1978malltitle

ROAD TO THE MALL: ALL PLANS REVEALED

You’re standing at the intersection of Fourth and B streets, next to where the Citibank building is now. It is March 15, 1978 – groundbreaking day for the downtown mall.

Twice before you’ve visited this spot; the most recent was the 1982 grand opening of the mall. In 1972 you were also here for a last look-see at the old district west of B before the city began demolishing it all. Those time machine trips were mentioned in the first chapter of this series, “HOW THE MALL CAME TO BE.”

But before you now in 1978 is a vast vacant lot, 43 acres scraped clear of the barber shops, the hotels once home to pensioners, the dive bars and the ballet school, the grand Art Deco “Cal” movie palace, the thrift shops and lunch counters. Gone are places where you could swing by after work and go home with the latest Elton John album or a live parakeet in a cage – the sort of eclectic district whose character helps a town thrive. All that remains now is the old Post Office, which will be moved in a couple of years and become the Sonoma County Museum.

About 300 yards away, near what once was the corner of Second and A streets, there’s something going on. You see a raised platform with a lectern – although so few are in the audience that a speaker could be easily heard without a microphone.

The Press Democrat allowed reporter Paul Ingalls a bit of poetic license to set the scene:

Like a Shakespearian play, groundbreaking of Santa Rosa’s downtown shopping center unfolded Wednesday, revealing the worries, dreams and bitterness of those who have struggled over the mammoth development for so long. By comparison to the huge center the crowd which appeared on the project site for the 4 p.m. ceremonies was small. But among the group were the characters who have fought and promoted the project through more than six years of studies, public hearings, official meetings and lawsuits. There were those who claim they are powerful and those who claim they are not; those who think they have won and those who think the war is not over.

Such a meager attendance seems odd, considering that morning a PD editorial boasted this is “the beginning of a new day” that will bring “a thriving shopping center in the heart of our city.” The paper will later claim a poll shows four out of five residents want the mall opened ASAP.

Yet the crowd doesn’t seem too appreciative of the blessings that are surely soon to come. In front of the rostrum a young girl marches back and forth with a protest sign. There are also adults (including a former Planning Commissioner) holding posters that read, “Don’t divide our city!” and “Don’t isolate Railroad Square” and “Did you vote on urban renewal?”

A citizen’s protest movement against a big commercial development? Sure, maybe in Berkeley or Greenwich Village but not in Santa Rosa, where the Chamber of Commerce and the Press Democrat had always steered the bus without much challenge.

Few complained when the city declared its intention in 1970 to plow under about a third of the downtown area. Nor were many (except for the Coddings) terribly upset when our redevelopment agency tossed long-promised plans to create a convention center and performing arts theater, instead inviting a Southern California developer to build a shopping center.

Not until 1974 when people realized their beloved Cal theater would be torn down did protests begin. The resistance spread deeper roots the following year after the City Council formed a citizen advisory committee which turned out to be a sham, attempting to promote their plan to spend public money on mall development while making ham-fisted efforts to intimidate community leaders into going along quietly. And did I forget to mention the Council dusted off an old law to ensure that voters could have no say in these dealings?

(Here’s also a reminder this is all part of a broader series on Santa Rosa redevelopment: “YESTERDAY IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER,” which includes an index covering everything on the topic going back to the 1960s. This is chapter ten of the series just about the downtown mall.)

That it took so long for an opposition movement to coalesce doesn’t reflect public apathy so much as it was difficult to follow what was really going on. A lack of transparency and obstinance from both elected and non-elected officials is a common thread in this series; nearly every chapter has examples of the city deliberately making public information hard to find. Pivotal agenda items were sometimes not included in meeting notices printed in the newspaper; the library had only one non-circulating copy of the EIR – Urban Renewal Agency director James Burns said that was to “keep down the cost of governmental services to taxpayers;” the Community Development Commission (formerly the URA) stalled on releasing documents and sometimes wouldn’t answer even basic questions. Once the 20+ opposition groups began to form there were opportunities for people to network and share information.

Even at the time of the 1978 groundbreaking there were major issues still unresolved, including details of how the city would finance $4 million for infrastructure work needed before the mall construction. Those opposed feared traffic backups downtown because studies predicted Third Street would reach its capacity around 1990. (The city was also chastened by CalTrans because the EIR didn’t consider what impact the mall might have on highway traffic, which proved to be a far greater concern once the mall opened.) And as the protest signs said, the mall was going to further divide downtown from Railroad Square.

All of these problems were directly tangled up with “Phase III.” That was the name for the 12-acre section that covered Fifth Street to Seventh and included the Cal Theater, the Bishop-Hansel auto dealership, the old Post Office and Sears. Today it’s the site of Macy’s and the mall’s north parking garage.

There probably would have been little to no resistance to the mall if not for Phase III (except from the Coddings, of course, who wanted developer Hahn to drop out so they could build their own project). Yes, many would object to having any sort of downtown mall, but a smaller one that ended at Fifth Street – or better yet, Fourth – wouldn’t have blocked off a large section of downtown or had the funding and traffic worries.

Or if you want to visit a different alternative universe, more people would probably have fought against the mall from the beginning if they knew what it was going to look like. Either Hahn was keeping his plans close to his vest or the developer-friendly Press Democrat was negligent in keeping the public informed. Or some of both.

The first time anyone in Santa Rosa glimpsed his plans was a 1973 layout seen in the EIR. Besides showing a parking garage on B Street that blocks the mall off from downtown, this version was notable because Hahn presumed he would gain approval to include Phase III in the project, although that wouldn’t happen for another year.

Hahn presented a scale model of what he was planning to the city Design Review Board in the summer of 1974. No picture appeared in the newspaper, but he said it came “95 percent of the way” to meeting concerns about the design.

That could be the same model shown in a 1977 feature in the PD.1 The description in the paper stated the design would feature “heavily landscaped exterior mini-parks.” Note there is no parking garage on the north side next to Macy’s, nor is there that peculiar little access road that provides a shortcut between B and Sixth Streets for those in the know. (Santa Rosa Trivial Pursuit question: What year was the Sixth Street highway underpass created? A: 2012, thirty years after the mall opened.)

Scale model of the proposed mall, looking west. The street on the far right is Seventh St.
Scale model of the proposed mall, looking west. The street on the far right is Seventh St.

While that model clearly shows the mall squatting atop Fifth Street, critics believed this was a negotiable point. Two candidates for City Council replied to the PD’s “new day” editorial by insisting the sacrifice of Fourth and Fifth to the development would create a traffic mess “worse than Steele Lane.” Later in 1978, a coalition of Santa Rosa citizens’ groups filed a suit over the issue, arguing this demonstrated collusion between the city and the developer.2


A WALKWAY TO RAILROAD SQ?

With no means to drive (or bike) from downtown to Railroad Square without taking a detour through Third or Seventh Street, a pedestrian corridor through the mall was still in the plans…right?

Look again at the 1973 layout and find there’s a direct something between B and Morgan Streets. What was that? An aisle through the mall, open only during business hours? An outdoor passageway, perhaps with gates on either side that can be lowered when the mall is closed? Or was it a tunnel, as underground parking was part of the plans at the time? The EIR was silent, although the consultants who wrote the report gently chided the developer and the city for not doing enough to link the mall with downtown via pedestrian access. (This is further discussed in the EIR chapter.)

The issue remained unresolved in 1977, although the model seen above suggests a skylight over a straight line passageway. The accompanying article in the PD said, “Hahn’s architects will continue designing the 750,000 sq. ft. center…What remains is the specific appearance of the entrance at Fourth Street and treatment of the walkway through the facility toward Railroad Square.”

Depending on whom you asked, the rebels preferred Fifth to remain an open street (with Macy’s separated from the mall), become an underpass (apparently like Third St.) or a tunnel under the store, starting east of B Street and ending near Railroad Square.

Hahn and the department stores pushed back – hard. The developer said he had letters from both Sears and Macy’s that they would pull out of the mall if any of those options were approved. (FYI: The executive from Sears was named in the PD article, but not the one from Macy’s.)

Worse yet, Hahn threatened to sue the city into the next century and beyond if Fifth Street remained open. The man who normally came off as a kindly grandpa said he would kill the whole mall project and use “every legal means available to us for the recovery of the $2 million plus expended on the project to date.”

Yet a potential lawsuit was just the beginning of Santa Rosa’s nightmare: The city would have to repay Hahn’s 1973 “good faith” deposit of $500,000 (with interest), and the developer now had approval to buy the property on both sides of Third St. where the Sears store was to be built. As Hugh Codding pointed out, he would be paying roughly 15¢ on the dollar, so he could reap further millions by selling that prime real estate at market rates.

The City Council rushed to approve the street closures as expected, although this time the vote wasn’t unanimous. It seems the pro-development forces had another problem: One of the leading rebels was now sitting on the Council.

With rare exceptions (such as Hugh Codding’s tenure in the 1960s) the midcentury Santa Rosa City Council was made up of middle-aged shopkeepers and the occasional banker.3 So it came as a surprise to many when the city’s general elections held a few days after the groundbreaking found the top vote-getter for the Council was Jerry Wilhelm, a 27 year-old attorney. Wilhelm had worked at the California Rural Legal Assistance nonprofit and was attorney for the Santa Rosa Ad Hoc Citizens’ Committee, which had emerged as the leading activist group opposing the mall. They had a reputation for butting heads with the city, most famously in early 1977 when the mayor was forced to admit the Council had acted illegally by rushing through approval of a subdivision so the landowner could enjoy a fat tax break.

Once on the Council, Wilhelm wasted no time in challenging the status quo. (Part of his campaign motto was, “stop special favors to the favored few.”) He was a Fifth Street tunnel advocate, insisting something to preserve the street needed to be addressed before mall construction began.

As far as Hahn’s threat to leave unless the streets were closed, Wilhelm said it was a bluff because Santa Rosa was such a “plum” he’d never walk away. The EIR was outdated and needed to be amended or completely redone, Wilhelm insisted, particularly the section on mall financing in light of Prop. 13. And speaking of which, Hahn had said he would donate $400 thousand annually to the city for ten years to make up for lost tax revenues. Wilhelm replied Hahn was going to be saving $1.2M a year in taxes under the new law, so he wasn’t really being so benevolent.

Wilhelm was invited to speak at a Downtown Development Association luncheon. Gentle Reader probably assumes the merchants in that bastion of Babbittry would be fighting mall construction tooth and claw. The addition of dozens of new chainstores just down the street couldn’t possibly help their own businesses – right?

To the contrary, Wilhelm was told 85 percent of the membership was not concerned at all. The Councilman argued the point; he told them a mall is “not designed to have a spill-over effect. It’s a little too much to expect that people will start to walk all over town after driving that far (to get to the shopping center),” the PD reported.

But the DDA loved the plans and saw the street closures working to their advantage because it would create a bottleneck on Third Street. Wilhelm taped the luncheon meeting and recorded Bill McNeany, head of Rosenberg’s Department Store, saying this:

“We want a captive shopper. And once he gets down here, let him fight his way out, to then shop in the stores on his way out – ‘I’m not going to go to my car because the traffic is too bad. I’ll go shop instead.’ Once we get him in, let’s keep him here. We want a captive audience.”

Gaye LeBaron though it rude of Wilhelm to record the meeting and it was a shame McNeany got flak for his remarks since he was really the “original Mr. Nice Guy.” But someone (Gaye suspected Codding attorney Bill Smith) took his idea and formed a parody organization, the “Committee to Close Third Street too.” T-Shirts were made and press releases handed out; one read, “Let’s close Third Street too and then instead of one vast city we can have two half vast cities!”

We fly ahead to 1980; Sears’ new store opened and there was still squabbling over what was to be done with Fifth Street. All of the many lawsuits against the mall were over, except for a Codding appeal challenging the EIR and that 1978 complaint about street closures filed by a coalition of Santa Rosa citizens’ groups as mentioned above.

captivead(RIGHT: One of several ads from the Coalition for a Sensible Downtown Plan that appeared in the PD during 1978-1979)

Part of that coalition was the “Coalition for a Sensible Downtown Plan” – which was partially funded by the Coddings – and the group assumed leadership, printing leaflets and buying large ads in the Press Democrat, such as the example shown here. Some ads would list names of a hundred or so people who had signed aboard, but all included that tone-deaf McNeany “captive shopper” quote.

When the suit finally came before Superior Court Judge Bryan Jamar, they found him as sympathetic as any plaintiff could wish for. When the city attorney said traffic studies showed traffic would flow smoothly once Fourth and Fifth streets were fully closed, the judge snapped, “You wanna bet?” and he wouldn’t change his mind “even if there were a zillion traffic studies.” Still, he ruled the city had the power to abandon those public rights-of-way, as “it was the council’s decision to make based on the evidence they had at the time.” Poof! And our last hope to integrate the mall as part downtown vanished.

The Sensible Downtown group was led by Hal Coleman, a board member of the influential Santa Rosa Democratic Club and who had been a candidate for Council in 1978. Now in 1980 he was running again, this time as part of a “slate” with fellow Sensible Downtown activist Norman Boyer, the two of them vowing to join Wilhelm in creating a new “philosophical majority.”

The thought of the three of them voting in synch surely caused ice water to run down spines at City Hall, as it was the exact scenario that led Hahn to sue Corte Madera six years earlier. There an anti-mall council was voted in and they put Hahn’s shopping center development on hiatus. Hahn retaliated by filing a $10M suit for supposed lost future income. A PD editorial called the possibility of something similar happening here “disturbing:”

…They imply they would join with present Councilman Jerry Wilhelm to form that new majority. We find this disturbing, because one of the positions which all three have in common is opposition to the downtown shopping center as it is presently planned…It seems logical to us that the election of Coleman and Boyer could be considered by them, and Councilman Wilhelm, as a mandate to reopen the entire downtown plan for review. Reopening the subject of the downtown plan at this late date would be counter to the interests of the city…

That neither of them won is somewhat a surprise, as even the PD conceded the Sensible Downtown group seemed to have broad popular support. Perhaps it was because there was a sense that the game was over – which it indeed was. There would be no further lawsuits or other actions to delay construction or seek design changes of the mall.

But there was a final big lawsuit to be filed that year: In July, the Redevelopment Agency sued the Coddings for $4 million plus damages. Among the charges were “malicious abuse” of the courts by filing ten suits and financing five more to delay mall construction and prevent its financing.4 Codding agreed to a $675k out of court settlement in 1982.

Codding attorney Bill Smith was portrayed by the Press Democrat as a bully, hectoring the poor, poor members of the City Council or Redevelopment Agency who had to sit quietly through his anti-mall diatribes and aggressive questioning. For those keeping track of such things, let it be known at three hearings police were called to get Smith to hush up. On one of those occasions Smith had been challenged to a fistfight.

But besides serving the interests of the Coddings and their construction business, he deserves great respect for acting as the de facto public watchdog over Santa Rosa’s whole urban renewal/redevelopment slog from 1973 to 1980, even on points that didn’t directly impact Codding. Thanks to him we learned of Hahn’s threatened lawsuit against Corte Madera after he obtained a copy of the developer’s letter and slipped it to the PD.

Smith was in attendance at a URA meeting in January 1975 when the Agency discussed what to do about the Bishop-Hansel auto dealership and its claim the agency owed it $300,000. (For those needing a refresher in the urban renewal game: A city agency would pay market value for a property, bundle it with other parcels and then sell everything to a developer for pennies on the dollar.)

Walter Hansel said he was told in April 1972 by Lester Beldon, then the URA chair, their A Street location would be redeveloped. Then and over the following years, the agency told Hansel the purchase deal would go through “sometime in 1972,” 1973, 1974, “and perhaps April 1975.” Meanwhile, the Ford dealer had spent more than $300k preparing for their move to Corby Ave.5

Although Smith was not the attorney for the dealership, he spoke up at that 1975 meeting to point out an interesting detail: The car lot was within the Phase III area. Hansel supposedly had been told it was going to be part of the land required by the mall more than two years before the City Council hearing where Phase III would be approved.

This started “another of those bitter shouting matches” (as the PD put it) between Smith and the URA directors, who refused to answer any of the lawyer’s questions.

Said Smith, “I don’t think we’ve been told everything the agency knows. I think the taxpayers of Santa Rosa have a right to know why a reputable firm is bringing this action.” He was told to sit down and this, by the way, was one of those meetings where the police would be called to silence him. True to par, the agency followed by debating whether there was any way they could blame their broken obligations to Bishop-Hansel on Codding.

While Bishop-Hansel was reluctant to leave its downtown location, another business within Phase III was quite eager to move.6 It was Sears, and their managers had likewise started making plans in 1972, before the area got a green light for redevelopment. Only Sears wasn’t talking to Santa Rosa’s URA – they were negotiating with developer Hahn.

Architectural elevation drawing by Cal Caulkins of the Sears Department store on B Street.
Architectural elevation drawing by Cal Caulkins of the Sears Department store on B Street.

And what makes that twist in the narrative particularly interesting is that those talks were supposedly underway even before Hahn was in the picture.

Recall in early 1972 there was no developer tapped to develop the shopping center – or whether there would even be one. In March, URA Executive Director James Burns ran an ad inviting developers to contact him because they were “interested in exploring the possibility” of a downtown mall. By the end of the month the URA was in “exclusive negotiations” with Hahn which would continue on for a full year. That history is recounted in the chapter, “THE CHOSEN ONE.”

Hahn’s interest in a Santa Rosa project and his exclusive deal were first announced in the PD on March 28, 1972. (Please make note of that date.) The article also reported, “Mr. Burns said representatives for Sears in Santa Rosa have expressed some interest in the shopping center idea and are watching related steps closely.”

But a few years later, the Coddings obtained a letter Sears wrote to Hahn. According to the description of the contents printed in the PD, Sears told him they would be willing to sign on to the Hahn project as long as they could be guaranteed there would be an acceptable deal to sell the B Street property. The letter was dated February 23, 1972 – five weeks before Hahn was named as the chosen developer for the mall:

The Codding firm cites as evidence a letter from Sears to Hahn dated Feb. 23, 1972. Signed by B.K. Horne, property and construction manager at the Sears Alhambra office, the letter authorizes Hahn to announce that store’s interest in relocating its B Street store into the new downtown. Sears said its willingness to relocate was conditioned on an agreement by Aug. 31, 1972, and “the required disposition, whether by direct purchase or trade, of Sears current ownership of the present (B Street) Sears facility and its attendant land.” (Press Democrat, February 16, 1975)

Put this 1972 timeline under the microscope. February: Sears told Hahn they’ll need a purchase deal. March: The URA announced Hahn will be the developer. April: The URA promised Bishop-Hansel, which was just a block from Sears, they would get just the sort of market-value purchase deal Sears was requiring.

There’s a lot to unpack and it’s above my pay grade to even hypothesize whether or not all of that was completely legal. But it certainly seemed hinky; commitments were being made by a city agency to spend large sums of public money on an unapproved development project, while a wildcat developer with no connection (yet) to the city was negotiating deals that would do the same.

The 1975 PD article continued: “Nell Codding, secretary-treasurer of Codding Enterprises, the developer and former city official’s wife, said she believes Sears was demanding a good price for its B Street site before agreeing to enter Hahn’s project. She contends Hahn, in turn, pressured the city to declare Sears in the Phase Three urban renewal area to guarantee its entry into the project.”

Thus here, as best as I can piece everything together from ever-so-many Press Democrat articles, was the Big Plan: The 1972 RFP for shopping center developers was a sham because Hahn – who was recommended by URA exec James Burns – must have been secretively already chosen the designated winner. Hahn needed an anchor tenant for his future mall, and Sears was willing. For Sears to easily get market rate for its existing building they needed the city agency to buy it. In May, 1973, the City Council extended the urban renewal study area to include the blocks with Sears, the Ford dealership and the Cal Theater. Phase III was born, and with it was lost the hope for an intergral downtown.

So for the last time, imagine standing at the end of Fourth Street gazing west. Before you is the Great Wall of B Street, forever chopping off a large part of downtown Santa Rosa. As you grind your teeth and blame the 1970s City Council, the Urban Renewal Agency, the foolish downtown merchants and developer Ernest Hahn, don’t forget to aim some of your ire at Sears, which didn’t care what would happen to Santa Rosa as long as they got a good real estate deal.

NEXT: REGRETS, WE HAVE A FEW


1 The February 6, 1977 PD (page 3C, or #37 in newspapers.com) also shows a model for a Railroad Square “rehabilitation” and the only aerial photo I’ve ever seen of the demolished project area, although the Occidental Hotel, Cal Theater, and other Phase III structures are still standing.

2 The coalition suing to block the closure of Fourth, Fifth and A streets consisted of the Coalition for a Sensible Downtown Plan, the Irate Taxpayers Committee, Sonoma County Tomorrow and the Santa Rosa Ad Hoc Citizens’ Committee

3 Also on the City Council in 1978 (and was, in fact, then Santa Rosa’s mayor) was Donna Born, former Chair of the city Planning Commission. As discussed in the EIR chapter, she had spoken eloquently during the 1974 EIR hearing questioning the need for the mall to be enclosed and whether the mall’s design would integrate with the rest of downtown. On the Council, however, she mostly voted with the majority in favor of redevelopment although she identified herself as liberal.

4 The Press Democrat and other sources usually accuse the Coddings of being responsible for 18-22 lawsuits against the mall. See discussion in fn. 5 of the previous chapter.

5 Bishop-Hansel sued the URA in May 1975 for $500 thousand and asked another $350k in damages. The Ford dealership lost their case that November after the court ruled they couldn’t show URA statements had damaged their business. The following month they completed the move to Corby Ave.

6 The Santa Rosa Sears building was still fairly new having opened in 1949, but the chain felt it had outgrown its 75,000 sq. ft. and wanted to expand. The new store in the mall would be almost twice that size, not even counting the 18,000 sq. ft. auto center.
1978 rendering of the entrance to Santa Rosa Plaza
1978 rendering of the entrance to Santa Rosa Plaza

Read More

coddingcitykey

ROAD TO THE MALL: MR. CODDING HAS SOME OBJECTIONS

There were good reasons to feel optimistic in the spring of 1973. The last American soldiers left Vietnam. The Watergate hearings started and people began taking the scandal seriously, with public opinion swinging from it being “just politics” to “very serious.”

In Santa Rosa, the Press Democrat published its “Outlook 73” supplement which painted a very rosy picture of things to come. We would soon have a wonderful downtown shopping center with three major department stores and up to 85 stores. And soon after that a renewal project for Railroad Square will include a community center with a 2,500 seat performing arts theater and a 50,000 sq. ft. convention hall.

The photo accompanying that cheery item portrayed a scarred landscape that looked like a war zone, with several roughly cleared acres half filled with pools of rainwater. Not long before, the area was home to mom ‘n’ pop stores, repair shops, apartment buildings and more. In the name of urban renewal, that business and residential district was turned into this scene of desolation – which is how it would remain for the next seven years. It’s tough to stay optimistic for that long, particularly when a growing number of people would start to question whether the shopping center was such a good idea in the first place.

(ABOVE: Hugh Codding holding the “key to the city” while dressed in 19th century costume during the March 16, 1968 Santa Rosa centennial. Photo courtesy Sonoma County Museum)

As introduced here in earlier chapters of the “ROAD TO THE MALL” series, this phase of urban renewal started in March 1970 when the City Council passed an ordinance ruling that pretty much everything between B Street and the highway was a “blighted area.” Hardly anyone made comments or raised questions at the public hearing; likely most expected a replay of what happened in the 1960s, when all the blocks surrounding Courthouse Square were similarly deemed unfit but only a few building locations east and south of the Square were affected. They couldn’t forsee that this time, however, the city would be demolishing everything in the area.

Nor was there much fuss when the first bulldozers arrived in 1972 and started bulldozing. A short-lived lawsuit on behalf of the 200+ low income residents still living in the area was quashed by the city’s promise to make good on its original promise to find them other places to live.

The same week that suit was filed, the Press Democrat said Santa Rosa approved “exclusive negotiations with a Hawthorne development firm for a renewal-area shopping center.” A shopping center was a radical new direction from what had been considered when the blight ordinance passed in 1970; at the time there were only fuzzy plans for a department store, motel and a convention center. Even though this major decision was made by a non-elected city staffer without any sort of public hearing, there seemed to be little concern – although normally this sort of undemocratic schenanigan was what you’d expect to set city hall watchdogs barking in alarm.

No group opposed to the redevelopment project appeared until the autumn of 1974 (the topic of a following chapter) but there was one Cassandra who warned from the beginning the situation was fraught: Hugh B. Codding.

In 1970 Codding was a member of the City Council. At that March blight-ordinance meeting he remarked the city’s Planning Director Ken Blackman and the Vice Mayor had tried to strong arm the Montgomery Ward department store chain.1 Codding – who had offered Wards space at Coddingtown – said he was told the city officials had warned a company executive they would have to commit to building a new store in the project area or the company wouldn’t be welcome in Santa Rosa. Other council members pressed him for details and Codding provided the name of the Wards executive, yet the Vice Mayor still insinuated Codding was a liar.

That set the tone for much of what would happen over the next dozen years. It would be Codding fighting the city – specifically, its Urban Renewal Agency (URA) – charging that most everything leading up to opening day at the mall was shifty, if not flat-out illegal. In turn, city officials sniped back over his motives and embarrassed themselves with foolish remarks; in 1974 some council members suggested a boycott of Coddingtown and Montgomery Village. Yeah, causing the city to lose a large chunk of its sales tax revenue would really show Codding who’s the boss, you bet.

But don’t mistake Hugh Codding for a valiant knight wanting to protect his hometown from death by redevelopment. While he believed a mall at that location would force existing downtown stores out of business, he wanted to build on the site as well. Codding told the PD it would “resemble the old central business district plan and would include two department stores and shops, a conventional hotel center, exhibition hall and entertainment center.” He vowed not to touch the Cal Theater and said he would turn the old Post Office into a museum right where it was.

Codding’s main argument was the project area, dubbed “Phase II,” should be sold outright to a private developer (him) at fair-market value – as opposed to making a complicated deal that would be funded through the URA using public funds, including raising money via bonds.

And you can bet Codding was pissed because he wasn’t given a chance to even discuss those ideas with the URA, which rushed into exclusive negotiations with Los Angeles developer Ernest W. Hahn. This was more or less what had happened back in 1964, when he was blocked from making bids on the earlier redevelopment project because the agency made a sweetheart deal with local developer Henry Trione’s group.

Codding was on the City Council back then, so he confined his protests to snarky comments about unfairness. But now that he was no longer a councilman he unleashed Codding Enterprises’ attorney, William J. Smith, who would keep busy filing lawsuits intended to monkeywrench Hahn’s mall project. The Press Democrat was unabashedly a cheerleader for mall construction and had long disliked Hugh Codding but Bill was a great lawyer, if only because he kept Codding’s anti-mall viewpoints in the paper. Reporters knew he was the go-to guy for a dramatic quote: The mall project was not only a “land grab” but “the biggest ripoff in the history of Santa Rosa.” Without his colorful quips much of this important history might have slipped by unnoticed.

coddingland(RIGHT: Richard Codding and Bill Smith looking at plans of Coddingland Shopping Center in 1971. Photo courtesy Sonoma County Library)

Codding was further motivated to stop or slow down the Hahn project because he didn’t want competition. Besides Coddingtown and Montgomery Village, since the mid-1960s he planned to build “Coddingland” (!) – a large regional shopping center on the west side of Rohnert Park. As explained in the intro to this history of the mall, a commonly-held notion at the time was that a shopping center was vital to a community’s economic survival; failing to have the best one within driving distance of most people in the area and the local Chamber of Commerce might just as well start handing out STORE FOR RENT signs.

Before continuing, I want to repeat an earlier point that cities and counties all over the nation were making similar stupid, irreversible decisions in those days. I don’t find a whiff that anything actually illegal was going on here in Santa Rosa – it was good intentions, not greed or corruption, which led to the dismantling of “The City Designed for Living.” (Here’s also a reminder this chapter is part of a broader series on Santa Rosa redevelopment: “YESTERDAY IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER,” which includes an index covering everything on the topic going back to the 1960s.)

But a year before Smith’s first lawsuit was filed, it seemed like Codding’s proposal might get a hearing at the agency after all – although URA Executive Director James K. Burns originally told the Press Democrat he hadn’t even considered speaking to Codding because Hahn’s company had far more regional experience. Lordy, that must have stung.

The exclusive deal with Hahn was for a 120 day feasibility study. “Mr. Codding went away with the understanding that if Mr. Hahn’s firm doesn’t come up with a workable proposal in four months, his firm would be one offered a chance for a new proposal,” the PD reported.

Come July of 1972 and the study period was up. Hahn asked for a nine month extension, which was immediately granted by the URA. Replying to a question from Codding Enterprises, Burns said they were welcome to look at any area plans or studies that didn’t belong to Hahn’s company. What the PD actually printed, however, was they couldn’t see anything that was the property of the Burns Company. It was interesting no one at the paper caught this howling typo – but considering what happened next, it proved surprisingly prophetic.

Time fleweth by and it was now March 1973 – Hahn had had a full year to consider whether he wanted to build a mall or no. He could still cancel the deal without consequences, as his company had not purchased an option on any of the property and those months of study were really the sort of due diligence that his staff surely needed to do on every major project.

Attorney Smith appeared at the next URA meeting and accused the agency and their lawyers of stonewalling requests for basic information about the planned scope of the Hahn project and how it would be paid for. After a month of failed efforts to simply get someone to answer the phone, Smith said their behavior was “suggestive of governmental secrecy and closed-door dealings.”

The agency chairman demurred, saying they first needed to consult lawyers and have Burns write a report. That response only further raised red flags, as just a few days earlier Hahn was the speaker at a Downtown Development Association (DDA) dinner where he blabbed at some length about the size and layout of the future mall. As far as funding, he boasted it would “pay for itself.”

A few days later Burns gave Smith a copy of a memo which he said was soon going to be shared with the City Council anyway. It sketched out how much the URA intended to raise with bond money, which was in addition to the HUD grants. The scheme was either savvy (the project would “pay for itself” if everything went perfectly to plan) or reckless (Santa Rosa could end up bankrupt if it didn’t). The Big Ask would be for $13 million and include funding for “development of Railroad Square” and construction of a community center – both of which were to be quickly dropped from actual consideration, though they continued to appear in PR pamphlets touting redevelopment. 2


…AND HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO PAY FOR THAT?

In March 1973 the URA told Hahn it would propose Santa Rosa use two kinds of bonds that didn’t have to be approved by voters. Neither type of bond was controversial in its own right, but Santa Rosa wanted to use them in a way more beneficial to the developer than the city.

A Lease Revenue Bond (LRB) is issued by government (state, county or city) to pay for a public building that wouldn’t be used to generate income, such as a firehouse, school, or a prison. This is how Sonoma County funded construction of the present courthouse after voters refused to approve a bond (five times, no less!) between 1960 and 1963. The government then rents the building from the bondholders.3

A Tax Increment Financing Bond (TIF, also called a “tax allocation bond”) has less specific purposes, but is usually to fund redeveloping an entire “blighted” district. Presumably such improvements would result in higher property taxes and more local sales tax income.

Both are long-term municipal bonds which would typically extend over decades. But Santa Rosa officials believed at the time the mall would be opened by 1975 and the city treasury would be instantly awash with tax money, which would pay off any bonds in 8-10 years.

The $13M TIF bond was dropped, but the city later sold $6.5 million in bonds for Phase II redevelopment. Another $1.8M TIF was not sold, but was a “tool” used to obtain a matching federal grant from HUD, according to a URA lawyer.

It was because of the proposed TIF bonds that the county sued the URA in late 1974. Because all new tax income generated by the mall was earmarked for paying off the bond, special districts for schools, fire departments and hospitals (etc.) would not enjoy any benefits.

Worse, the assessed property values in an active redevelopment area were frozen at whatever they were when the blight removal project began. To speed up HUD approval of the 1970s project area, the URA had used a loophole. They claimed this wasn’t a new project, but rather an extension of the earlier project near Courthouse Square. This meant property taxes for the new mall were to be set not according to the current year, but instead the “base year” when redevelopment was first approved – which in this case was 1961.

(This sidebar has been edited to correct details about the TIF bonds.)

This was in addition to the big tranche of HUD urban renewal money, and the URA intended to raise this other pot o’ gold via bonds – which led to lawsuits against the URA by the county as well as Codding. See sidebar.

Once Bill Smith obtained this “secret memo” between Hahn and the URA he unleashed his silver tongue: “The implications of this material are staggering. It is perhaps the most incredible document we have ever studied.” He objected to the absence of voter approval and that taxpayers would be “subsidizing land developers and large department stores.”

All true that, but left unsaid was those bonds represented a Point of No Return. After they were issued, Santa Rosa would be completely at the mercy of Hahn making good on his promises. Should he proclaim that, oh, the mall just might need another year of studies – or goddesses forfend, he might be thinking about walking away from the project – the city would still have to make bond payments on today’s equivalent of $84 million dollars. We were giving away all bargaining power on what impact the mall would have on the future of Santa Rosa.

Yet at every URA or City Council meeting concerning redevelopment, attorney Smith was there, reminding the officials that Codding Enterprises was ready to immediately present a $1M deposit to buy the property outright, with no bond funding required at all. So great was the animosity toward Codding they never had the courtesy to allow him to make a pitch. Maybe they were concerned his proposal would prove so popular it would put the brakes on the mad rush to hand over keys to the kingdom to a Los Angeles developer.4

A few weeks after the “secret memo” episode, Hahn was back in town for a URA meeting where he requested (wait for it, wait for it!)…another extension. This time it was for ninety days, and the agency approved it unanimously. Bill Smith was at the meeting, and I’ll bet his eyes rolled so far back in his head they made an audible clunk.

Hahn was also there to deliver a cashier’s check for $500,000 as “good faith” money – but should the deal fall through, Hahn expected all of it back, and with interest. Smith argued this amounted to giving him a risk-free option, and said Hahn had dragged out studies for a Richmond shopping center for two years before it was dropped. In response the URA chairman chided Smith for not being “affirmative.”

The new extension was because Hahn said he needed time to prepare a “predisposition agreement” required for HUD approval and review by bond underwriters. Said Smith: That means it’s a public document and I want to see it. He was told it was off-limits because it part of their exclusive negotiations with Hahn.

Thus Codding Enterprises immediately filed its very first lawsuit in the redevelopment saga, seeking disclosure of the agreement under California’s version of the Freedom of Information Act. He complained to the PD about the URA throwing out obstacles on “this charade, this costly proceeding to get a lousy letter.” When it was released shortly afterwards it was shown one department store was committed to the mall, another considering it, and a third straddling the fence.

In an imperfect (yet better!) universe this would be nearly the end of the story. Codding surrenders and Hahn’s mall is built in the mid-1970s. Yeah, it may be obnoxious but it doesn’t completely dominate downtown. It ends at Fifth street so it’s still easy to get to Railroad Square. The beloved Cal Theater remains in place, as does the Old Post Office and Masonic Scottish Rite Temple, with its precious Kurlander Collection of Santa Rosa’s historical artifacts.

But Gentle Reader knows this is not what happened. Bill Smith continued to protest. Codding continued to sue. In the following years others decided Codding shouldn’t have all the judicial fun and they filed lawsuits as well. In the compressed viewpoint of hindsight, that period looked like everyone was slugging it out with everyone else all the time.

We can pinpoint our unhappy turn of fate to May 22, 1973, which was when the City Council approved expanding the urban renewal study area to Seventh street at the request of the URA. Besides the aforementioned heritage buildings, this area included the Bishop-Hansel Ford dealership and the 75,000 sq. ft. Sears department store, which was less than 25 years old.

Smith argued those twelve acres were not blighted and thus would not qualify for HUD redevelopment funding. Burns countered it was the Council who determined where urban renewal was needed. The PD noted the underlying reason was to expand the mall’s footprint.

So here’s the executive summary of where things stand as we enter the summer of 1973:

Our coy developer, Hahn, is still not sure Santa Rosa is up to muster and is having trouble signing up anchor stores for the future mall. But maybe if we could see fit to supersize the amount of land we’re giving him, he will decide he likes us in spite of our failings.

URA Executive Director James K. Burns has taken to fear-mongering the city is “losing $100,000 in taxes monthly” until the mall opens. He and other URA members appear so worried Hahn might delay or take flight they attempt suppressing all disclosure of their “exclusive negotiations,” skirting the law and giving their discussions the shady appearance of backroom dealmaking.

Codding Enterprises attorney William Smith is haunting public meetings and writing letters that warn the city is being hoodwinked.

There is still no organized public opposition to the mall project. It may be because Codding is leading the fight and some people really don’t like him. Since no architectural drawings appear in the paper most don’t understand Railroad Square might be blocked off. Or perhaps people just aren’t paying attention because it’s all so confusing. (“Tax increment systems?” Wha?)

Bottom line: Judge them not, because few, if any, can see what’s in store for poor, damned Santa Rosa.


1 The Montgomery Ward building in Santa Rosa was demolished following the 1969 earthquakes, but they quickly reopened as a catalog store near the current location of the Mendocino Av. Safeway. In 1972 they moved next to the Flamingo Hotel.
2 A full breakdown of Phase II and III financials by URA Executive Director James K. Burns can be found in the September 2, 1973 Press Democrat

3 No Lease Revenue bond was issued for the mall project (as far as I can tell) although it was described several times in the paper, including in a March 9, 1973 Press Democrat interview with Burns. It was probably just being used as a talking point in order to mention a community center which the URA kept dangling as a possibility in PR materials.
4 Since Codding Enterprises never had the chance to make a redevelopment presentation we don’t exactly what they would have proposed. The few times it was mentioned in the newspapers a department store, motel and convention center were frequently cited. Objections to the Hahn plans from William Smith sometimes mentioned the city’s Housing Element in the General Plan, and at least one letter from him stated “replacement and construction of housing for low and moderate income families and the elderly should be part of the downtown plan.” April 26, 1973 Press Democrat

NEXT: GREATEST EXPECTATIONS

Read More

ura1975

ROAD TO THE MALL: THE CHOSEN ONE

There were two Santa Rosas in the early 1970s but unfortunately, the Press Democrat opted to only write about one of them.

The newspaper loved to showcase news about their reborn city. Ever since the 1906 earthquake, editors had touted Santa Rosa as a true (but unappreciated!) Bay Area metropolis which would someday bloom into greatness. Now work was wrapping up on the urban renewal projects directly south and east of Courthouse Square. Contractor vans and pickups still crowded parking spots but the tall office buildings with banks on the ground floor showed how much progress had been made in the 1960s. Our city hall complex, with its elaborate water feature in the courtyard and unadorned concrete walls so pure white you had to squint in bright sun, boldly said this was as modern a city as could be found anywhere. Why, if you didn’t know any better it would be easy to imagine all this wonderfulness was in Topeka or Schenectady or any of a hundred other cities.


SELF-DESTRUCTION WAS ALL THE RAGE

Future historians will look back at post-WWII America and want to know: Why did we destroy our cities?

During those years there was no shortage of experts praising the gospel of urban renewal at Kiwanis Club luncheons and business roundtables, singing to the famous tune from The Music Man: “Oh, ya got trouble right here in [your] city with a capital ‘T’ and that rhymes with ‘B’ and that stands for Blight…” Around 1960, Santa Rosa was visited by two or three of these blightarian preachers every year.

The message was always that too much of the place was old and rundown, either a slum or on the brink of becoming same – plus there were warehouses and auto repair shops and lumber yards which didn’t need to be anywhere near downtown. A commonly heard metaphor was that these low-income residential and light industrial areas were like a disease threatening the health of the city whole. Surgery was urgently needed.

Replacing all the old stuff with new stuff certainly sounded swell, but what ended up happening was anything but surgical. Those who lived there were the usual poverty suspects – people of color, the elderly and downtrodden – and told to get out because their buildings were about to be torn down. The properties were then purchased by the city using federal and state grant money; after bulldozers scraped everything down to the topsoil, multiple parcels would be bundled together and sold for pennies on the dollar to developers. Where once stood historic buildings and unique neighborhoods there were now gleaming steel commercial districts and/or high rise apartments.

Not every redevelopment project was a complete nightmare, of course; some cities made sure those who were displaced found decent places, even building subsidized housing. Strict architectural design guidelines can be found that ensured new construction would blend better into the existing area, or at least not follow cookie-cutter blueprints.

But more commonly heard are horror stories – politicians using redevelopment as a tool to isolate or smother minority communities, or how the local government oversight was so lax or corrupt the developers were allowed to run amok. Often cited in books and studies among the worst cases was the Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project in Los Angeles, the largest makeover of a city’s downtown core in our nation’s history.

Starting in the 1890s, Bunker Hill was the swanky part of LA. There were Victorian mansions that rivaled Newport’s finest and there was the picturesque Angels Flight tram to carry residents between their exclusive neighborhood and the downtown shopping district. When the rich began migrating to Beverly Hills and elsewhere in the westside “Platinum Triangle” the grand homes were broken up into apartments and boarding houses. During WWII those rooms were filled with aircraft industry and transient workers; afterward it was mostly elderly pensioners (watch a short heartbreaking documentary). By the time demolition began in 1961, there were up to 8,500 awaiting eviction.

The building program was beset by lawsuits and political meddling. Promised affordable housing never materialized. A 1966 audit found the city agency had done little except for acting like an inept real estate broker, spending top dollar to acquire large amounts of land while selling only a small portion of it – and that at cut-rate prices. The public was told construction would be completed by 1975, 1977, or 1979, tops. Today the area still isn’t built out, as Los Angeles recently gave the green light to a 64 story tower on one of the remaining vacant lots.

What the PD avoided writing about was the west side of downtown. Everything between B street and the highway was slated to be demolished, as detailed in the previous chapter. And starting in 1972, the wrecking crews came in and began to wreck.

Other cities had likewise dismantled whole sections of their downtown in the name of urban renewal, particularly Los Angeles (see sidebar). Newspapers in those cities took notice and ran articles describing what would be slipping away. Human interest stories of elderly residents who had lived in the area for years and were afraid what would happen to them; shopkeepers worried about losing their livelihood.

Not so the PD. Except for a single story about George and Tillie Cross, who had operated a breakfast and lunch counter on lower Fifth St. since 1929, little in the local paper personalized the upcoming demolition of so much of our community. There was no downside at all to throwing away about a third of the downtown in their editorial eyes.

Also ignored by the PD was that demolition began at a time when the city still had no plans on what to do with the land, except for vague notions that a convention center and department store would be nice. (Sorry, the city government is using eminent domain to force the sale of your home because a developer might want to build something there someday.)

In this Santa Rosa was following the script of Los Angeles’ ultra-controversial Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project from a few years earlier, where an audit had concluded that such a pre-emptive purchase of land – which might not be redeveloped in the foreseeable future – was wasteful and only proved LA’s urban renewal was a colossal flop.

Also like LA, our Urban Renewal Agency (URA) was directed by a five member board of non-salaried political appointees. They were stolid, civic-minded gentlemen but none had any apparent background in land development or urban planning; as identified in the photo below, there was a banker, an insurance agent, a civil engineer and two who worked in stores.

The Press Democrat didn’t criticize the board or city leaders for stumbling forward without a plan, which really shouldn’t come as a surprise – more important was they had already accomplished their initial objective, which was snagging millions of dollars from Washington for the new urban renewal project. A month after Santa Rosa was hit by the 1969 earthquakes, the mayor and the Planning Director were at the Capitol making a pitch for fast approval of federal grant money.

(A reminder that this article and others concerning the redevelopment saga are all part of the series, “YESTERDAY IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER” which offers an index covering everything on the topic going back to the 1960s.)

That Planning Director was Ken Blackman who would be appointed City Manager in mid-1970, a position he would hold for thirty years. Whatever you love or hate about this town can probably be traced back to Blackman in some way – and that includes the mall. The PD was absolutely smitten with him; a 1983 puff piece told readers he was the “true mayor of Santa Rosa…Council members know they are often considered little more than pawns, or a rubber stamp for Blackman and his staff.”

Blackman was first hired by the city in 1965 and within a year was named Planning Director (he had a degree in economics and a Masters’ in Urban Planning). Besides that job, when crucial decisions were being made following the ’69 quakes he was also Community Development Director and Urban Renewal Agency Director. Since these were all fulltime staff positions, the joke going around City Hall was that he was gonna be the richest guy in town.

Even Blackman’s adversaries agreed he was a very successful City Manager. He kept the gears of Santa Rosa’s (surprisingly large) bureaucracy running smoothly and held sway over the City Council so it would do exactly what he wanted. He spoke fluent politics and a campaign manager told the Press Democrat in that 1983 profile he had “the ability to sense which groups have political power and he takes care of them.” While he didn’t cause people to fear him he was described as aloof and something of a tyrant; the PD’s stock photo of him in the early 1970s had a phone pressed to his ear with a “stern dad” scowl. But make no mistake: Ken Blackman was the bossman in the City of Roses. L’état ç’est lui.

He was the earliest and loudest advocate for razing the entire west side of downtown but was largely responsible for blunders that hampered his goal. The city had made no plans about what to do with rubble from the few buildings needing to be demolished because of earthquake damage, much less the 89 structures in the area Blackman wanted to bulldoze (the county dump near Guerneville only accepted household waste). As explained previously, the city’s solution was to allow any vacant lot to be used as a construction material dump as long as paperwork was filed for a special permit which would waive zoning laws. (There were even appeals asking property owners to come forward as a civic duty.) It would be an interesting research project to see if there is a map of these sites and whether there were any subsequent soil tests for asbestos, lead, arsenic or other toxins.

Another urgent problem was what to do with the 200+ people living in the redevelopment area who were about to be displaced by the demolition. A San Francisco developer tried to build a 226 unit residential hotel at Second and D Streets but found the URA impossible to work with. One of the partners expressed frustration to the PD and said pressure from the Agency staff was making the project “much too complicated.” Comments from city representatives in that article strongly imply Santa Rosa was throwing obstacles in front of the developer because the real hope was to make a deal with the government to buy it (today it’s the location of the state’s Rattigan office building).

After the residential hotel project died in the summer of 1971, there were three very different templates for Santa Rosa’s future I can imagine:

*
BUNKER HILL DÉJÀ VU   Santa Rosa could continue following the blueprint of LA’s Bunker Hill, albeit writ smaller. Let the impoverished residents fend for themselves, scrape the land down to a blasted heath then let it sit idle for years as the city tries to haggle jackpot real estate deals. Meanwhile, Santa Rosa collects millions in ongoing federal redevelopment grants because so much public money has already been dumped into the boondoggle project it’s become too big to fail.
*
REDEVELOPMENT LITE   The 1960s redevelopment near Courthouse Square mainly resulted in those blocks being dominated by banks and office buildings. Santa Rosa could raze the east side of B Street between Fourth and Second for more of the same (which is how it’s now used, with CitiBank, Wells Fargo and Luther Burbank Savings there). The city also could build the convention center at Third and A which had been on wishlists for years. Everything else could be left undisturbed. As this plan would wipe out the Santa Rosa Hotel and a few small apartment buildings, Santa Rosa would probably get a couple of million dollars for relocation money. Funding would be available to buy the property for the convention center but Santa Rosa would have to pass a bond to construct it, as happened with the City Hall complex. In sum, this plan wouldn’t deliver those big federal bux.
*
BUILD BACK BETTER   The existing area west of B street had been mixed residential/commercial since before the 1906 earthquake. Santa Rosa could let it stay that way, making available grants and other incentives for property owners to bring buildings up to code while doing any repairs. Gone would be any debate about what to do with the Old Post Office and Cal Theater because they remain where they always were. The downsides: Santa Rosa already had declared the entire area blighted and received a HUD grant aimed at completely taking down this “slum.” Oh, to be a fly on the wall should Blackman have needed to call Washington and explain we lied on the application because the area is really more of a fixer-upper and, um, could we still keep the money, please?

All signs pointed to Santa Rosa’s project becoming a replay of the Bunker Hill screwup. At this junction Ken Blackman did something that steered us on the path to our world today – he hired a professional who was a bulldog for getting projects done. His name was James Burns.

Kenneth R. Blackman and James K. Burns (from a 1972 Urban Renewal Agency brochure)
Kenneth R. Blackman and James K. Burns (from a 1972 Urban Renewal Agency brochure)

Burns was hired in late 1971 and weeks later was named Executive Director of the Urban Renewal Agency after his predecessor quit, saying he was “an advocate of responsible quality development” and wasn’t comfortable with the direction Santa Rosa was heading. The Phase II redevelopment project might not have been his top concern, however; at that moment there was intense pressure to rush approval for annexation and development of the Fountain Grove Ranch to satisfy a deadline set by Hewett-Packard (another long, sordid story).

Santa Rosa was the fourth stop in Burns’ career, having most recently held the number-two position in the Rochester, NY renewal agency. It appears he was all that held that office together; not long after he left four others resigned because of “unbelievable feuds” with his successor, according to the local paper. One of them followed Burns to Santa Rosa where he would work under Blackman.

Before that he was project manager for Bunker Hill. There was a shakeup following that damning 1966 audit and Burns came in after a new administrator took charge. The wholesale demolition and evictions happened before his tenure; he managed street tunnel extensions, grading 35 feet off the top of hill, and labor-intensive landscaping where flowers were continually replanted in a high visibility area to make the overall mess seem slightly less like a hellscape.

burnsadMost Santa Rosans in 1972 probably couldn’t name the fellow who previously had the URA Executive Director job (it was Donald Laidlaw, for those playing Trivial Pursuit at home) but James K. Burns quickly left his mark, starting with the ad shown at right; whether it appeared in any newspaper other than the Press Democrat or trade journal is unknown. As far as I can tell, this was the first time anyone from the city proposed a full-blown shopping center in the downtown core.

When the PD asked about the ad Burns replied, “Why have a costly study to determine the proposal when potential developers – the ones who might actually be involved in the project – can indicate the feasibility much easier?” (Of course they could trust developers to honestly report on the projected costs and impact their project would have on infrastructure, safety and the public weal. Nay, sir, why should there be any government oversight at all, including building inspectors?)

Nor did Burns expect to see an actual proposal. According to the PD, “The director said the revitalized agency will want to know the developer’s track record, source of funds, members of his development team, and their interest and motives. At that point, the agency will select the most competent development team and enter into a period of exclusive negotiations.”

While his criteria for picking a developer for such a bellwether project could scarcely be fuzzier, Burns was quite specific per the money he expected to come in: The shopping center not only would be built in record time but construction would bring in $18 million over 18 months. Compare that to the piddling million/year boost from the 1960s redevelopment project and it’s no wonder why Burns’ vision was causing everyone around Ken Blackman’s city hall to purr and mew.

A few days after the close of interviews, the winner of this beauty contest was announced: It was Ernest W. Hahn Inc. of Hawthorne (Los Angeles). Only two other developers had applied.*

The Hahn Company was a seemingly uncontroversial pick; it was among the largest commercial developers in the West, having constructed about a dozen shopping centers to that date. Prior to that in the 1960s the company built pharmacies, supermarkets and department stores and frequently bid on contracts in the North Bay, including Santa Rosa. They had satellite offices in Hayward and Sacramento, where in 1968 alone the company did over $9 million in construction. Also in the state capitol in the mid-1960s was James K. Burns, whose first job was working at the Sacramento Redevelopment Agency, rising from trainee to project manager.

Still, given the short time window of three weeks to apply, it’s valid to ask whether the URA had a chance to interview all viable candidates. For example, it’s just possible Gentle Reader might recall Santa Rosa had its very own shopping center developer, someone who had built a couple of places called Coddingtown and Montgomery Village.

According to the Press Democrat, Codding Enterprises contacted Burns and asked if the Agency could “defer definite action on the developer selection until three weeks or so.” Company president Hugh Codding was on the City Council but his term would expire April 11. After that he would have no conflict of interest, so perhaps they “could then explore the developer proposal for a downtown shopping center to see if there are any areas of mutual benefit.” The PD article continued:

Asked later to comment on Mr. Codding’s delay request, Mr. Burns said the agency often is criticized for delays. He said the agency’s desire to hear from interested developers was given public notice locally as well as in the Bay Area. “If Codding Enterprises was interested, it should have come forward and explained the situation at that time,” the director said. Mr. Burns said he felt he would still recommend the Hahn firm even if Codding Enterprises had been interviewed because of the nature of far more regional experience.

Having lost the opportunity to negotiate for the largest project in his hometown’s history simply because of an arbitrary deadline, Hugh B. Codding accepted that decision and did everything he could to support the project in order to ensure the completion of the downtown mall just went swell.

Ha, ha, just kidding. By the end of that decade Codding had filed eighteen lawsuits (22, by another count) directly related to the Hahn project – and that was just the tip of the iceberg of court proceedings.

NEXT: MR. CODDING HAS SOME OBJECTIONS


* The other shopping center developers were Desmond McTavish of San Francisco and the Hapsmith Co. of Beverly Hills.
Urban Renewal Agency members, 1975. Left to Right: George R. Sutherland Jr. (Hardisty's manager); Frederick L. Browne (civil engineer); George B. Schmoll (insurance broker); Michael Panas (Summit Savings branch manager); Ted Grosman (Montgomery Village store owner); James K. Burns (URA Executive Director)
Urban Renewal Agency members, 1975. Left to Right: George R. Sutherland Jr. (Hardisty’s manager); Frederick L. Browne (civil engineer); George B. Schmoll (insurance broker); Michael Panas (Summit Savings branch manager); Ted Grosman (Montgomery Village store owner); James K. Burns (URA Executive Director)

Read More