Modesto residents check on progress toward ‘a dynamic, vibrant downtown’
About 40 people peered 20 years ahead and saw a downtown Modesto with more housing, more green spaces and greater ease at getting around.
The City Council held a Tuesday night session on the upcoming master plan that will guide the district to 2040. The document will outline how to build on today’s strengths – offices, restaurants and entertainment – with multi-story apartments and other touches of urbanity.
“I think you’re going on the right track to really create a dynamic, vibrant downtown,” said Roger Shanks, who lives just north of the district and works as a land-use consultant.
Opticos Design of Berkeley has a $210,000 contract with Modesto to draft the plan. The city could release a draft for public comment in January, followed perhaps by council approval in the spring.
The plan will lay out a general vision for downtown. The investors and permitting for specific projects would come later.
Building up
The city has held several public sessions since July to gather ideas, resulting in a few computer-generated sketches of what might be.
One focus is at Ninth and J streets, where a restored depot will serve Altamont Corridor Express trains to San Jose as soon as 2021. An artist rendering suggests transforming this area with apartments atop ground-floor businesses.
Another rendering shows three stories of apartments created from the courthouse and jail at 12th and H streets. The jail no longer has inmates. The courthouse will give way to a new one at Ninth and H, likely in 2023.
The plan boundaries are the 1-square-mile diagonal grid created by the Central Pacific Railroad at the city’s founding in 1870. The zone includes part of west Modesto, which could get modest infill. One rendering pictures an apartment-topped restaurant on a vacant lot at Fourth and H streets.
Getting around
The consultants suggest making two-lane streets out of G, H, K and L streets, which now are one-way feeders to and from Highway 99. Several downtown streets could get wide sidewalks and distinct bicycle lanes to reduce the dominance of cars and trucks.
Residents have urged easier paths to the Tuolumne River and Dry Creek, both just a few blocks from downtown. The plan also could better tie in the Virginia Corridor, which runs from Needham Street into north Modesto.
Low vacancy rates indicate that downtown is already humming. They are 1.5 percent for retail, 3.4 percent for office and 4.4 percent for residential, the consultants reported.
Modesto has been slow to join the downtown housing boom seen in other places. The district has just two large apartment buildings, both for seniors, along with older houses and small apartment complexes. Opticos has found that market-rate housing might not pencil out for now, but subsidized projects might be doable.
Niche retail
Downtown long ago lost its retail dominance to strip malls on McHenry Avenue and Sisk Road. The core does have specialty retail and a Smart & Final supermarket.
Downtown also boasts the Brenden cineplex, the State Theatre and the Gallo Center for the Arts. And the district’s restaurant trade is going strong.
New housing would create a “24-hour” downtown, a safer place thanks to more “eyes on the street,” said Stefan Pellegrini, principal and vice president at Opticos.
The master planning drew praise from Jaime Jimenez, a partner in two restaurants that will help revive Tenth Street. He also has launched a free electric shuttle for downtown visitors.
“This is exciting for me as an investor, developer, business owner,” he said.
This story was originally published December 18, 2019 at 4:38 PM.
