Savi Ranch, Town Center challenges await action

Significant challenges face Yorba Linda officials as they formulate a long-range vision for the city's 158-acre portion of Savi Ranch, especially in allotting more space to sales tax-generating retail businesses.

But, fortunately, lesser obstacles so far aren't impeding what a city management staffer is calling an “aggressive” project timeline for completion of Town Center construction in early 2016.

The Savi Ranch challenges are outlined in preliminary reports prepared for an upcoming Savi Ranch Land Use and Mobility Vision Plan that will picture the site up to 30 years from now,

under a state Transportation Department grant ($240,000) and city match funds ($24,000).

The consultant hired to prepare the report sees “untapped development potential,” since lot coverage now averages 23 percent, well below the range of 35 to 60 percent allowed in the city's zoning code, and only 10 of about 80 buildings have the permitted two or more stories.

Current standards could allow an added 400,000 square feet of ground-level space and one million square feet second story or above area, but it's “very difficult, given the city's existing off-street parking requirements, for projects to maximize...potential coverage and/or building height.”

For retail, the consultant found existing consumer spending could support an added 1.2 million square feet of building space, jumping to 1.6 million square feet in five years due to growth in household numbers and income.

But “attracting additional retail businesses...would be difficult because [the site] is difficult to get to, it has poor visibility and traffic congestion can make shopping unpleasant.”

And, since online shopping has changed the retail environment, “One strategy...is to develop retail destinations that cannot be replicated online....Fostering experience-oriented shopping might also position Savi Ranch to compete better with the retail in the surrounding region....”

In experience-oriented shopping, the consultant says, “the experience of the trip is of equal if not greater importance than the material need for a good or service,” with value coming from socialization with friends, entertainment or “the quality of the place.”

Meanwhile, the City Council-selected developer will work around challenges in building about 80,000 square feet of commercial retail in Town Center between Main Street and Lakeview Avenue that includes a six-screen, 30,500-square-foot movie theater complex.

One challenge, according to a report from Housing and Redevelopment Manager Pam Stoker, is the developer's “inability to acquire certain private properties along Lakeview, resulting in a reduced project scope, loss of retail space, removal of a parking structure and the inclusion of additional surface parking.”

Despite the setback, under an “aggressive” timeline, architectural and engineering plans are to be ready in June, theater negotiations completed by August, building construction documents due in November, with construction starting April 2015 and completion January 2016.