Civic Center: Much More Than City Hall—A Center for Public Life

(This is an edited version of an excellent suggestion posted on Riptide by architect and new Pacifican Robert Boles of Beausoleil Architects.)

I want to step back a bit to look at the idea of a civic center not as an office building for city employees—the only concept presented at Wednesday night's study session—but as a center for public life.

One of the things my wife and I have noticed in our trips around town is that the "string of pearls" aspect of Pacifica's layout makes it difficult to identify a town center—possibly a good thing for those who enjoy "country life" but annoying for those of us who like a bit of urban experience in our daily lives.  I think a lot of visitors don't even realize that Linda Mar, Vallemar, Sharp Park, Pedro Point, Pacific Manor, etc., are all one city. I wonder where I would go in Pacifica if someone said, "I'll meet you downtown."

Traditionally, small cities and towns tend to have centers, sometimes several of them, often incorporating a plaza or park adjacent to such things as civic offices, hotels, shops, cafes, and restaurants. Good town centers are meeting and gathering places, sometimes with symbols of civic pride (pier, statue, dome, cathedral), often surrounded by the highest density of land use. City centers are dense with pedestrians, bikes, active all day and into the evening. People live there; they are not just parking lots and office buildings. Think of Sonoma's town center or, closer to home, Half Moon Bay's.

I suggest that the closest thing Pacifica has to a downtown is the commercial strip of Palmetto in West Sharp Park. Of the two sites studied by the city's consultants, Palmetto is the larger of the two and has by far the most potential to help create a true civic center. A well-designed, mixed-use development there could create a real town center.

So envision this: a three- or four-story complex around a tree-lined pocket plaza, open to Palmetto on one side, an arcade to the beach on the other side, with access to city offices, hotel lobby, and multiuse assembly hall. Ringing the plaza, retail shops and cafes on the ground floor, city offices on the second floor of one wing, boutique hotel or bed-and-breakfast on the second floor of another wing, condos on upper levels, parking in the basement.

The farmers market could enliven the plaza one or two days a week. A tot lot play area in one corner would give a place for moms to hang out together. The assembly hall could be used during the day for business meetings: a few nights a week for city business, a few nights a week for movies or other programs.

The best part of the idea, perhaps: Find a developer to build it, have the city rent space. The developer gets an anchor tenant to ensure project viability and condo sales to gain a cash return; the city doesn't have to float a bond.

What are your ideas? Let's use this wonderful forum to envision our own plan for a civic center. It doesn't have to be just an office building with a parking lot out front. It can be so much more.  

ROBERT BOLES

Comments

[tim williams]

None before have managed to inspire our leaders or their management overlords to envision beyond the two dimensional reality of our self-fulfilling plight.
Perhaps you will be the one? I wish you great luck and infinite patience.
TW