Ideas About How to Construct a Downtown in Rohnert Park Surfacing Again

Can Rohnert Park build a downtown? Does it need one? That question has ebbed and flowed over the years, though recently, three major ideas have thrust the issue back into the public sphere.

First, will open up a 300,000-square-foot piece of land in central Rohnert Park. Until recently, whether or not the city could or would build a downtown there was just a rumor.

But then, on , all five councilmembers said they want to find out what it would take to relocate the Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit station that exact location.

In the hour-long debate about the train station, Mayor Gina Belforte half joked that what the city is trying to do is build a downtown. The station is part of it, she said. 

SMART planners then, a week later, agreed to do a  and find out how much money it might cost to move the train station from the north side of town to the intersection of Rohnert Park Expressway and the railroad tracks. The study is also looking at whether or not the station, if moved, would be set the project back.

Finally, at the Sonoma State University Senior Planning Workshop on Feb. 17, the class of 23 laid the groundwork for a downtown Rohnert Park plan. The class hashed out the city’s demographics, land use patterns, local economic woes, the environment and the city's transportation trends.

On May 18, the yearlong class will present at City Hall a central Rohnert Park master plan, complete with thoughtfully designed neighborhoods, mixed-use development and perhaps most glaringly, a walkable, identifiable downtown.

“The city of Rohnert Park is on the brink of celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2012. With this momentous occasion nearing, the time has come to consider what may be in store for the next 50 years,” the class report stated. “Rohnert Park was originally designed to be a bedroom community for people to commute elsewhere for work, but in a changing world does this remain the objective?”

What’s right for Rohnert Park is up for debate — but one thing city leaders and longstanding developers can agree on is that Rohnert Park needs new ideas; fresh blood, to ask these questions.

“What an exciting idea,” said Vice Mayor Jake Mackenzie, after the presentation last week. “To view a future downtown with fresh eyes.”

Buck Oates, co-owner of Rohnert Park-based started up his business in 1984, when the city was only 20 years old.

He’s seen the transformation of Rohnert Park — from a city built around subdivisions for regional commuters, to a bustling telecommunications hub, to a place that’s struggling to survive. Businesses are leaving, and with the economy not showing any signs of improvement in the near future, he said what’s needed most is young people. 

“Rohnert Park doesn’t have a soul, people always tell us that,” Oates said. “There’s no way to come in to Rohnert Park, and walk shop to shop — it’s all shopping centers. Every other town in Sonoma County has a small little downtown; it’s an identity.”

“There’s been attempts to try to retrofit a downtown over the years,” Oates added. “But what we need is different ideas, to get people into town to fill up the hotels, to get Rohnert Park back on the map again. What Sonoma State is doing is exactly what I’m talking about.”

Even though the city is facing a $2.4 million budget deficit, development of the old Yardbirds site is a possibility, or even a public-private partnership that would allow the city use of the State Farm campus.

"Rohnert Park could acquire State Farm possibly through long term land lease tear those buildings out, and build a downtown. Sure the city doesn't have money to do this, which is why I’m suggesting they try to go to State Farm and negotiate a ground lease," Oates said. "If that could be done, they would get an income stream from the lease, other small developers could come in and the city would get repaid."

"That’s just one idea for a downtown," he said.

"I think the concept of trying to establish a true downtown is great," said Rich Henderson, of Cassidy Turley/BT Commercial, a commercial real estate firm based in Santa Rosa, and who also lives here. "Rohnert Park was really designed as a master planned bedroom community, with parks, schools and neighborhood retail distributed throughout to support the residential elements, which it has done very well," Henderson said. "It wasn't intended to have a defined downtown core or central business district that grew residential around it."

"To go back and try to create that would be very difficult — and would likely make some of the existing retail development along Commerce and Expressway functionally obsolete," he added.

Steven Orlick, a professor of Environmental Studies and Planning at Sonoma State, who’s idea it was to take on a downtown master plan, said his class’s project is a way to look at the global issues on a city level.

“We thought it was appropriate to look at a sustainable direction for the city in the next 50 years,” Orlick said.

Orlick said it was issues such as the recession, global warming, declining supply of petroleum and a relatively high vacancy rate in Rohnert Park that inspired the class.

“Ironically, all this vacant community space, all these problems, give us a lot of good issues to study,” Orlick said.