Crews break ground on new Petaluma street

“It’s kind a no man’s land, it’s been a neglected child,” City Engineer Gina Benedetti-Petnic said of the parcel, which will soon see more than 180 new housing units.|

While the continuing shelter-in-place order has blanketed some corners of downtown Petaluma with torpor, other pockets are springing with activity as a handful of development projects begin to break ground.

Along the Petaluma River between Petaluma Boulevard and Water Street, the 184-unit North River Apartments project launched the first phase of construction to link Oak and Water streets. The new riverfront throughway is expected to increase access to area businesses and revitalize a blighted area flanked by industrial lots.

City Engineer Gina Benedetti-Petnic sees the start of construction as a big step in re-imagining a corner of land in central Petaluma that will not only serve the incoming apartment complex, but will also bring increased river and road access to surrounding businesses.

“It’s kind a no man’s land, it’s been a neglected child,” Benedetti-Petnic said. “We’re already seeing some of the property owners in that segment start to submit for permits to turn around their entrances to the new Water Street and really take advantage of and celebrate the river on that side.”

The project was approved January 2018 after a lengthy land swap and rezoning agreement between the project developer A.G. Spanos Companies and Water Street Properties. The two apartment buildings between three and five stories will be bisected by the new Water Street extension, and the project will also build 4,600 feet of commercial space. The market-rate housing project will also add a new bus stop on Oak Street, a new intersection signal along the extension and a pedestrian connection to the nearby Lynch Creek Trail.

Benedetti-Petnic said construction is expected to last about two years, with the infrastructure and foundation work reaching well into next year.

“By spring or summer of 2021, people will start to see things go vertical. But before that, there is a lot of work underground and on the ground,” she said. ”What people will be noticing very soon will be some truck traffic supporting the operation, like construction equipment coming in and out occasionally, and a rerouted entrance to the Lynch Creek Trail.”

Roughly two dozen surrounding businesses voted to form a benefit assessment district earlier this year, choosing to pay into public improvement projects associated with the project such as roadway and utility upgrades.

These new public access points are part of a larger push for city staff and leaders to encourage a greater focus on the Petaluma River.

Elsewhere in central Petaluma, work has started on the Riverfront development hemmed in by the river, Highway 101 and Hopper Street, while the developers of a neighboring parcel propose 275 housing units and commercial space, including the future headquarters for Amy’s Kitchen.

Directly across the waterway, construction work continues on the Quarry Heights project.

“With all these projects coming to fruition, it’s transformative,” Benedetti-Petnic said. “It’s kind of akin to what the Theater District did, it will change the downtown area in the likes of which we haven’t seen.”

(Contact Kathryn Palmer at kathryn.palmer@arguscourier.com, on Twitter @KathrynPlmr.)

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