The new mixed use development that promises to transform the look and feel of downtown Encinitas, Pacific Station, has a website up: www.pacificstation.net
Developer John Dewald confirmed to 101 Coordinator Peder Norby this morning that a 25,000 square foot Whole Foods market will be the main tenant. While I remain critical of many design elements of Pacific Station, I am happy to have a grocery store return to the Encinitas coast highway, especially one that specializes in quality organic goods.
The Whole Foods press release is as savory and elegant as the food it sells: Created to satisfy and delight their customers, the new location promises to be an unrivaled culinary experience, offering a fresh and distinctive approach to the grocery shopping and dining experience that customers have come to expect from Whole Foods Market. All the latest, most innovative natural and organic offerings will be incorporated into the store. Whether shopping for the families' groceries, grabbing a hot lunch or having salmon grilled to order, shoppers will be amazed by the selection and variety of natural products that are available to choose from.
I can only speculate what the traffic is going to be like on that section of downtown but the many residents who live in the downtown Encinitas beach area should be thrilled to have a full service market they can walk to.
Pacific Station will have two three-story buildings, a two-story restaurant and two levels of underground parking on the 1.39-acre lot between E and F streets. The 33-foot-tall buildings would be among the tallest in downtown Encinitas
In other ENC101 news, an ACE Hardware store has opened in the Lumberyard shopping center to rave reviews for it's customer service. ACE is in the space Casady's Organic Market formally occupied.
It is killer to have ACE and a high end grocery store. Whole foods is not going to be fun to shop at when it is such a pain to find parking.
ReplyDeleteCitizens are crying for the city to build a parking structure downtown. When is the city going to stop spending money on a sports complex and build us a parking structure. That is where our money should be going.
The problem with our council is that none of them have lived somewhere that is anything like what they are trying to turn Encinitas into.
Encinitas could be so much better if the council would just stop bending over.
Whole Foods is high end and high prices. The company brought the Mrs. Gooch's chain which went from a health food store to a complete meal store. Visit the Whole Foods in La Jolla for a preview of the new market.
ReplyDeleteAn FYI: Jim Bond e-mailed me and said the second reading of Ordinance 2007-13,(the Free Speech Ordinance) will be heard at the Dec. 12, 2007 Council meeting. He cc'd all Council Members, Glenn Sabine, Phil Cotton and Jace Schwarm. Be there is you can.
ReplyDeletehappy thanksgiving
ReplyDeletelife is good
no dui in encinitas over the holiday please
stay safe, join rspb and stagger down the new sidewalks if u must imbibe to excess
Pacific Station is twice as big as it should be and provides no open space and very little landscape as far as I can see. Other than that and the cookie cutter boxes I love it.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there is room for parking for Pacific Station and an upzoning of Pacific View.
ReplyDeletePeople should be allowed to vote on EUSD "trading" that property that belongs to the public for a commercial "revenue source." That is not the greatest public benefit, in my estimation. Let people think for themselves.
Mrs. Randy Duke Cunningham is holding down a $100,000 year plus job in the administration of Encinitas Union School District. Cut some of the corrupt deadweight, EUSD, and you would not need a revenue "stream." Your flow is supposed to come from the taxpayers and through school bonds, such as the one we recently passed for you.
Please don't be development greedy, with dollar signs in your eyes.
There is not enough open space, parking, water, sewer pipes, for more and more development, whether commercial, office or residential.
If you go downtown, this will affect you. We want to vote on all upzonings. Change EMC, if we have to.
"Stroker Ace" - I am pretty sure that Pacific Station has a parking structure below.
ReplyDeleteYes, the preliminary plans for Pacific Station do call for a parking garage below, but it will not be enough for all of the residents, their guests, the business offices, the market, the proposed drug store, and the restaurant planned.
ReplyDeleteSome of the residences, the "affordable housing units" are allowed to have only one parking space! Seven spaces are being eliminated from the street. Parking downtown will be a nightmare.
I'm looking at The Coast News from 11/9/07, with a headline: "Survey says downtown parking woes continue; Encinitas spends $50K annually to enforce parking restrictions."
We taxpayers subsidized the move of the Chamber of Commerce to the downtown area. This was also a mistake. It was fine, with easy freeway access, in the Smart & Final center parking lot, before. The volunteers who staff that also wanted to stay put.
The latest version of Hoodlink is great discussing our future; Council, its consultants, and staff, all keep trying to convince us all that development is "inevitable." I don't know how cities in Northern Calif. were able to put a moratorium on development. The people there realized that there was not enough water, or infrastructure to support escalating growth and population, period. We could do the same.
First step, people can participate in local govt. by coming to the Council Meetings. Next one is on Dec. 5, and it's important because it will affect what decisions we are noticed about ahead of time, and immediately after the decision is made to "take action."
What has been happening is that Council just keeps plugging along, benefiting those seeking immediate profit, without taking our long-term quality of life into consideration, or the quality of life of future generations.
James Bond, our outgoing mayor, says "We are a nation of laws," yet he does not follow the Brown Act. He says, "we've been doing it this way for twenty years," without realizing that the very people who helped found our City, through the North Coast Coalition to Incorporate, did so to slow down and control the unchecked growth going down through the County. And we did not then have the debt to saddle us and our children created by trophy, Council vanity projects such as three fire McMansions and the over-designed, money-sucking library, with a coffee deck, and high, high cost because of the "Great Wall of Encinitas" that was built to buttress this structure, without consideration of cost effectiveness employed when making the cement forms for this gigantic White Elephant of a wall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nngYqmulLJI
ReplyDeleteLynn:
ReplyDeleteSanta Barbara "managed" growth for many years by prohibiting new water hookups/meters. They weren't on the state water system and relied on Lake Cachuma for supply. A severe drought prompted them to act. If you wanted to build, you had to dig a well. Not a snowball's chance that would have happened/worked here...
I'm still not clear where Pacific Station will be located and who is behind the project but am pretty sure that it's probably out of scale (too large) and that the "affordable housing" is a scam to get density credits or some other concession. If done right it could be a nice addition to downtown but...
Whole Foods will be a great addition to Encinitas. We were hoping for the Albertson's Encinitas Blvd location, but we will take Bristol Farms there if possible. Awesome to have two fresh healthy choices close to home. Great addition to Encinitas!
ReplyDelete