(The item below was originally published in the Sonoma-West Times & News on July 16, 2008)

As a Sebastopol business owner I am concerned about the long term economic viability of our city’s merchants. Businesses in Sebastopol share some common economics which when known by planning and council members may alter the planning process.

 The first is a shortage of retail square footage in town. This dearth tends to boost costs per square foot as a result of supply and demand and ultimately raises retail prices. At first blush adding 300,000 square feet over a period of years would seem to have a favorable effect on commercial/retail rates. Based upon the anticipated land use and intensity of development coupled with the complexity of producing two, three, and four level buildings, new space would be at least as costly as current options. If one uses $2.50/square foot, triple net, as a reference point a 5,000 square foot commercial space would lease for around $12,500/ month. The housing above if developed at even $200/square foot would require rent of about $13/square foot. Housing would need to be valued at around $500,000-$600,000 per unit for purchase. Monthly rents for housing would need to be in the $1,300-$2,000 range. Numbers of affordable housing units would be very low based upon the current cost of construction, economic trends and mortgage environment.

Pitfalls to Consider

 Let’s just say that somewhere down the road we were to infill the entire area to point where 300,000 square feet of commercial/retail is leased and all of the housing units are filled. Here are some pitfalls to consider. While the project envisions much housing and much commercial the folks using the housing will not likely be the same people as those working in the commercial spaces. Here’s why. Using today’s dollars an experienced retail worker makes about $13/hour which is about $26,000/year. It would be difficult even if two workers shared a unit to afford the type of housing proposed. The scope of the housing issue goes way beyond setting aside 10-20 percent of the homes as affordable. Three hundred thousand square feet of commercial square footage requires hundreds of employees to make things happen. If these businesses are to succeed they will have to produce at least $250/square foot. $75,000,000 in potential sales would generate huge sales tax revenue, but at what cost. Proposed convenience retail operations require 2  employees per 1,000 square feet. There could be up to 600 employees added to the mix (obviously all of the employees would not work at he same time). While some of the retail employees could afford to live in the downtown housing many would have to live elsewhere. Let’s assume that only 300 of the new employees who work on a particular day have to come from elsewhere. Forget the traffic mitigation; just where will these employees park? We would have many new downtown residents needing to work elsewhere in town or outside of Sebastopol and many commuting employees trying to find appropriate parking in the downtown area. Remember those returning residents would like to park in their own spaces upon their return, so their empty driveway, garage or street parking places are simply not usable as customer or employee parking.

 If only half of the potential sales are generated from the study zone it would mean that a business of 5000 square feet, selling $1,200,000 at $30 average sale would require 40,000 paying customer transactions per year. It would be ideal if everyone who came into a shop would buy something but that just doesn’t happen. It is very difficult to estimate the parking impact of folks who don’t buy or require a couple trips to make a buying decision, but it does have an influence.

Parking Concerns

It stands to reason that parking spaces need to be near the businesses patronized. In our retail business people don’t linger. Parking spaces are used for 23 minutes per transaction on average. If that were an empirical rule each 5,000 square foot business would need five or six spaces devoted to their business specifically for their customers on the assumption that people would arrive in perfect sequential order throughout the day. That just doesn’t happen. To allow for business fluctuations stores need a few extra places so their customers can find convenient parking, not to mention the obligatory handicap accessible spaces for each business, which are in fact two parking spaces. Remember the estimate is based upon sales of only one half the study-zone potential. What happens if businesses actually flourish?

Assuming again that many of the proposed businesses conduct retail sales it would require that merchandise be delivered to the storefront. Any merchant in Sebastopol can attest to the fact that delivery can cause a bottleneck, instantly. Usually merchandise is delivered by trucks. Trucks are much larger than cars so they require special loading and parking areas to service the merchants. If each delivery amounts to only $1000 worth of goods it will require 20,000 deliveries per year. Many merchant’s deliveries are much smaller than $1,000 so this estimate of number of trucks could be quite low. Street width to accommodate delivery vehicles and special loading zones takes up valuable space and cannot be used for customers or employees.

Resident, customer, handicap and delivery parking can take a huge toll on the development of any project. In many parking areas the space allocated to squirrel away the car is only a fraction of the actual space needed to safely and conveniently ingress and egress the area. When you look at combined operations of 300,000 commercial square feet like the Home Depot and Wal-Mart operations in Rohnert Park the visual presence of convenient mass customer parking becomes apparent. If you add to this mix the residential parking needs for 300 housing units (how many cars is that?) and their guests there will be some real shortfalls.

A successful business plan for the North East Area of Sebastopol includes the thoughtful consideration of 300-400 resident autos, 300-600 employee vehicles 300-600 customer and handicap parking spaces and sufficient delivery appropriate spaces. I believe planners addressing real parking needs will concede that this project as proposed is just too ambitious.

 Mark Sell is a former Sebastopol City Planning Commissioner and co-owner of Sebastopol Hardware