Plans for Healdsburg’s historic depot underway

No one’s quite sure when the first SMART train will roll through
Healdsburg but where it will stop and load passengers is just about
set.
While the directors for the Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit
(SMART) work to solve a long-term $155 million shortfall in
expected revenues to keep the commuter train on schedule to launch
in 2014 (see related story in this issue), consultants held a
series of community meetings last week on design concepts for the
14 stations on the proposed 70-mile system.
Three dozen people attended a workshop last Wednesday at the
Healdsburg Senior Center.
Partners of the Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects (ZGF) firm
provided a broad overview of ideas for utilizing Healdsburg’s
historic train depot located at Fitch and Harmon streets near
Healdsburg Lumber and a brisk walk from Healdsburg Avenue and Mill
Street.
Preliminary plans would add a standalone passenger platform
between two existing tracks. The 280-foot-long platform would be
elevated (48-50 inches) and have stairs and ramps at each end.
Parking (70 spaces) would be added at both ends of the historic
depot and landscaping, public art, information kiosks and other
improvements are being planned.
Bicycle racks, lockers, security lights and cameras, outdoor
seating and depot directional signage would be added as well.
Pedestrian access and better defined connection of the
neighborhoods south of the rail tracks to the center of town was a
repeated concern of workshop attendees.
Another set of questions was raised over how the SMART station
design and proposed rail traffic will fit with the
recently-launched Central Healdsburg Special Study Area plans.
A preliminary scoping is being completed on possible
redevelopment options for the current Nu Forest and surrounding
properties which share a long property line with the railroad
right-of-way between Front Street and the river to the five-way
intersection at Healdsburg Avenue.
Last week the SMART consultants and architects said they were
aware of such a plan but admitted they had not seen any details or
exact proposals.
And that’s because there aren’t any.
City Planner Rick Tooker will give a public update to the City
Council on March 1 about the early outline and discussion by the
Special Study Area committee.
“There are lots of things at play here,” Tooker told the
consultants during the workshop. “You’re proposing a neighborhood
station and it has to fit in. How do we get people from the south
side of the tracks over to the rest of the community? If we don’t
figure that out you’d be locking out a significant portion of the
community.”
A new pedestrian bridge over the rails or a tunnel beneath them
has not been formally proposed and no solution to a pedestrain
crossing has been resolved, a SMART spokesman acknowledged.
All plans are very preliminary except for the exact location of
the station, the consultants announced.
A followup workshop will be held in late April or May when a “20
percent done” concept will be brought back to the community, ZGF
partner Ron Stuart said.
“We’re not going to nail it down right now. We just want to be
sure we’re moving in the right direction,” Stuart said.
Various members of the SMART station design team told the
audience they want the station to “look like it’s been there for 30
or 50 years” when it is completed, which is now scheduled for late
2011 or 2012.
The old depot will be the main feature and will retain its
“historial freight shed” look, the team said. The current depot
structure was built in 1928, replacing an original structure built
at the same location in the late 1800’s.
Meanwhile, work is set to begin on the Foss Creek Trail
extension from Healdsburg Avenue to the depot location. This is
part of a plan completed 10 years ago by the city, county transit
and rail right-of-way owners, now the SMART authority.
“Everything in our original trail and inter-modal plan is in
synch with the SMART proposals,” said Tooker. The trail eventually
will extend to Front Street and the Russian River near Memorial
Beach and already follows Foss Creek west of the plaza, past City
Hall and northward.
Besides daily SMART commuter trains, the renovated rail line is
proposed to again carry regular freight train service. The
SMART system will operate between Cloverdale and San Rafael in
Marin County.
The SMART project is estimated to cost about $590 million and
will be funded by a voter-approved quarter-percent sales tax, $8
million annually from riders’ fares, state and federal funding and
as much as $200 million in bonding.