Is San Mateo Keeping Up With the Times?

You could start your day with a yoga class, have a specialty coffee and a bagel, drop off your cleaning, take in a film, leave your pets at the vet, get your teeth cleaned, lunch with friends, update your furniture for home, pick up a new knitting project, stop in for an author book signing, have a facial, then out for a fabulous dinner, all while never having to move your car (as long as you've used 10 hour parking in the garage). That is our downtown San Mateo!

There are, however, vacancies. Buildings waiting to come alive again with the hustle and bustle a new business would bring. Filling street-level vacancies in the downtown area helps all the businesses around them through increased foot traffic as employees eat out, use services, and shop. The appearance of a thriving downtown, rather than one with empty storefronts for years on end, attracts other businesses to consider our downtown as a viable location. New businesses also generate increased tax revenue.

In 2001, I owned a small business in the 25th Avenue business district. I was fortunate to have both a solid lease and a landlord that was fair and considerate. Unlike some of my neighbors that experienced rent increases of up to three times their monthly rent because a dot com company wanted the space to move into. Therefore, their landlords were forcing them out through legal yet unscrupulous rent increases. Shellie's Miniatures was one such business. After fighting to stay, the owner eventually moved her successful San Mateo speciality shop to San Carlos where it again thrived. Our loss.

The city of San Mateo responded to this street level shop grab by creating a code that only allows certain types of businesses to move in and rightfully so. A shopping/service area shouldn't contain more than a certain percentage of offices at street level or it just becomes another office complex.

Times change. And sometime the city needs to catch up. Although our vacancy rate is still moderately low downtown, some buildings have been vacant for years. Never good for a downtown district.

The San Mateo City Council on Tuesday night formally, by a vote of 2-3, for use of office space on the ground floor of 65 E. Third Ave. that would have allowed computer software company snapLogic to rent the ground floor of the building on Third Avenue to be used primarily as office space.

So when the City Council voted against the appeal for use of office space that compromised by including a 750 square foot retail space in the front street level, they were following the law that was put in place to protect the integrity of the area. But they had forgotten the spirit of the law. 

Sometimes we have to balance the law with common sense. I am not saying break the law, but rather initiate changes when there is good reason to.

In this case, The San Mateo Downtown Merchants Association (DSMA) came out in favor of the appeal being approved in a letter to the Council. No group has a larger stake in the change downtown then the actual merchants earning a living there!

Kris Cesena, President of the DSMA, with full board support wrote: "There are many ground floor vacancies in the downtown core. Some have been vacant for years, such as 65 E Third (except for the few months they rented to a holiday store in 2010). Many of these spaces are simply too big or too deep for retailers to afford or justify. Just as the City Council determined in 2000 that an urgent ordinance be enacted to keep ground floor frontage from being taken up by dot-com offices, we feel that with the current economic climate, and property owners struggling to keep their spaces rented, the Planning Commission and Council should consider this, and be more flexible and perhaps even urgent with this Special Use request.”

In addition, the San Mateo Chamber of Commerce sent a written letter of support.

Make no mistake, I support a smart business mix for our downtown. I am not for renting willy nilly to every office that wants to grab a street view. But it is time to change along with the economy. Macy's is not thinking about leaving Hillsdale and moving downtown any time soon,  so we have to allow for and seek out businesses that will help maintain the life of our Downtown District and some times that is a growing dot-com company.

So dear City Council members, while I trust you to look at the big picture and make the right decisions for our city, I also ask you to make the tough decisions that are not quite as clear cut. Not after waiting a year to complete a study, but by using our common sense and listening to both the law and the needs of your community now.