The city of Napa is spending a year and a half and more than three-quarters of a million dollars on a plan to transform its under-visited downtown area into a more appealing destination for residents and tourists alike. Louisa Hufstader asks local business, civic and arts leaders to weigh in with their views.
“Visitors have told me it almost has a haunted feeling, especially after 8 or 9 p.m.,” says First Street merchant Thea Witsil, who counts four vacancies between her Wildcat Clothing store and its nearest neighbor, Spinelle Fine Jewelry. Still, other businesses are betting on downtown Napa as an emerging destination: The boutique-hotel chain Avia opened its first Wine Country location on the north side of First Street this past summer, while new construction on the south side has attracted a Subway and an Aveda salon. The ambitious Riverfront mixed-use development at Third and Main has finally begun to attract big-name commercial tenants, starting with restaurateurs Masaharu Morimoto, Tyler Florence and the Lark Creek Restaurant Group. Just across the river in the Oxbow district (downtown’s eastside neighborhood), the Westin Verasa condo hotel, La Toque and Oxbow Public Market are managing to draw customers despite the closure of the district’s original anchor, COPIA, which went bankrupt in late 2008.
“There’s a transformation taking place downtown,” says Gary Van Dam of Strong & Hayden Commercial Real Estate. “Napa Square is working on a new look, Napa Town Center is going through a rebranding—there’s synergy all around.” For example, Strong & Hayden recently facilitated the addition of three new restaurants to the already impressive list of downtown eateries—Quattro on Second (managed by Stephanie Kendall), Mini Mango Thai Bistro (owned by Mee and Sherry Peng) and Grace’s Table (owned by Mauro Pando and Nancy Lindaas-Pando)—and there are two restaurant spaces still available on First Street. “Those three businesses are in locations that already had existing kitchens,” adds Strong & Hayden’s Michael Holcomb. “They saw an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.”
Boons and busts
Napa City Council member Juliana Inman, an architect and ardent preservationist who lives in a colorful Victorian home on First Street, “about as close as you can get to downtown,” believes COPIA had the right idea when it opened in 2001. “I think COPIA was, in a sense, visionary in terms of locating downtown, and became a catalyst and a magnet for other businesses,” she says. Though the center itself never attracted the attendance its founders had projected, the once-neglected neighborhood that surrounds the now-shuttered facility has never seen so many visitors: The Oxbow Public Market, which opened its doors at the end of 2007, has gained a loyal following among Napa Valley residents while also attracting tourists from around the country and overseas. “That’s been an enormous boon to downtown,” Inman says.
Along with the Westin, which opened in late 2008, the market’s neighboring businesses—many of them owned by local families—include the Napa Valley Wine Train, assorted restaurants, wine tasting rooms, a gallery, a hair salon and a day spa. On weekends, the area bustles with pedestrians and cyclists, as well as motorists who can take advantage of ample free parking to spend their day strolling both sides of downtown. Weekdays are slower, but the Oxbow Public Market’s Tuesday “Locals Night” is one of its busiest times, with food specials and live music drawing families and tourists from up and down the Napa Valley.
With all this new economic activity, plus the added protection against flooding that’s resulted from years of construction work by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, why does so much of downtown’s retail and restaurant space lie fallow? It’s no surprise that answers vary, depending on whom you ask. “My personal opinion is the landlords are just asking too much for the rents,” says Witsil, who opened her vintage and retro clothing store in 2000. “It’s important to keep in mind that Napa is a working-class town. Downtown would better serve itself and the community by being inclusive—diversity is the key to success. I’d hate to see it turn into a high-end ‘Rodeo Drive.’”
City council member Inman agrees that “we need more retail in the mix,” but she’s optimistic about the area’s future: “Downtown is actually pretty well occupied,” she maintains. “I think there’s getting to be a pretty good mix of restaurants, entertainment venues and tasting rooms.” The vacancy-plagued Town Center pedestrian mall, which she calls a “long failure,” is the victim of its own bad design, Inman continues: “The concept, I think, was wrong…it has no street frontage. But there are some things that could be done to correct and improve some of the design flaws.”
Locating the visitors’ bureau inside the Town Center was one good move, Inman continues: “That brought a large amount of foot traffic. I think it’s added terrifically to that space.” Another positive development Inman cites is the progress of flood-control work, which now protects most of the downtown area from winter flooding that periodically swamped homes, businesses and streets along the Napa River and its tributary creeks. “Every time we’ve had flooding, it’s just socked everybody: wineries, restaurants, hotels. Everything gets canceled—events, trips,” Inman says. “That threat is in the process of being removed.”
A successful revitalization
Petaluma recently underwent a downtown revitalization that, in many ways, is comparable to Napa’s efforts. So what tipped the scale in that North Bay city?
Petaluma’s revitalization has benefited largely from its theater district—exactly what downtown Napa will soon lose, when the aging, frequently flooded riverside multiplex known as the Cinedome closes its doors. (The vintage Uptown picture palace on Third Street has been closed for years; its owners have been slowly renovating it as a performance hall, with no plans to include a projection booth or screen.)
Matt White of Basin Street Properties, the developer behind the Petaluma cinema, says “it’s worked magnificently” to attract downtown visitors year-round. “Farmers markets and jazz festivals and those types of things are important, but you need something more permanent,” White adds.
Marie McCusker, executive director of the Petaluma Downtown Association, says “the theater district came alive” after the 14-screen complex opened in 2004. “There’s something about going downtown to a local movie house, rather than going to a mall sitting out in the middle of nowhere,” McCusker continues. “You tend to use local services more when you actually go to a movie in your downtown.” Moviegoers usually shop and eat, both before and after a show, she says: “It’s generated a lot more activity. People tend to stay a while and not to just get into their cars and leave.”
Some people don’t have to leave at all: The theater district now includes loft apartments above the street-level stores—part of a new emphasis on mixed-use development in downtown Petaluma, according to McCusker. The city also has a growing arts community, she adds, with many new galleries and Second Friday Art Walks that can attract large groups. “At times, there are 100 people on an art crawl or a pub crawl,” she says. “We have some very creative people doing social networking.”
But when it comes to Napa, the problem extends beyond a missing theater. T Beller, director of the Napa Valley Film Society and a member of the Napa County Commission for Arts and Culture, worries that Napa’s art community may also be overlooked in the city’s planning process. “What’s missing is a downtown community center,” she says. “A place where people of all ages can go to interact with friends on an ongoing basis…where people could go for films, lectures, performances, music, classes and events. Yountville has a fabulous new community center—certainly Napans deserve one as well.” Beller envisions an art-house theater with a gallery for local artists and a café for live performances. A thriving downtown cultural scene can help create “increased economic outcomes,” she adds, yet “the arts’ voices are often overlooked. It’s frustrating.
“By positioning the Napa Valley as an international cultural destination, in addition to wine and food, we can build an economy that’s related to cultural tourism,” Beller continues. “We should be as identified with arts and culture as we are with food and wine. We’re missing a huge opportunity if we don’t add that to the marketing mix.”
Inman, too, likes the idea of a downtown cultural center where “we could have a real, local arts hub, a community arts center with a movie theater and a place for local theater and kids and classes,” plus a consolidated box office and café. She thinks the Cinedome, whose owners plan to open a new facility in a shopping center on the south side of town, would be a good location. “I’d argue against demolishing an existing facility that could be refurbished and repurposed, because I think it could serve the community really well,” Inman says.
But where will the funding come from? That’s the challenge, Beller admits. “It’s going to take committed philanthropy from those who understand the value that arts add to community life,” to help Napa create an arts center downtown, she says. “Ultimately, it will take a combination of public and private funding if the arts are to flourish in downtown Napa.”
If you build it…
The city itself is pumping more than $750,000 into the creation of a Downtown Specific Plan that will provide the framework for a more vital urban core. The Napa City Council voted early in 2009 to hire a Berkeley consulting firm—at a cost of $670,000—to develop the plan. A few months later, the council reluctantly agreed to spend an additional $100,000 to add a year-long series of public meetings with a 15-member steering committee composed of property owners, downtown business operators, residents of surrounding neighborhoods, representatives from environmental and other citywide groups and members of the city council, planning commission and cultural heritage commission. Council members winced at tagging another six figures onto the bill for the Downtown Plan, but bowed to the argument that the out-of-town consultant needed more input from residents and other stakeholders.
One thing is already clear: Downtown Napa won’t be able to attract tourists if it’s not already satisfying the needs of city and county residents. As Inman puts it, “If you aren’t doing things that locals want to do, then visitors won’t be too interested either. You need to have a good downtown for your own residents, and then others will enjoy it.”
The challenge, of course, lies in getting Napans to agree on just what kind of downtown they want. “It can be done, but it requires everybody getting together and coming up with some solutions, rather than roadblocks,” says White, the Petaluma developer. “It’s not going to happen overnight; but I think it can be done.”
You can find more information on the city of Napa’s Downtown Specific Plan online at www.downtownnapaspecificplan.org.
