Publication Date: Wednesday, February 16, 2005
City to study options for police building
City to study options for police building
(February 16, 2005) California Avenue are targeted, including county's mental-health office
by Jocelyn Dong
Would building a new police station in the California Avenue area be a boon to merchants -- or a bullet that could wound their chances for economic recovery?
That point was debated at the Palo Alto City Council meeting Monday night, as Mayor Jim Burch and Councilmember LaDoris Cordell asked their colleagues to direct city staff to bring information back on two options.
The direction was approved by a 6-2 vote, with Ojakian and Freeman in opposition and Morton abstaining.
The first would place the police buildings on city-owned parking lots along Sherman Avenue at Birch Street. Although that idea was explored in 1999 and found to be expensive, Burch indicated the cost now appears comparable to rebuilding the police station at the city's civic center in downtown Palo Alto.
The second possibility, raised by Councilmember Judy Kleinberg, is to use the county's mental health office, also at Sherman and Birch. Using an existing building would present numerous advantages, including limiting construction costs, time and impacts.
Residents and merchants from the California Avenue area oppose the building of a police station, which could take three to four years.
Terry Shucat, owner of the Keeble and Shucat photography store on California Avenue, said the parking lots in the area are "excellent" and that customers prefer street-level parking. Underground garages would likely result from police building construction.
In the last few years, the business district lost a hardware store, coffee shops, an ice cream store and several restaurants, Shucat said. "We can't afford to lose additional retail stores" due to years of construction, he warned.
Members of the public who spoke at the meeting offered creative suggestions for maximizing public dollars, including housing both a library and police station in the same building or creating a redevelopment agency around the area.
Several members of the council expressed doubt about re-opening a study of the California Avenue area option.
"Has anything changed?" they asked.
Assistant City Manager Emily Harrison, however, said that challenges facing the plans for a new police station in the civic center -- such as the need to exceed the city's building height limit, as well as the costs of having to relocate the police department during construction -- prompted a renewed look at the California Avenue site.
In addition, she said, staff would explore how to maximize other parking lots and on-street parking spaces in the business district, to help ease merchants' concerns.
Burch and Cordell reiterated to the residents and business owners that exploring the options would not be tantamount to deciding to actually doing them.
Senior Staff Writer Jocelyn Dong can be reached at jdong@paweekly.com.
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