The Times reported on the potential for a Thai restaurant moving in to the restored historic Civic Arts Building. The Planning Commission meeting is this evening at 7pm.

Hercules residents say restaurant will harm historic neighborhood
By Tom Lochner

A planned restaurant at the historic Civic Arts building that opponents say will bring traffic, noise and bright lights to a quiet residential neighborhood will go before the Hercules Planning Commission on Monday, and the city staff recommends approval.

Sala Thai Restaurant & Lounge would operate from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday to Friday, with breakfast on weekends, according to an application for a conditional-use permit submitted by owner Kay Sala. A city staff report does not specify weekend opening hours, but a flier put out by Sala Thai earlier this year listed Saturday and Sunday hours from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Planning Manager Dennis Tagashira said Friday that the owner would determine weekend hours once the restaurant opens.

The staff report, by Tagashira, finds that the restaurant, near the southern end of Railroad Avenue, would fall within the area’s “Public/Quasi-Public-Park” zoning and would be consistent with the Hercules General Plan’s goals of generating tax revenue, jobs, and new commercial development. It cites a section of the General Plan’s land-use element that encourages the creation of services and shopping that “attract employees, clients and patrons from a regional area, while not disturbing existing residential and community-oriented areas.”

“Staff feels that the proposed Thai restaurant is compatible with the residential development in the area,” the report continues. The parking lot would be partially below grade and would be shielded by a 6-foot-high retaining wall, a 6-foot-high sound wall on one side, and a landscaped buffer.

The restaurant also would be consistent with historic preservation guidelines, the report continues. Built around 1913, originally to house workers at the now-defunct Hercules Powder Works, the building eventually became the Civic Arts Center and later a senior center and a Tiny Tots pre-school.

Adjacent are the Hercules Historic Homes, about 20 restored Queen Anne and Colonial Revival cottages built in the 1890s and early 20th century that once housed powder company employees.

In March, Historic Homes resident Jaylene Watson presented to the City Council a petition signed by neighbors as well as some residents of the nearby Promenade neighborhood asking that the project be stopped on the grounds that noise, traffic and smells from a restaurant open late at night would adversely impact their quality of life.

Linda Sathama, a resident of a different part of Hercules, wrote to the council and the Planning Commission in April that a restaurant would diminish the historical aspect of the building, and she urged a public-purpose use consistent with past historical uses.

At a Planning Commission-sponsored workshop two years ago, there was talk of turning the building into a historical society or museum, Watson said.

Opponents are upset not just about the restaurant but also the process that has brought it to the brink of approval. Earlier this year, the Hercules Redevelopment Agency signed a tentative lease with Sala Thai. And according to Tagashira’s report, the agency has submitted plans for interior tenant improvements for a Thai restaurant.

Many residents have said the tentative lease shows the city has bought into the project. But city officials have said the signing of a tentative lease does not obligate the city to anything. City Manager Nelson Oliva said at a City Council meeting in March that the applicant needed to have a tentative lease to submit an application to the Planning Commission.

Oliva is on vacation until Monday and could not be reached for comment last week.

Historic Homes resident Lisa Sheeran, reflecting the views of many neighbors, said the opposition is not about the restaurant but its proposed location.

“I would love to have a Thai Restaurant in town — but not one that will turn a historic park area into a parking lot for a restaurant,” Sheeran wrote Thursday, “But if you want to have oysters and a cocktail at the new ‘Powder Keg’ restaurant at the top of (nearby) Main Street, count me in. That is exactly where a restaurant in Hercules should be.”