The heart and soul of Petaluma

Organically grown towns, like Petaluma, germinate around topography. That always includes water. In our case, Petaluma grew up as a bread basket for San Francisco because of the Petaluma River. The river was “the highway” of 1850. By design, the heart and soul of Petaluma is the river.

Downtown was built around the commerce of the river. The classy historic store facades all face away from the river and towards the “main street.” All the action of historic Petaluma commerce occurred (partially hidden) out back.

Later, the river was ignored and somewhat forgotten. Now we are working hard to reclaim the glory of our river and utilize its current recreational and commercial value.

When we talk about connection to open space, by far, the biggest open space asset we have is the river. I don’t get on it often but, as you can see in my video, it is a very relaxing and satisfying experience. I plan to spend more time on the river.

Fortunately, we are on the short track for a new “Floathouse” in the Turning Basin and also a new “Boathouse” in the Riverfront project down river near to the 101 freeway overcrossing. You won’t even need to own your own kayak anymore and haul it around. Just walk over to the Floathouse, rent a boat, and take off. Talk about easy.

The river is coming alive again as the heart and soul of Petaluma. Sure, we could use a little dredging but if we could figure out how to get it done in 1900, I’m confident we’ll figure it out again today. There is increasing talk of reviving the trestle around the Turning Basin as well.  Things are happening, my friends! Go take a float and a paddle yourself.

The North River Apartments with 184 units continues to take baby steps toward eventually breaking ground one day. The project must still be reviewed by City Council. The project is at the intersection of Petaluma Blvd, Oak Street, Water Street and Petaluma River. I would call it an easy walk to the SMART train from here. I don't think that this thing will ever win any architectural awards for being beautiful but, definitely, this is high density housing right where we need to put it.

This is a screenshot of a recent article from www.Petaluma360.com

Shollenberger Park on the south side of Petaluma

I like to walk from downtown across the D Street bridge and then down Hopper Street.  It’s a walk through town that has a strong industrial feel to it which is a major repeating theme of the older as-built fabric of Petaluma. Shollenberger Park is on the south side of Petaluma. It contains 165 acres of wetlands and 16 acres of accessible trails.

Along the way on Hopper Street, there is a redi-mix concrete yard on the river, a large rusty barge that has never been in the water, and the new huge Riverfront subdivision which has all the underground work and streets in but no buildings yet. I am always impressed by how good looking the new Marina apartments are – a five story building with 90 units that sold to one buyer not that long ago. Across the way, the Altura apartments are going in and look to be wrapping up construction on the outside.

Shollenberger Park can be accessed by a trail through Alman Marsh which starts at the Sheraton Hotel at the south side of the Marina parking lot. People are often fishing in the Petaluma River there. This route also makes for a fun moderate bike ride as well; keep going into the Ellis Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.

If you get lucky, you’ll see the train go by and people paddling on the river. Another one of my favorite walks through Petaluma.

Lynch Creek Trail is the best hike inside of Petaluma - at least judging by how often I am on it.

Classic Saturday hike at noon

Helen Putnam Park is the largest open space within the City of Petaluma. We got out there mid-day. The spring explosion of blue sky, puffy clouds, green landscape exploding and the peaceful connection with the rolling pasture hills is probably going to continue for a few months after the long rains. Go take a look!

This is the location currently identified for the Corona SMART train station on the east side of Petaluma.

A sense of place

This is going to be fun to watch which cities make the best use of their SMART train stations to create modern transportation, more affordable housing, jobs and promote their tourism. Rohnert Park’s new downtown development plan is train station development on steroids!

Rohnert Park is using their new SMART train station project to create an entirely new downtown core in a city that had no real downtown at all. There was no “there” there. This new Station Avenue Project will create a new heart of the city that is fully accessible to and from the SMART train line. Rohnert Park is creating a “sense of place.”

In Petaluma, we also have a very well-articulated plan for our downtown SMART train station. It’s true that downtown Petaluma already carries a strong “sense of place” but our long term SMART station area plan will expand into the future our downtown as a must see, pedestrian oriented destination that will be fully accessible to and from the SMART train line.

We have the same huge opportunity to create a “sense of place” on the east side of Petaluma as well. The Corona Road SMART station may possibly see some new development at that station location in the near future in addition to the Brody Ranch that is already well under construction. In the end, we are going to wind up with more housing sprawl that results in more car traffic on the roads or else we are going to create an East Petaluma Train station destination that is pedestrian friendly and (hopefully) provides less expensive housing. We are going to provide more housing in east Petaluma where people no longer need their cars and actually use the train or else we are going to have a suburban park and ride train station where people mostly drive to the Corona Road station. Which will it be?

This is a huge opportunity for us in Petaluma to create a “sense of place” on the east side and to get people out of their cars and onto the train.

Rohnert Park’s development is ahead of our SMART station developments in Petaluma. Their train station development project is much bigger than ours but what can we learn from it?