Forest City, Johnson Fain Begin Redevelopment of Downtown Fresno

By Jennifer Bonnett

Looking to cash in on the "new urbanism" craze and bring back residents to its much-maligned, largely-ignored downtown core, the Fresno City Council is following a forward-looking plan that will create neighborhoods in the downtown setting, including building housing atop commercial and retail.

The first large-scale redevelopment project is currently being designed with groundbreaking scheduled for later this year - Forest City Development's South Stadium project.

"With this development, we believe it will draw more people downtown. It's a dynamic and vibrant time downtown, and builders want to build here," said David Cisneros, senior project coordinator for the city's Redevelopment Agency.

Forest City's 85-acre South Stadium project will involve a 12-block outdoor shopping district that will include not only 690,000 sq. ft. in new retail and a cinema, but also about 500 housing units, including apartments and townhouses.

The architect is Los Angeles-based Johnson Fain.

"Forest City likes to retain some of the flavor of an area, so it will be renovating several buildings that can be saved," said Arthur Morgan, project manager for Forest City. "It's very exciting, for Forest City and downtown in general."

The Fresno project will be similar to those built in the Southern California cities of Rancho Cucamonga and Simi Valley. In each, there was a lifestyle center surrounded by residential units.

"Our extensive experience in urban redevelopment has shown that three major elements are key to successful revitalization - availability and proximity of parking, affordable land for acquisition, and improvements to public infrastructure to accommodate increased traffic," said Brian Jones, CEO for Forest City California West Coast Commercial Development.

Morgan, who until recently worked for the Redevelopment Agency, said Fresno is trying to change its downtown aura, once a place for the homeless and less-than desirables -- and old rundown buildings.

"The skyline of downtown Fresno is definitely changing," he said.

"More high rises are going up, and they're building pedestrian friendly landscaping. There is a lot of architectural thought going into these projects."

The city has worked for years to coax development downtown and finally garnered some serious interest after a baseball stadium built by the Triple A baseball team, the Fresno Grizzlies, opened in 2002. A Vision 2010 plan was approved that same year to redevelop certain downtown areas, including the Fulton Mall, Chinatown and Armenian Town.

In the past year-and-a-half alone, the city has welcomed the completion of the $121 million Federal Courthouse facility and an adjacent $20 million, 1,500-space parking garage; a $45 million, six-story office building; another office tower, this one 11 stories, near the convention center; and a six-story, $91 million trauma and burn center at the Community Medical Center campus.

Plus, a new state appellate courthouse broke ground last year on two acres of downtown redevelopment land.

The city said that more than $1 billion of private- and public-sector funding is currently fueling the revitalization of downtown Fresno.

Among the other housing projects under construction in downtown is Vagabond Lofts, a 10,000-sq.-ft. mixed-use project with room for 38 residential units and slated for completion in November. Set to include retail spaces and even coffee shops, it is designed by Pyramid Homes and Granville Homes, both based in Fresno.

The proposal is a joint venture among the city of Fresno, its Redevelopment Agency and the developers, and is one of the first housing projects in the area in 25 years.

"This is just the stuff that's happening downtown," Morgan said.

"People are looking for jobs, then they need somewhere to move their families, so we're building houses."