Business & Tech

Sonoma State Students Envision "Downtown" Rohnert Park

Over the last year, a senior planning class has developed an extensive plan to build a new Rohnert Park.

For Steve Orlick, a professor of Environmental Studies and Planning at Sonoma State University, the reasons for many of the economic problems Rohnert Park is saddled with are clear.

Namely, Rohnert Park confronts depressing, growing commercial vacancy rates: 43.4 percent for office space, 11.6 percent for industrial and 10.8 for retail. Building permits issued are at a 10-year low, the value of homes is still bottoming out and nearly 3,000 people have fled the city in the last decade, according to data released this year by the Sonoma County Development Board and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Orlick sees it as more than a Great Recession problem, more than a product of the tanked housing market or the global economy. It’s lack of planning, he said.

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“In the beginning, all the developments were going up so fast; the city was so new, and no one thought about how to build the city for a long and prosperous future — it was about selling, and selling quick,” he said. “The ideology was when something happens, we’ll figure it out. Well, something has happened.”

Ideas festering in Orlick’s head in the decades since he’s been here prompted him to design his Senior Planning Workshop at Sonoma State around mapping out a thriving, exciting downtown area in the heart of Rohnert Park — a place that’s not dependent on the use of personal automobiles and chain store tax dollars.

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“Rohnert Park is a town that was built for the automobile, not for community,” Orlick said. “It was built during the days of cheap gasoline prices and chain stores constructed on separate sides of town than residential developments, so in order to get somewhere, you have to drive.”

Orlick pointed to the Southwest Shopping Center and the closures of Lattitude Bar and Grill and as casualties of the local economy.

“There is a cost for not having a city center,” he added. “If everything you do is related to chains that you’ll find anywhere, how can you get an attachment, a personal connection that makes you want to help make it a really great place to live?”

“As Rohnert Park approaches its 50th anniversary, I thought it would be a good time to take stock of where we are and figure out what the next 50 years is going to look like,” he said. “How is Rohnert Park going to adjust to an era where low gasoline prices are not even a memory?”

Students Envision a Downtown for Next 50 Years

Last week, 23 students from Orlick’s Senior Planning Workshop outlined two plans to build a downtown, complete with world-class restaurants, shops and locally-owned businesses, with access to public transportation, safe bike lanes and recreation activities, all in the center of Rohnert Park.

“The Rohnert Park Central Area contains a mixture of land uses with commercial being concentrated near the center along Highway 101 and residential being located along the edges primarily to the north and south. The separation of land uses creates a disconnection that leads to automobile dependency,” the students wrote in a final report that was presented at City Hall last week. 

Students outlined a plan to implement mixed-use compact development built up and not out to house all socioeconomic groups, grow more community gardens and parks concentrated around a station and underutilized sprawling parking lots, charge for parking “downtown” where shops and local businesses will flourish near State Farm Drive along Rohnert Park Expressway and increasing alternative energy uses such as solar.

“The information provided is intended to aid local officials, policy makers, and the general public on ways to create a better sense of community within the city of Rohnert Park,” the report stated. “Developing a modern, state of the art community center, establishing community gardens in designated sites, educating the public in organic gardening and improving the existing pedestrian and bicycle paths throughout the study area are methods outlined in the element.”

One plan identified that are unattractive, unmaintained and largely vacant — such as on State Farm Drive, 49er Pet and Padre Shopping Center; but students said they see an opportunity to redevelop the areas into open space, recreation and new businesses, teeming with life and productivity.

"One thing we proposed is closing down the southern portion of State Farm Drive and turning that down to a pedestrian street," said Diana Meehan, a graduating senior in Environmental Studies and Planning. 

"Our ultimate goal was to create an identifiable, vibrant downtown area in Rohnert Park that doesn’t exist right now," she said. "With , we see a lot of potential there, especially since the railroad tracks could be the new ."

"We also wanted to identify sustainable modes of transportation focused less on automobiles, by providing alternatives that make it easy, safe and affordable to get around."

Furthermore, the report emphasized letting visitors know what's here by better maintaining signage in Rohnert Park on bus stops and city attractions, such as the and .

Another plan addressed transportation, walkability and land uses her, focusing on the vast amount of vacant storefronts in shopping centers, with large distances in between them, making it increasingly difficult to walk, bike or take public transportation to access local shops. Rohnert Park also lacks a centralized location for recreation, entertainment and general public gathering, which depletes the sense of community, students reported.

"It's difficult to find a defined city hub — a place to hang out and go out at night, to feel connected and a sense of community," said student Matthew Wilcox. "We want to identify relationships that bring investment in the community ... create an identifiable main street and make a place where people want to stay." 

Although The plans addressed financing and public policies that could throw a wrench into many of these ideas, it is nevertheless, aimed at starting a public discourse and tackling an issue that the elected officials here have no doubt thought about.

Editor’s note: Stay tuned next week for a Rohnert Park Patch report on what the city is doing to address some of these issues, many of which are in their infancy stages. View the student's reports in their entirety to the right. 


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