Willow Glen, California Since 1992
News
Main Street: A night shot of Lincoln Avenue, the heart of the Willow Glen business district, shows an exciting variety of shops and businesses. By Juliane Ngan Lincoln Avenue, located in the heart of downtown Willow Glen, has something for everyone. You can get your suit altered at a local tailor, buy rare books at a small bookstore, eat at one of Willow Glen's finest restaurants or enjoy an espresso at a local coffee shop. And although downtown Willow Glen is already a successful business district, the city of San Jose and the Willow Glen Business and Professional Association (WGBPA) have been looking into enhancing the avenue's image. The city, along with the planning firm Design, Community and Environment (DC&E) recently conducted a comprehensive study of the existing environmental conditions of downtown Willow Glen as a neighborhood business district (NBD). Details of the 'Lincoln Avenue/Willow Glen Main Street Strategy: Existing Conditions Assessment' report, as part of phase one of the study, were submitted to the San Jose Redevelopment Agency mid-May to begin evaluation for phase two. The recently completed phase one focused on the heart of downtown Willow Glen and identified the existing conditions of the stretch of Lincoln Avenue between Minnesota Avenue and Willow Street. "It will serve as a great planning document," said District 6 San Jose City Councilman Ken Yeager. "It will help us see what we want to do with Lincoln Avenue in the future." The committee, which conducted the study, also included Bay Area Economics for retail analysis, CCS for parking analysis and Jeffrey Eichenfield and Associates for evaluation of the business association and district management. "The study is more about starting in a common place," said Cara Finn, president of the WGBPA, "and moving forward by really finding out what the community is concerned about. It has really galvanized the community. We are focusing on beautification, focusing on parking rather than doing things one at a time." Key leaders in the phase one study for Lincoln Avenue included WGBPA and the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association (WGNA). "The idea of the study," said Erin Banks, an associate at DC&E, "is to make shops more attractive and draw in more people." The project had two parallel tracks. One was identifying existing conditions to improve the district over time. The other involved more immediate concerns, such as improving pedestrian safety with a lighted crosswalk. Those are concerns that will be addressed regardless of what is decided in phase two, Banks said. There are three major gateways for visitors to enter the business district. These gateways will most likely be remodeled to make them more inviting for visitors, said Christopher "Kip" Harkness of the San Jose Redevelopment Agency. The intersection of Coe and Lincoln avenues is the main entrance from downtown San Jose and other areas north of the district. The entrance from Almaden Expressway and south San Jose would be at the intersection of Minnesota and Lincoln avenues, and people coming from nearby neighborhoods can enter through the gateway at Lincoln Avenue and Willow Street. Part of the goal is to make Lincoln Avenue more pedestrian-oriented by putting in more bulbouts and mid-block crosswalks. The addition of these features will slow down traffic, create a safer feeling in the area, and encourage people to walk around, said Harkness. Areas that have been identified as potentially hazardous for pedestrians include the area north of Willow Street, where there are curb cuts for parking lots, and driveways and alleys that are mixed with the sidewalks. Traffic is another major issue that is part of the phase one study. Cars speed down Lincoln Avenue, which serves as a connection between downtown San Jose and Almaden Expressway, further congesting the area. Traffic in the area also creates additional noise, taking away from Willow Glen's quiet and enjoyable atmosphere. To extend the sidewalks at the crosswalks, there are several bulbouts that curve out into the streets. This makes the street narrower for pedestrians crossing the street at the crosswalk and encourages drivers to drive slower through the area. According to Harkness, proposed improvements in the crosswalks may include flashing lighting on the crosswalks, which will increase motorists' awareness of pedestrians, and new archways to replace the current arched green metal and concrete trellises currently located at each pedestrian crossings—currently considered by many to be unattractive. Not only will the business district encourage pedestrians to patronize the area—bicycle lanes will also be created on the avenue. Willow Street and the Los Gatos Creek trails currently contain bicycle lanes that are part of a regional bicycle network. Lincoln Avenue's bicycle lane, still in the planning stages, will connect Los Gatos and downtown San Jose. The current width of the street allows for two lanes of traffic and one lane of parking in each direction. The northern part of Lincoln Avenue, near Willow Street, is a few feet wider than the segment near Minnesota Avenue. The proposed narrowing of streets would give more space to pedestrians and encourage cars to go slower. Streetscaping will be a large portion of the avenue's improvement strategy. The landscaping—including garbage cans, benches and plants along the avenue—will become more aesthetically pleasing. The study of the planning area has noted that the buildings don't have large shop windows opening out to the sidewalk. Enlarging the buildings would enable the shops to be more inviting, with larger shop windows and entries. The Lincoln Avenue study committee will be looking for what the community members want for restaurants and retail shops and will actively try to recruit those retailers to open stores, Yeager said. "We want to keep Lincoln Avenue commercially vibrant," he said. With increasing retail competition in other areas of San Jose, "we can't just sit there and watch it pass us by." A few sites are currently under development, including a Longs Drugs, which will be located near the intersection of Brace and Lincoln avenues, and La Concha Inn and Spa, which will be located on Lincoln Avenue between Coe and Broadway. The former location of Wolf Camera on Lincoln Avenue and Willow Street will become a yogurt shop. One of the biggest concerns of residents in any business district like Willow Glen is lack of parking, said Harkness. "You find that what people love most is that they are around a business district," Harkness said. "But some of the things that annoy people the most are the effects of being next to a business district. People love the fact that they can walk to great Chinese food, great pizza and a local coffee shop. They get upset when people park in front of their houses and walk to those places." Harkness hopes that the existing tension between the business district and area residents will be resolved. "We're being very upfront, especially when it deals with parking, because if that is dealt with poorly, it can turn the residents against the business district," he said. "If it's handled well, I really think you can create solutions for both the business district and the neighborhood, but you have to intentionally want to do that." |
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