CLEARLAKE – After nearly three years of confidential negotiations, in December the city of Clearlake began to reveal the plans for a regional shopping center on the site of the now-closed Pearce Airport property, a project which is drawing both support and opposition from around the lake.
Close to 15 acres of the 26-acre Pearce Airport site, located on Highway 53, will be used for 154,179 square feet of commercial space, including a Lowe's home improvement center, with more than 111,00 square feet of indoor space and nearly 26,000 square feet of outdoor gardening space, as Lake County News has reported.
KK Raphel Properties of Danville is proposing the development. It principals also are part of Katz Kirkpatrick Properties of Roseville, a shopping center development, leasing and management company that has been in negotiations with the city since early 2007.
The Clearlake City Council and Clearlake Redevelopment Agency will hold a Jan. 7 public hearing at Clearlake City Hall on the plan.
Among the council and agency's considerations will be whether or not to certify a mitigated negative declaration, which would remove the need for a full environmental impact report (EIR).
The latest documents the city has released on the project explain that the Clearlake Redevelopment Agency would sell the site to KK Raphel Properties for $4 a square foot, or approximately $2,683,599, less $1,210,000 needed to grade the site, for a net of $1,473,599. However, the agency would pay $500,000 toward site work if hazardous materials were found, reducing total proceeds from the sale to $973,599.
“In conclusion, this project would help fill the demand for goods and services in the retail categories where there is significant leakage to the surrounding counties and the city would benefit by an increase in retail sales tax revenues,” a city report stated.
Mike Raphel of KK Raphel Properties told Lake County News this week that they have a commitment from Lowe's, which agreed to come in as the project's anchor tenant. They so far have no tenants committed for four other commercial pads at the site.
Previously, the developer worked with Home Depot as the prospective anchor tenant. But a year ago last October, “The world started to collapse,” and Home Depot decided not to move forward, Raphel said. “We were one of 23 towns that they dropped.”
The plan calls for the project to break ground by February 2011, but Raphel said they hope to do so earlier if possible.
He said Clearlake's existing population “is way underserved” in retail opportunities, and that growth in the community isn't needed to support the store. Raphel said it's a great opportunity for the city to get a project like this one.
The project is facing both support from city leaders and opposition from others.
Sierra Club Lake Group Chair Victoria Brandon has raised issues with it, saying that not doing an EIR on such a massive project wouldn't be the right approach. But some local residents and business people like Dave Hughes support it. (For commentaries on the project from two distinct angles, see Brandon: Questions about shopping center plan and Hughes: Answers to questions about shopping center project ).
City Administrator Dale Neiman has asserted that the city badly needs the sales tax revenue the city estimates the project could generate.
A newly released city report on the shopping center projects $40 million in sales annually, a figure based on comparisons with store locations in similar market areas. New sales tax revenues for the city are estimated to range between $280,000 and $320,000 annually. Approximately 320 jobs are projected to be created.
At full buildout, the project is estimated to generate tax increment revenues of $154,867 annually for the redevelopment agency.
With only a month of public comment time on the project's environmental document – the comment period ends Thursday, Dec. 31 – some local officials submitted letters of concern on the project this week.
On Tuesday, Supervisor Rob Brown sent a letter to Neiman in which he stated, “I am surprised and disappointed, to say the least, that the city would even propose approving such a significant and far-reaching project without benefit of an full environmental impact report.”
Brown, who said he was expressing his views as an individual supervisor and not representing the board as a whole, also raised the issue of big box stores and their impacts on local businesses, and argued that profits won't remain in Lake County.
Supervisor Denise Rushing sent her own letter on Wednesday, saying she it was with “great dismay” that she learned about the plan – not from the city of Clearlake, but from the media, namely this publication.
Like Brown, Rushing argued that an EIR is needed because of the project's widespread impacts.
“If a Lowe's-like project is of such significance to the Clearlake redevelopment efforts, I believe the city of Clearlake is following an obsolete, unsustainable and flawed model for redevelopment,” Rushing wrote.
Negative impacts for the city and county, Rushing said, would include closed businesses and empty storefronts, traffic problems, use of all of the city's redevelopment funds and a host of other issues.
Raphel said he thinks an EIR isn't necessary, as the project's impacts can be mitigated.
The Clearlake Redevelopment Agency is proposing to use $6 million in bond proceeds to make needed infrastructure upgrades to the site. Total onsite improvements are estimated to cost $23,607,819, according to city documents.
Raphel said the project is “very complicated,” and there are enormous problems with the site, including big slopes, terrible soils and lots of fill that needs to be replaced by removing four to feet of soil. There also are nearby sewer system issues and the need to extend utilities to the site, as well as needing to extend Airport Road to the site and create multiple access points.
“Those are the major issues and they're all resolvable, it just takes time, effort and money,” said Raphel, who noted they've already spent considerable money on site studies, including $100,000 to look at traffic.
After KK Raphel Properties purchases the property, Lowe's will review the conditions imposed on it and then will buy the land from the company, Raphel said.
Raphel recently met with Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce members to answer their questions. He said their questions were important, and they discussed competing jobs.
He said there definitely is an impact when large stores like Lowe's enter an area, but smaller stores can offer better services and different niches. “They're all surviving.”
Raphel said he'll be at the Jan. 7 meeting, and noted it's important that the community have good facts about the project.
With commercial development “really dead,” – retail development follows housing, he noted – “It would be quite an achievement to move forward on a commercial project,” said Raphel.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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