The Civic Arts Building, currently being restored on Railroad Avenue on the southern end of the Waterfront, may actually end up becoming a restaurant. A resident within the historic homes neighborhood, adjacent to the proposed restaurant location, spoke-out on the issue at last night’s Planning Commission meeting. There is no word yet on when the Conditional Use Permit will be brought before the Commission.

This brings up interesting questions…
- Since when has the southern end of the Waterfront district been intended to include a restaurant?
- What happened to the intended public use of the restored Civic Arts Building?
- Will there be enough parking?
- Are the delays in accepting the AndersonPacific plan and developing the Waterfront creating this change in use?

The following are the prepared remarks from last night…

Good Evening Commissioners and City Staff,

My name is Jaylene Watson and I live at 139 Bay Street.

We have several people in our community who are directly affected by the use of the restored Civic Arts Building on Railroad Avenue. All the homes on the northwest side of Bay Street and several homes on Promenade will be directly impacted by the use of this facility.

It has come to our attention that the city is planning to lease this property to a Thai Restaurant. The hours of operation of this restaurant is proposing are from 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Saturday and Sundays.

This property is located directly behind our homes with only a 6’ wooden fence as a divider. Two years ago, the planning commission created a workshop for the design of this facility. The city hired a great architect to create a beautiful restoration of this building and lot. At that time use of the property was in discussion, but nothing had been determined. I was part of that workshop and many follow up meetings about the property. During the discussions of use, everything from a restaurant to a coffee bar/bookstore/historical society area came up. One of the things that was talked about was day use vs. night use, due to the location of the property to single family residences.

Much of the waterfront has been built up as work/live, more urban living type of space. However, our historic neighborhood end of the waterfront, is not urban living, it is a quiet, reserved piece of history that the City Council has even developed and put in place preservation guidelines to keep the neighborhood as it is. Adding a restaurant directly next to this neighborhood is not an acceptable answer and goes against the preservation of the neighborhood.

Just after the planning commission agreed to move forward on the restoration of the Civic Arts Building, the owner/developer on the other side of Railroad (the Masonic lodge and other houses) made a presentation to the commission with a model of the area that mirrored the restoration of the Civic Arts Building. What happened to this project? This would be a more appropriate location for a restaurant, if one needs to go at this end of Railroad.

If this facility is used as a restaurant at night, with a bar, it will be a major nuisance to the neighborhood surrounding it. It will represent an erosion of privacy and tranquility of the neighborhood, not to mention the potential negative impact it will have on our property values.

Please tell me that this decision isn’t final and you will reconsider the use of this facility. The city has put in much effort to preserve this property; however, making this a restaurant is not preserving the neighborhood around it, which the city feels strongly about as well, since we have historic guidelines we must follow.

I hope that this can be solved amicably for all involved.

I will post the video as it becomes available.