Downtown Modesto in 20 years: More people living, walking, working under new city plan
The Modesto City Council gave final approval to a downtown master plan that calls for dense housing and other projects in the core.
The council voted 6-0 on the plan Tuesday, capping 13 months of public outreach and economic analysis. Councilman Mani Grewal abstained because he owns property downtown.
The plan lays out a vision for the district that is clearly more urban than today. Actual projects will depend on funding from developers and permits from the city.
The plan calls for building 1,550 new homes downtown and for streets that are more inviting to people on foot and bicycles. And it seeks connections to the Tuolumne River and other trail corridors.
“This is a 21st century model for downtown development,” said Josh Bridegroom, president and CEO of the Downtown Modesto Partnership, during a council meeting conducted via Zoom.
Plan area dates to Modesto’s founding
The 147-page document was drafted by Opticos Design of Berkeley on a $210,000 contract with the city.
The plan area includes the diagonal street grid laid out by the Central Pacific Railroad when it founded Modesto in 1870. The part of west Modesto close to Highway 99 is in the zone.
The plan notes that downtown already has strong office, restaurant and entertainment sectors, but only 1% of Modesto’s housing. It once was the retail hub but lost stores to McHenry Avenue starting in the 1950s and other strips later.
Care to live near a rail depot?
The 1,550 homes could be built in four basic ways:
- More than half, 850 units, could rise near the old train depot at Ninth and J streets that will serve a new branch of the Altamont Corridor Express. The first train could run to the Bay Area as soon as 2022.
- An additional 398 homes could go on Ninth and Tenth streets between D and F streets. Tenth could become a pedestrian-friendly route to the Tuolumne River Regional Park. The plan sketches in a new ballpark for the Modesto Nuts at 10th and F. The minor-league baseball team has not announced any intention to relocate from John Thurman Field.
- Seventy-two homes could go on the block now occupied by the Stanislaus County Courthouse and jail. A new courthouse is expected by 2023 at Ninth and H streets. The jail no longer houses inmates.
- West Modesto could get 40 housing units above ground-floor businesses.
- An additional 190 homes could be built at scattered downtown sites.
“Staff agrees that more residents living downtown would certainly help build this vibrant, more urban type of setting that we would like to see develop over the next several years,” said Brad Wall, principal planner for the city.
One-way streets become two-way?
The plan suggests restoring two-way traffic on G, H, K, L and 17th streets to benefit pedestrians and cyclists. The lettered streets are key connectors to and from Highway 99 and other Modesto neighborhoods.
The document urges sidewalk widening and bicycle lanes in various places to further ease the dominance of motor vehicles.
Bridegroom said the city core has more traffic lanes per square mile than the “suburban” parts of Modesto, where major routes tend to be a mile apart. That means more chances to make downtown streets easier on pedestrians, he added in an email Wednesday to The Bee.
“The longer people linger, the more likely they are to support downtown businesses and create the sense of vibrancy we all want to see downtown,” he said.
The plan said parking garages could be added as part of the new housing and other development. But it notes that downtown’s current garages are underused because street parking is free.
This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
