Thursday, February 7, 2013

The Greater Bay site plan for the beach...

In response to popular demand, I am presenting the proposed site plan put forward by Greater Bay.  It was never officially submitted or reviewed - the land use and zoning designation were in a legal limbo at the time.  And of course, we were all hearing how Straticon and Suzanne Mulvehill will "save" the former Casino building.

The key feature of this plan was moving the Casino building to the center of the property, opening up a view of the ocean from the bridge.  It would also consolidate the required parking through use of a parking deck, providing two levels of parking at the building.  This would have adequately addressed ADA access issues and off-street loading space for merchants, restaurants and events at the building.  It also would have eliminated the existing pool building and better integrated the pool into the overall site plan.

This unrealized site plan cost the city $2.4 million and led to the current operational problems at the NEW beach - since what we have there NOW is a reaction to what was proposed here.  None of the best ideas of this plan made it to the current version due to political prejudice and as a way to keep things "as they were", even though in the final result things ended up not being the same.