Orange Avenue is not your run-of-the-mill street. It’s the island’s main street dripping in character, peppered with funky mom-and-pop establishments and coastal art. It can also be a parking nightmare.
The boutique shops make Coronado unique, but it’s getting harder and harder for them to stay afloat, and more common for chains to swoop in.
City Council member Mark Fleming recently proposed a policy change that he says would make it easier for grab-and-go restaurants, like Everbowl or Subway, to open.
The change, discussed by Coronado’s City Council at its Jan. 20 meeting, would apply the retail parking standards to grab-and-go restaurants with less than 250 square feet of customer serving area. The reason is that a grab-and-go style restaurant has a similar parking demand as a retailer, since customers complete their shopping within minutes versus a sit-down restaurant where guests may sit for hours. Currently both grab-and-go and sit-down style restaurants need to provide one parking spot for every 100 square feet, even if they are take-out locations with no tables or chairs.
Right now, retail shops have the best deal when it comes to parking requirements – one space per 500 square feet. The change would bring grab-and-go restaurants on the same level.
It’s common sense in theory. Changing one sentence would lessen the burden on take-out businesses up and down Orange Avenue already dealing with high rent, inflation, and a myriad of other challenges.
Sure, the change would encourage more carryout food establishments to fill the empty vacancies sprinkled down the city’s main street. But without a change, are we ironically creating more businesses – such as tourist-centered retail shops – that aren’t actually catering to residents? Do locals benefit more instead from say, the Chipotle on the corner of Orange and Ocean Boulevard, or the souvenir shop next door?
That’s exactly the question we need to answer. Before diving headfirst into a policy change that seems like common-sense – an easy fix, on the surface – we need to think long and hard about what we want the heart of Coronado to look like.
Arguably, residents have no interest in saturating Orange Avenue with restaurants, let alone stop-in places. But they also have an interest in filling vacant store fronts.
The boutique stores, retail shops and mom-and-pop eateries are worth protecting to keep Coronado’s charm. But if the retail stores that can pay the high rent are mostly souvenir shops that Coronado residents don’t patronize, is it “better” to have more grab-and-go style restaurants that Coronado residents actually shop at?
City officials need to consider what they are trying to accomplish with this policy, and if lessening requirements for grab-and-go restaurants will consequently push other small businesses out of the market or respond to a changing business environment.
This is not just a parking discussion. This is a business district discussion. It’s a decision that has implications for how Coronado will look in the years to come.
We want to hear from you. If you have input on what the business district of Coronado should look like, or a response to this editorial, send a letter to the editor – 500 words or less – to newsroom@thecoronadonews.com.
