(1980-1997) and Perkins+Will (1997-2012) where, with consistent

recognition by her professional peers, she evolved to partnership

levels. She has strategically direct­

ed design, inspired and mentored teams in hands-on collaboration

and emerged as a creative talent.

She was a recipient of the Loeb

Fellowship at the Harvard Gradu­

ate School of Design. She received

both her Masters of architecture

the SF Bicycle Coalition, Fran is

a former member of the boards

of Preservation Massachusetts and Friends of Fenway Studios.

She holds a B.S. in physics from

the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, and an M.B.A. with a

concentration in public manage­

ment from Stanford's Graduate

School of Business.

and Bachelor's in the practice of

art at the University of California,

Berkeley. Williams was elevated to Fellow in the American Institute of

Architects in 1997 and served on

Perkins+Will's board of directors

from 2010-2012. She is a member of the Harvard Design Magazine

Practitioners board and past-chair

of Public Architecture's board of

directors.

THE URBANIST

- -- ------------

~MFAC ()SPUR

Thank You Thank you to everyone who joined in support of the 2013 Good Government Awards on Tuesday, March 19, 2013 at San Francisco City Hall's North Light Court. SPUR would like to thank all winners and nominees for their outstanding leadership!

Visit SPUR's blog to learn about our incredible winners spur.org/blog

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URBAN FIELD NOTES

Case Study #56:

City as Canvas On the streets of downtown San Jose,

even the most ordinary surface can

become a work of art.

Caseworker: Cecilia Lavelle

We live in urban environments dominated by blank

surfaces. From sidewalks to utility boxes, these

surfaces have the potential to evolve from their

original functions and become canvases for promoting

local artists. In doing so, they can help cultivate

community and beautify neighborhoods. San Jose,

among other cities, has been utilizing these spaces in

partnership with a number of organizations.

The Art Box Project collaborates with community

and local artists to transform utility boxes into works

of art. The Property Based Improvement District

(PBID) sponsored the photo-wrapped utility box

22 APRIL 2013

concept and began implementing it downtown in

2011. San Jose's Downtown Foundation has been

instrumental in transforming the city's streets: In

2003, it started the Downtown Doors project, a public

youth art exhibit and competition involving local

high schools. Selected student works were enlarged

and installed on blank surfaces of downtown San

Jose. Projects like these have demonstrated that

underutilized urban surfaces have the ability to

capture the personality of a neighborhood, beautify

the surrounding environment and foster a greater

sense of community and civic pride.

Fl Dana and Naglee Streets, in front of the Rose Garden Library: Artist Lacey Bryant recreates the

flowers and bees that grace the

nearby Rose Garden.

Ill Park and Naglee, across from the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum: Artist Michelle Waters' Egyptian­

themed utility box adorns a Rose

Garden corner with the Egyptian

symbols of life and rebirth.

THE URBANIST

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THE URBANIST

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II Taylor and Seventh, Japantown: Taiko drums and maneki-neko

cats. The artist, Yurika Chiba, is

a Taiko drummer, and his eye­

catching painting brightens up this

Japantown corner.

E South First and East San Carlos: "Elder" by artist Jessica Graef from

Pioneer High School.

D East San Carlos and South First streets: Stone and brick walls

appear to be holding up Original

Joe's, the classic Italian restaurant

that's graced this corner since 1956.

D East Santa Clara and Second streets: A mirror image of the

actual Cheesesteak Shop across the

street.

E Meridian and Willow streets: Perky coffee cups by artist Kristin

Abbott, installed at a busy Willow

Glen intersection, make you want to

partake in an afternoon pick-me-up.

m South First and East San Carlos: "Mailbox" by artist Sun Min Park

from Leigh High School. •

Ceci Lavelle is an intern for SPUR San Jose.

APRIL 2013 23

MEMBER PROFILE

A Passion for Public Space

Mary Mccue

What makes a great public space? Few know better

than Mary Mccue, who, as President and CEO of

MJM Management Group, has been working to

create some of the best of them for over 20 years.

How did you first get interested in cities? I spent my early childhood in

Buffalo, New York's second most populous city, and even

then was fascinated by how

architecture and public spaces

danced together. The Olmsted

Park and Parkway System

touches many parts of the city.

It was created in the late 1800s by landscape architect Frederick

Law Olmsted and was the nation 's first system of public parks and

parkways. I recognized how this

system connected the city's

urban fabric and how accessible public places for recreation, cultural events and relaxation built a sense of community. My

interest in urban environments

intensified after arriving in San

Francisco. I was captivated by how the Flood Building's brilliant

architecture energized, activated and embraced the streetscape. I studied how the Embarcadero

Center transformed that location

and the public participation

process that shaped the project.I

bring my lifelong passion about

and fascination with public

spaces to work every day at MJM

24 APRIL 2013

Management Group (MJMMG).

How did you first learn about/get involved with SPUR? I was fortunate to work with

gifted people who served as mentors when I began working at

Yerba Buena Gardens. People like

Helen Sause, the late Red Kernan

and Cathy Pickering all pointed

me to SPUR for its research and analysis of Yerba Buena and

other urban environments, and encouraged me to participate in

dialogue that would help improve

our public spaces. It's where

I met former SPUR Executive Director Jim Chappell and

whom I continue to work with today. SPUR connects all sectors

involved in designing, managing

and activating public spaces

- community, city agencies, developers, private property

owners and nonprofits - and its work has changed the way we

think about urban living.

You're devoted to making urban public spaces thrive. What are

the essential ingredients to make that happen?

Every public space has its own

Placemaker Mary Mccue (left) and her

favorite book about cities.

character, style and culture

that must be accounted for in planning, activating, operating

and maintaining a site. Public spaces should be accessible to

all and celebrate diversity to

achieve the greater social good.

Defining community objectives -documenting and understanding a community 's unique needs - is

critical to a location's long-term

success. Everyone must win . You

must apply a holistic approach to

activate and re-envision public

spaces so they are energized, comfortable, clean, safe and

sociable. There also must be a

long-term operational focus. The

architecture must be adaptable

to different uses over time.

You must consider preventive

maintenance planning; careful

yet creative event production management; staff development

that stresses a balance between initiative and responsibility; and

rigorous training programs to

reinforce the need for thoughtful

planning, documentation and fiscal practices. Communication,

coordination and preparing for future change are essential to

long-term success.

What are some common mistakes cities make in attempting to activate public space?

Public spaces should have many

moods and activities and not be

limited to a narrow range of uses.

They should be designed so that every time someone returns,

the experience they're seeking will be positive. That could be

a quiet moment or attending a

festival. We've been going to

civic places for the same reasons for hundreds of years - to enjoy

a performance, picnic, play

games or read a book. We're

doing the same things today

with modern twists. We might

download a book, rent a game

there or purchase food on site. It's important that cities design

spaces with flexible use areas and adapt to changing times to propel

a diversity of activities.

What city have you not worked

with that you'd be eager to (and why)?

Detroit. It needs and wants public places to underpin its urban wellness and catalyze

its ability to heal. Campus

Martius Park in downtown was

.redesigned and has become an active civ ic gathering point for

residents with gardens, lawns and entertainment. I met a man who was reviving an abandoned

factory now surrounded by

greenery, who said that creating

active public spaces at the site

would add considerable value to

the community. The community is

open to new ideas - people are

THE URBANIST

ready to start over - and we can

make a dramatic difference there.

I'm sure this an impossible

question, but what is your

favorite urban public space?

I truly love all the public spaces

I'm involved with. Every time I'm in

one of them, it 's my favorite place.

Two others stand out. Cazenovia

Park, called "Caz" locally, harkens

to my roots growing up in Buffalo.

It's nearly 190 acres of natural

beauty with something for

everyone - swimming, basketball,

gardens, events, stone bridges

and historic architecture. In Paris,

I love how the nearly 56 acres

of Luxembourg Gardens are

designed and used. There are

intimate settings and expansive

areas for large gatherings. People

of all ages using the park are

comfortable and joyful.

Favorite city?

Of course, it's San Francisco.

The community cares. It has a

respect for design and public

processes. By being involved

in our neighborhoods, we

improve our public spaces. For

example, Yerba Buena Gardens

downtown is a gem because its

activities and designs are based

on community input. It's why

there's the Children's Creativity

Museum, extensive play areas, an

outdoor amphitheater for youth

performances and public events,

and a bowling alley and an ice­

skating rink.

Favorite book (or work of art or

film) on cities?

William "Holly " Whyte's City:

Rediscovering the Center is a

brilliant study on how people

use urban spaces. His film,

The Social Life of Small Urban

Spaces, is a study of what causes people to gather in certain public

places and not others. Both are

witty and wise and inform us of

people's behaviors, which we can

incorporate into urban design. •

NEW MEMBERS

New Business Members

SITELAB urban studio

Cubic Transportation Systems, Inc.

Caltrain

Sam Trans

San Mateo Transportation Authority

Sterling Bank & Trust

Trumark Companies

New Members Lisa Marie Kalmbach

Steph Kawachi

Jacqueline Armada Helen Keomany

Lindsay Baker Haena Kim

Eric Baldosser Meryl Klein

Ken Barnhart Lev Kushner

Tim Bates Katherine Kwok

Erik Battista Jonathan Lachance

lmron Bhatti Marissa LaMagna

Patricia Boomer Stuart Law

Jeff Brandenburg Kate Lazarus

Jeff Brink Arnold Lee

Serena Callaway Carole Leita Clayton Carlson Heather Lerner

Eric Chen Marianna Leuschel

Patrick Co Aubra Levine

Jonathan Cohen Suzanne Levine

Sarah Coleman James R. Lightbody

Stephanie M. Cowles Catherine Lim

Ruth Cueto Garcia Emily Lipoma

Rachel Dearborn Kathleen Livermore

Altaire Deleon John Lumea

Solenne Demarle Kurt Lutter

Alexis Dongallo Ilyse Magy

Nick Doty Armen I. Malazian

Elizabeth Dougherty Ryan Maliszewski

Todd Edelman Brandon Matthews

Jeffrey Fassnacht Brie Mazurek

Allison Filice Christopher McMahon

Rodney Fong Hydra Mendoza

Ritu Garg Steven Mitchel

Judy Val Gelb Amanda Moffitt

Michael Gould Leslie Molina

Sheffield Hale Zakiya Moten

lmani Hamilton Julie Navejas

Marc Haumann Anthony Negrin

Katherine He Cameron Nelson

Amanda Higbie Mary Newson

Carol and Todd High Caitlin O'Connor

Gloria C. Hoo Ted Olsson

Amanda Howell Jason Pellegrini

Amy Huang Leslye Penticoff

Doneliza Joaquin Gregory Polchow

Stuart Jones Sterling Poole

Barney Popkin

Nicole Powell

Shanti Prasad

Angel Quicksey

John Rahaim

Lisa Rapasky

Dave Rau

Lindsey Realmuto

Michael Rice

Travis Richards

April Rinne

Donald Robertson

Dick Robinson

Michael Rocco Jason Rodrigues

Sharyn Saslafsky

Ryan Sebastian

Aaron Selverston

Mason Smith

Anna Sobolewska

William Spangler

Hanne Strandvall-Oliva

Ovrilydia Sumantri

Kathy Sutherland

Betsy Templeton

Ryan Thayer

Ahmad Thomas

Virginia Thomas

Keith Turner

Lisa Vittori

Lisa Weinzimer

Marcin Wichary

Julie Winkler

Kristin Wolff

Christopher Woodcock

Brooke Wortham-Galvin

Catherine Wright

Belle Yan

Peter Zerzan Chloe Zhang

CITY NEWS FROM AROUND THE GLOBE

Urban Drift

Reading Between the Lines

The Tube continues to celebrate

its sesquicentennial in style. Transport for London has

teamed up with Penguin to

create a series of 12 books, each inspired by a different

Tube line, to commemorate

the 150th anniversary of the London Underground. A select · group of culturally sophisticated

straphangers was selected to

share their experiences of the English capital in 15,000 words

or less. Each book is available for £4.99 (about the price of a Tube ride). shop.tfl.gov.uk/ design­

collections/ tube150.html

the meager transit options in

their city, created a fake train

station complete with vendors, music, crowds and imaginary trains running on a regular basis.

Says Anna McMaster, one of three

Florida Atlantic University urban

planning graduate students who

organized the two-day event,

"We just wanted people to start talking about it." The first in a

series of simulated train "arrivals"

aimed to show people how great

it would be to have trains running .

McMaster explains that it was her group's intent for the public to mistakenly get its hopes up."We

wanted it to be a little confusing ," she says. "Once they feel that

If You Imagine It, They Will Come disappointment. they will be like

Public transportation in Miami 'Well , why don't we have this? '" is pretty dismal. How dismal?

In March, students from a local

university, in hopes of bolstering

26 A PRIL 2013

"Miami's Public Transit Is So Bad, Advocates Have Been Reduced to Building Fake Train Stations," by Sarah l askow. Grist.org, 3/13/13

~ The Cantilever Is Too Extreme

Belgian photographer Filip

Dujardin designs virtual buildings

using Google SketchUp, a 3-D modeling tool, and Photoshop.

At first glance, the photographs

of these buildings ( like the one at

left), seem almost "normal " if very

modern; their structural implausi­

bility is revealed only upon close examination. The laws of physics,

gravity and material are ignored in service of these exquisite

architectural compositions. www.

filipdujardin.be

The Nation's Infrastructure Is

Crumbling a Little Bit Less

America 's roads, bridges, water

systems and energy networks have long been in poor repair.

The American Society of Civil

Engineers, which releases a report

every four years that evaluates

the problem in a letter-grade

format, awarded the nation a D in its last report. published in

2009. The latest Report Card for

America's Infrastructure offers an

unexpected bit of good news -though it's not that good, as the

grade has merely inched

up to a D+. It is the first time in

the 15 years they 've been giving it,

that the grade has improved.

"Smalt Infrastructure Gains Are Observed in Engi­

neering Report," by John Schwartz, New Yark Times, 3/19/2013

~ Food on the Grid

Based in Sweden, Atelier Food links food with sustainability,

energy, culture, urban development and transportation

and seeks new solutions and innovation through food . Created

by international chefs and leaders in communication , science, culture

and business, the project explores

global solutions and innovation

through cooking, food labs and

the irresistible photographs of Petter Johansson (below).

pjadad.com/atelier-food-still-life

THE URBANIST

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