Comstock's magazine 0620 - June June 2020 | Page 86

VACAVILLE & SOLANO REGION
Sacramento-based SacYard Community Tap
House has plans this summer to debut Beer
40, an outdoor-only beer garden, on a vacant
8,000-square-foot lot. Beer 40 took advantage of
a one-time effort to lease vacant city-owned lots
for three months at the cost of $1.
Much like Silver, city officials and
business owners are recognizing the
potential of downtown Vacaville. In an
attempt to shake its reputation as a
9-to-5 neighborhood, the downtown
corridor has been the focus of numerous
revitalization efforts in recent years. Recently
commissioned retail strategy and
connectivity plans spell out ambitions for
a vibrant, 24-hour, pedestrian-friendly
downtown to attract young adults and
families from all over the city and beyond.
With its buildings with historical
architectural details, large town square
and proximity to a park with a creek,
the downtown area offers elements that
could make some Main Street coordinators
salivate. Crowds come on the weekends
for concerts, craft fairs, farmers
markets and wine strolls, filling the town
square. However, with its high volume
of office use and low volume of housing
units, downtown Vacaville can feel very
quiet and empty on weekday evenings.
The problem is not commercial
vacancies, which have remained low in
recent years. “Our biggest issue right now
is that we don’t have a very healthy retail
mix,” says Brooke Fox, executive director
of the Downtown Vacaville Business
Improvement District. “We don’t have a
lot of vacant storefronts; we just have a
lot of nonactive storefronts.”
In the last few decades, as retail in
Vacaville shifted to the outlet mall and the
Nut Tree, the city relaxed its acceptable
uses for the downtown core. “A lot of
service-oriented businesses moved in, a
lot of mortgage and real estate,” Fox says.
“It becomes less of a walkable experience,
less of a destination experience for
people.”
All the city’s goals for placemaking
and connectivity rests on attracting
businesses that not only draw people
downtown, but keep them there. “A lot of
our businesses that close at 5 o’clock —
they’re the backbone of Vacaville, but we
want to see a lot of vibrancy in the evening
hours as well,” says Tim Padden, the
city’s economic development manager.
“The other part of it is just getting more
residential units. We’ve got a couple of
projects that we’ve been working on.”
On the business front, there are some
glimmers of hope. Sonoma-based Sonoma
Springs Brewing Co. plans to build a
taproom and beer garden at the historic
Carnegie library building on Main Street.
Meanwhile, the owners of Sacramento-
based SacYard Community Tap House
have plans this summer to debut Beer 40,
an outdoor-only beer garden, on a vacant
8,000-square-foot lot. These are the
types of businesses that could transform
critical sections of the downtown corridor.
Beer 40 took advantage of a one-time
effort to lease vacant city-owned lots for
three months at the cost of $1. “There’s
not much competition out there because
there’s no dog-friendly, family-friendly,
kid-friendly stuff out there like SacYard,”
co-owner Dan Thebeau says. “After looking
at the piece of land and running the
demographics, we see the opportunity to
hit a home run out there.”
In a state without redevelopment
funds, this initiative is one of the ways
that Vacaville and the Downtown Vacaville
Business Improvement District are
attracting new businesses downtown.
“When I speak with other Main Street
coordinators that have funds, they can offer
facade improvement grants, they can
offer low-interest loans,” Fox says. “We
have to get creative and try and figure out
ways around that.”
One business that benefited from this
creativity is Heritage House. British-born
partners Siobhan Magee and Catherine
86 comstocksmag.com | June 2020