Northgate owners must continue to pay attention to neighbors
Owners of the Northgate mall have released a completely new plan for the 63-acre North San Rafael site.
The previously suggested second Marin Costco store is gone from the offering. The new vision contains multiunit housing, neighborhood-serving retail and restaurants along with an expanded multiscreen theater.
While it’s an appropriate mix, the concept will likely be treated as a bitter pill by present Northgate neighbors who, like most Marin residents, understandably fear change. Those who live near Northgate accept the 1960s-style shopping center as a benign local
Dick feature since, “it’s always been there.” They’ve become familiar with resulting traffic, patronize the shops, enjoyed the movie theater and grown accustomed to a favorite coffee shop.
The hard reality is that American retailing has dramatically changed. The pandemic only accelerated a national trend that now sees online shopping as the dominant form of selling goods. A role for brickand-mortar stores remains, but younger shoppers in particular regard the old-fashioned megamall surrounded by acres of parking as dated.
Northgate is a commercial dinosaur which must either change or die.
Eliminating a Costco from the scheme was a move Northgate neighbors should hail. It’s doubtful that property values or local quality of life would have been enhanced by an adjacent Costco complete with a gas station. It’s a rare day when real estate agents tout that an upper six-figure family home is for sale across the street from a Costco.
Stalling plans would allow the current mall to deteriorate until it resembles Richmond’s nearly vacant Hilltop Mall with just 16 tenants remaining. Northgate could gradually morph into a desolate ghost center with no anchor stores, a handful of often empty shops and a few chain eateries.
If designed properly, a new Northgate should be a source of well-designed homes along with jobs for workers and profits for the site’s owner. That will result in abundant tax receipts essential to support the level of community services that Marinites take for granted.
The developer also needs to fund additional classrooms the new residents’ children will fill, as well as traffic and mobility enhancements. The county’s water shortage dilemma needs to be addressed perhaps by making the new Northgate a national example of water conservation and innovative reuse.
This isn’t to agree that the precise proposal now being submitted by Northgate’s current owner, West Coast-based Merlone Geier Partners, should be adopted across the board. That’s what San Rafael’s well-honed development approval process is for. All developers’ initial plans comprise their ultimate wish list.
The public and the City Council will soon need to thrash out the best scheme for all concerned. That includes tough decisions on the appropriate number of residential units, parking, traffic impacts and height limits.
There are two aspects of planning that can’t be ignored. First, the future Northgate’s residential component must include an above-standard amount of legally defined “affordable” apartments and workforce housing. Why not build some of it above the stores and cafes to a lower-keyed residential atmosphere? Developers frequently brag about their commitment to affordable homes. That talk often evaporates when tough city councils insist that a substantial number of homes for working class folks actually get built.
Second, outstanding architecture is essential. Unless a first-rate, nationally acclaimed architect is retained, the chances are the finished project will be cookie-cutter schlock. Then, the inevitable negative blowback will rightly doom future efforts to build larger scale multifamily homes anywhere in Marin.
San Rafael residents and Northgate neighbors are entitled to a guarantee that any “New Northgate” will improve the site’s status quo and overall result in tangible neighborhood enhancements.