Yolo Sun: Frankenstein Bank (Chase) now squats on downtown gateway

Excerpts from the Yolo Sun opinion piece "Politically, can Woodland do better than this?"

Chase Bank is now erecting its architectural Frankenstein building on the southeast corner of Walnut and Main Streets, 21 months after it first approached the city and 12 months after the public was made aware of its project.

For eight months (Jan. – Aug., 2010) Woodland City Hall was quietly working with Chase Bank to concoct a subversion of the City’s Downtown Specific Plan (DSP), permitting this bank to build in the general way that it desired: a small bank with a glorified drive-thru and a vast parking lot.

This bank is a Frankenstein building for reason of combining various architectural styles into a phony historical format, appearing (pseudo) historical, but without integrity of actually representing any valid, actually historical, architectural style. Call it: “Modern Woodland Pretense.”

Glaring violations of the DSP include evisceration of its ability to produce a proper manner of “Western Gateway” for the downtown area and placement of an enormous parking lot along sidewalk frontage on both Main and Walnut Streets.

During these same eight months of confidential negotiations between city hall and Chase Bank, the city’s redevelopment agency created a program to consider proposals for a downtown cineplex based upon inclusion of State Theatre renovation and expansion within that process. This State Theatre proposal was (per DSP) virtually dependent upon use of this very parcel upon which Chase Bank was intending, with city hall’s graciously covert assistance, to construct its small building and its huge parking lot.

Why was it necessary to abandon this original and brilliant DSP goal of expanding and renovating State Theatre as a cineplex?

Because a majority of the city council decided that it would rather have Chase Bank absurdly shoe-horned into this key downtown corner and let Paul Petrovich develop his Electric Garage property as a cineplex.

Read the complete article at YoloSun.wordpress.com.

See also the Woodland Record article "Chase Bank breaks ground for monument to deception."