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Thursday, May 17, 2012
Regional Focus: January 2007
Implementing Urbanism
A “live, work, walk” vision of downtown Stockton is coming into focus
Story by Wes Sander
Dan Cort became the new mayor of Pacific Grove this year, but much of his life will always be in Stockton.
Stockton is where Cort came into his own as a restorer of historic buildings, and the place he still dreams of transforming into a vibrant downtown neighborhood with a mix of economic backgrounds among its residents.
Cort attended the University of the Pacific after growing up in San Francisco, and soon realized downtown Stockton held many a historic building within his financial grasp. So he began restoring Victorian houses.
Cort favors the downtown lifestyle, holding to the belief that spending money in one’s immediate neighborhood is worth every penny — even if things are more expensive than they are in outlying retail centers — because it’s a direct investment in a healthy way of life.
“I believed the day would come when enough people would move to Stockton to change the character of Stockton; that people would dream of being able to walk to their café or theater,” he says. “The one part that [Stockton planners] have missed is that they sprawled so much, and grew so large, that they lost the idea of density, not just in office, but [in] living units [too].”
Stockton has taken big strides in recent years to redevelop its downtown, bringing minor-league sports to its waterfront ballpark and arena, building a new cinema and approving plans for living accommodations in the downtown core.
As a fourth piece of the Stockton Events Center along the downtown Stockton Channel, a Sheraton Hotel is under construction by Regent Development. The hotel will be topped by two floors of condominiums.
“Stockton is on its way to development heaven.”
— Dan Cort, the Cort Companies
Meanwhile, directly across the channel on the south shore, the Grupe Co. has plans for a condominium project called South Pointe. But city officials acknowledge that Stockton has plenty of room to grow into housing that serves a cross section of its workforce.
Cort got started in Stockton by turning Victorian homes into office space and apartment units. The creation of Stockton’s Magnolia Historic District in the 1970s and ’80s was a process to which he contributed.
He has since established the Cort Companies to restore historic buildings with the aim of revitalizing downtown areas. Most of Cort’s work over the years has occurred in Stockton. Completed properties include the Kress Building, which sat empty for years and now contains the Kress Legal Center, and Cort Tower, which also sat empty for an extended period and now contains a health club. Cort points to Railroad Square, a development sparked by his company’s investment that now houses government job-training services, as a potentially useful element in helping to convert Stockton’s population into a vibrant one.
The city has already begun making inroads into diversifying its downtown population through a range of housing opportunities. In March 2005, the Hotel Stockton reopened after a decade of sitting empty and unused. The Stockton Redevelopment Agency had taken ownership of the hotel in 1999, and the city eventually joined with CFY Development of Sacramento to perform a restoration. Once the landmark that made Stockton famous, the hotel now contains 156 apartments for low- and fixed-income residents, and its rooftop terrace plays host to special events.
In addition to private investments, the project gained support from the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee and the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives Program. Following the mixed-use model that centers any downtown revitalization effort, the hotel’s ground floor contains retail storefronts, which the city is still working to fill.
There is also the Mansion House in Stockton’s northern midtown section, which contains 26 units of affordable housing in single-bedroom and studio units.
In the same neighborhood is the Silvercrest Residence with 83 units of senior housing, and on downtown’s south side, Visionary Home Builders of Stockton is constructing a revitalized neighborhood with 16 residential homes and 99 units of dense housing complemented by a new elementary school.
In November, Stockton voters approved $116 million in neighborhood-redevelopment bonds to support housing, infrastructure improvements and community services. About $26 million of that total will go toward housing alone, says Ed Chavez, Stockton’s mayor and former police chief, whose Strong Neighborhoods Initiative lays out plans for infrastructure and security improvements throughout Stockton.
“I imagine that, in another two and a half to three years, we may be able to go out and bond some more,” Chavez says, reflecting on the strength of public support for investment in the city’s neighborhoods. “The downtown will be a place where people are living, and a place where people can come for entertainment and food.”
The city’s Magnolia Advisory Group works with the California State Universities of Sacramento and Stanislaus as well as Stockton’s University of the Pacific. From their joint efforts came the city’s adoption of a revitalization strategy for the midtown area, which surrounds Stockton’s downtown core to the north and east.
The strategy specifies an aim to shape downtown Stockton according to a “live, work, walk” vision, emphasizing retail, professional and residential development built around the city’s historic identity.
“America is discovering that you shouldn’t move away from your infrastructure because you wind up building new infrastructure at tremendous cost,” says Cort. “The model is there. It’s in San Francisco, it’s back east — it’s been there for many years. Once that happens, Stockton is on its way to development heaven.”
