STREET CHANGE DRAWS FOES:SR COUNCIL TO TAKE UP TODAY PLAN TO CEDE ROADWAY FOR KIA DEALERSHIP

Santa Rosa's plan to abandon a section of city street and turn it over to a developer for a proposed Kia car dealership has enjoyed strong support from City Hall.

After all, the project is expected to clean up a run-down parcel, create 20 jobs and generate up to $25 million in revenue and significant sales tax annually.

Few residents initially opposed the plan. In fact, several surrounding business owners think it'll provide a much long-overdue boost for the area.

"I'm 100 percent for it," said Frank Johnson, owner of nearby Johnny Franklin Muffler shop. "Anybody in their right mind would want to see that area cleaned up."

But in recent weeks, more business and property owners along South A Street below Highway 12 have raised concerns about the potential effect of the project.

"What you're considering doing now is basically killing off what is left of that neighborhood," Ward Page, who owns a small coin-operated car wash, told the City Council last week.

The council has postponed a final decision on abandoning the street twice, and plans to take it up again today. The Planning Commission approved it in June.

Page and others are worried that the area sandwiched between the original auto row on Santa Rosa Avenue and Highway 101 will only become more isolated if the southern entrance to the neighborhood is restricted.

He noted the neighborhood was split once in the 1950s when Highway 101 was built, severing it from the Olive Street neighborhood to the west, and again in the 1960s, when construction of Highway 12 cut it off from the Juilliard Park neighborhood to the north. That created a tiny neighborhood of about 30 homes along Earle Street and several small businesses and weedchoked vacant lots along South A Street.

"This is really kind of a forgotten neighborhood by the city of Santa Rosa," Ward said.

The area is not to be confused with the stretch of South A Street near Juilliard Park, which has experienced a renaissance of sorts in recent years, with active art galleries and restaurants.

Anyone needing a reminder of its exact location need only look for the massive tower of bicycle parts at South A Street and Santa Rosa Avenue.

The sculpture was financed through a public art fee assessed on construction of the new Nissan of Santa Rosa dealership. The owners Jim Bone and Lawrence Amaturo now want to build a Kia dealership on a parcel to the north that was once owned by bankrupt developer Clem Carinalli. It houses a mishmash of small businesses, including two used car lots and Arnold Birky's paint and body shop. He's been told he must close by Sept. 1 to make way for construction of the 12,000-square-foot dealership.

"If he hadn't kicked me out, I probably would have stayed here until I died," said Birky, who has owned the business for more than 40 years.

Birky isn't too upset about the decision, however. He's ready to retire and looks forward to working on race cars, he said. Several other businesses, including a roofing supply company, have quietly moved on in recent months, Birky said.

Bone and Amaturo have said they need the street to create the frontage on Santa Rosa Avenue required by Kia for new dealerships. The street would become a private driveway providing access not only to the Kia dealership but other car-oriented businesses planned for the north, Bone said.

Whether the developers would pay the city for the land has not been determined, city planner Bill Rose said.

City traffic engineer Rob Sprinkle has said terminating South A Street at Barham is acceptable because the street is not heavily used and the existing intersection with Santa Rosa Avenue is not well configured.

Others disagree. Jim Strong, owner of Strong's Golf, says more traffic uses that street than people think.

"There's going to be a mess at that intersection, and another traffic problem that Santa Rosa really doesn't need," he said.

Ending South A at Barham will create a "double dead-end" that will only further isolate the area, he said. Barham is too narrow to be able to handle all the additional traffic, he said.

He noted ambulances from American Medical Response head south to skip the light at Barham and save time, so forcing them to go through it will only increase response times.

But Bone said he has a traffic engineer's report showing traffic levels on Barham will increase slightly. But improvements to Barham, including a dedicated right turn lane and new striping should resolve neighbors' concerns, Bone said.

Cheslie "Red" Donahue, of Bertamoni's Office Equipment, said he can't see how Barham can be widened to three lanes without affecting where his customers park. Not that he has many. He's owned the business in a former chicken-plucking building for nearly 50 years, and now it's filled with an assortment of collectibles.

"The furniture's what's holding up all the stuff," Donahue quips.

His neighbor, Good Stuff Auto owner James Bennett, said he's considering suing the city if access to his business is impaired. He thinks the intersection of South A Street and Santa Rosa Avenue could just be moved north enough to give Kia the frontage it needs and keep the rest of the street for public use.

"I can't understand why the street can't be configured in such a way that it can accommodate them and not damage all of us," he said.

But Bone said he's already redesigned the project once to accommodate the access concerns of Bennett, and starting the process over isn't an option.

"We're running into some serious deadlines with Kia," Bone said.

Amaturo added that he and his partners have reached out to their neighbors, take their various concerns very seriously and have sought to resolve issues whenever possible.

He's offered to pay Bennett "dramatically over market value" to buy his property and will pay to improve the Barham intersection.

He hopes his neighbors see that, on balance, the project will substantially improve the area for all businesses.

"If no one steps up to put the money into properties like this, what's this neighborhood going to look like in 10 years?" Amaturo said. "This neighborhood is moving in the wrong direction."

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com.