Flower Hill Promenade



		FLOWER HILL PROMENANDE RENOVATION QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ABOUT THE PROJECT: What has changed in this plan from the original plans in 2005 and before? These are the major changes not only from the 2005 plan but also since the start of the community outreach effort several years ago: · Addition of a Whole Foods Market · Elimination of the 56,000-square-foot office building atop the parking structure · Elimination of underground parking and reduction of the elevation of the parking structure to below grade at the top of Flower Hill Drive · Elimination of the movie theaters · Introduction of boutique office space rather than a large office structure · Realignment of east entrance to facilitate easier ingress and egress for Promenade members and Spindrift residents and through traffic residential access on San Andres, including a new left turn lane from Flower Hill Drive. · Elimination of a boutique hotel at the top of Flower Hill Drive, based on input from residents of the Spindrift Community · Elimination of residential rental units along Flower Hill Drive Why have you made such significant changes? Two factors drove our redesign. First, some community members and groups and government organizations had concerns about the bulk of the parking/office structure on the west end of the development. Second, the cost to build subterranean parking is very high. Instead, we were able to recast the design to include uses with less intensive parking requirements, less traffic generation and lower construction costs. The result is a win-win situation. How much square footage are you adding? What will total square footage then be? The original plan called for 246,000 square feet, adding 136,000 square feet of new construction. The revised plans include a net addition of approximately 63,021 square feet over the existing 108,851 square feet, for a total of 171,872 square feet. This is a reduction of 81,666 square feet over the last plan. Where are the office and parking structures going? We believe the new parking structure is ideal for the western part of our site, right next to the freeway and tucked into the hillside. Recent discussion placed emphasis on downsizing this structure, which was incorporated into the plans. The original structure was planned to have parking on the lower floors and office space on the top floors. Current plans no longer include office space atop that structure. New construction on the west side of the Promenade and where the Ultra-Star Cinemas currently resides will house boutique office and retail businesses. ABOUT THE IMPACTS What will the traffic impacts be? A traffic study completed in March 2008 indicates that there are no significant impacts to key intersections nor to two out of three key roadway segments near the project. There is an impact on the roadway segment from San Andres Drive to El Camino Real (West), which can be mitigated by roadway improvements for which Flower Hill will contribute a fair share as directed by the City of San Diego. What are you going to do to minimize traffic impacts? We will comply with all the traffic requirements asked of us by the city. Our new plan includes adding a westbound right turn lanes at our entrance and a redesign of the ingress/egress from San Andres to Flower Hill Drive. In addition, we are widening our mall entrance by two lanes to better facilitate the ingress and egress traffic and will also move the entrance on the east side of the mall to the north to make ingress and egress easier there. Is it true that if Via de la Valle is not widened between San Andres and El Camino Real, then your renovation will not be able to move forward? That is not the case. Our renovation is not directly tied to the widening of Via de la Valle, a fact made clear by a city official at an earlier public hearing. OTHER IMPACTS Will any views be affected for surrounding homeowners? There will be very little, if any, change in view for any residents primarily because the parking structure, the tallest part of the project, will be on the far west end of the property and built into the hillside. As an extra measure for those closest to the center, rooftop equipment will be screened from view by design in order to enhance the aesthetic appeal of the center from the top view. The main portion of the existing mall will remain at two stories. What will the light impacts be? Light impacts will be minimal since the design of the center concentrates light within the center rather than up and back toward the residential areas. What expected impacts are there for Spindrift, Las Brisas and Lomas del Mar residents? There will be minor impacts on these residents during construction for those who shop at Flower Hill and for those using Flower Hill Drive. When the center renovation is completed, impacts will be limited to a moderate traffic increase into the center.. What kind of construction impacts do you foresee? What about noise, dust and access problems during construction? We do not anticipate major disruption caused by construction. We are working with the city on a potential plan to limit truck traffic on surface streets. For office and retail construction, most activity will occur during daytime hours within the city’s noise guidelines, when many residents are at work and in order to limit impact on our tenants, customers and surrounding neighbors. No significant noise or dust problems are anticipated. We will have a construction management plan in place that minimizes disruption. We will also keep our neighbors informed about any significant construction events that might affect them. ABOUT THE PROCESS Where are you in the planning process? We are close to submitting completed design plans to the city. We have made a number of changes based on community input and other factors, and those are reflected in the design. How long until construction starts? Because we cannot tell how long the city will take for permitting and environmental review, we can’t pinpoint a construction start. Experience indicates, however, that it will likely take between 9 and 18 months to get all approvals. We hope to start construction in 2010. How was community input gathered? We have reached out to residents, businesses, staff of our neighboring cities, shoppers, and various other stakeholders for more than five years. We have presented to community groups more than a dozen times, and have also conducted multiple focus group meetings with local residents. These meetings were open to anyone who was interested to meet and provide feedback about our plans. In addition, we conducted intercept surveys and obtained feedback directly from shoppers. Will you do an Environmental Impact Report? We will conduct an environmental impact report if asked to do so by the City of San Diego. Definitely there will be some form of environmental process with which we fully will cooperate. TENANT QUESTIONS What kind of additional retailers do you intend to bring in? The milestone addition is that of a Whole Foods market, the kind of specialty store that was enthusiastically endorsed by many community members with whom we spoke. While retaining the charm of the stores we currently have, we will continue to focus on local, one-of-a-kind businesses that make Flower Hill Promenade unique. We will also look at some other retail uses that make sense in our community and round out our mix of tenants. Why have you eliminated the movie theaters? The most frequently heard concerns from the community during our research was the generation of more traffic. Close to that was concern about parking. Theaters generate significantly greater traffic and require more parking than many other retail uses. Those were the major considerations in making the decision not to renew the UltraStar lease. UltraStar, fortunately, has another theater complex just one exit up the road at Del Mar Highlands. While earlier plans envisioned renovating the theater, there were critics that referred to the theaters as “attractive nuisance," that attracted noisy teens, late night traffic and car noise and other negative impacts. What kind of new restaurants do you envision? At this time, we don’t envision additional restaurants at the center and are happy to offer various dining options now at the Promenade. This change results in less traffic into the Promenade and a reduced need for additional parking. Are the current tenants going to remain? We believe and hope that most of our local tenants will remain. Many of them share our excitement about the redevelopment.