Thumbnail photo: Crescent City councilors last week viewed an updated Redwood Downtown mixed-use development slated to replace the former Daly’s department store building. | Screenshot
Crescent City councilors learned that a proposed downtown-area development that would include both retail and residential space will offer more housing units than originally stated.
The Redwood Downtown, which is planned to replace the old Daly’s building at 3rd and J streets, will be 36 units instead of 27, City Manager Eric Wier said. It would consist of two buildings — a residential apartment building and a building with both residential and commercial space “with a nice courtyard in between,” he said.
The city manager on Tuesday asked councilors for an amendment to a $1 million loan agreement they had approved with Community System Solutions in December.
The nine additional units was the primary change, he said. Mike Bahr, Community System Solutions CEO, needs to be able to spend money before the end of March, Wier told the City Council.
“He is well on his way thanks to past Council action,” Wier said. “(He) is having this go before the Planning Commission in March.”
Councilors approved the amendment to December’s agreement that loaned Community System Solutions $650,000 in Pro-Housing Initiative Program dollars and $350,000 in Permanent Local Housing Allocation dollars. Councilor Jason Greenough was absent.
The city sent out a request for proposals after receiving $650,000 in Prohousing Incentive Program and $344,198 in Permanent Local Housing Allocation dollars from the California Department of Housing and Community Development in 2024.
The city is expected to receive a further $56,111 once the 2023 PLHA allocation is released, according to a Dec. 1 staff report.
Crescent City is required to use that funding to build at least four units of affordable housing by 2030. Officials chose the Redwood Downtown out of four proposals because “it goes hand-in-hand with our Downtown Specific Plan,” Wier said.
Under the loan agreement, Community System Solutions has signed a promissory note to reimburse the city if it doesn’t build those affordable housing units, City Attorney Martha Rice told councilors in December.
The development’s 36 units would consist of six studio apartments, 14 one-bedroom units and 16 two-bedroom units, Wier said Tuesday. Bahr and Community System Solutions will need to raise between $10 million and $12 million to make the porject happen, Wier said.
According to Bahr, 80% of the units are for low-income renters and 20% are for moderate income renters. The rents that will be charged will be below market for 55 years, he said.
When he first introduced the project to the City Council two months ago, Wier said demolishing the former Daly’s department store building to make way for residential units could be key to revitalizing Downtown Crescent City.
On Tuesday, referring to the Downtown Specific Plan the city has worked with Don Arambula of Crandall Arambula to develop, Wier said the city needs to increase its “meager housing supply” in order to realize that plan.
“They’re saying there are only 206 downtown (housing) units,” Wier said. “And in a couple of the plans they look at, and they hired an economist to look at this, they think that 400 or even as much as 660 units in the downtown could be supported, and that’s with some intervention.”
Increasing residential units in the downtown increases the “energy and synergy” in the downtown since people don’t leave at the close of the business day, Wier said.
This includes market-rate housing, Wier said. Though it’s not in the heart of the downtown area, a 14-unit complex at J and 7th streets was just approved by the Planning Commission and would also meet that housing need, he said.
The Downtown Specific Plan the city manager referred to included two options, one that states 400 residential units could be supported in the downtown — about 200 additional units. There was also a more aggressive option, which included 660 residential units, Wier said.
“If you talk to Don Arambula, who’s the consultant here and worked on hundreds of these plans, he’ll tell you it’s not an art for a successful downtown, it is a science,” Wier said, adding that the plan is long term. “And that science includes residential, retail space, walking distance, streetscape.”
