More restaurants hit the downtown scene

--Vesu on Locust Street is open.  People were sitting on bar stools in the front window, sipping cocktails and other drinks on Friday night. Vesu bills itself as a casual, stylish restaurant serving globally inspired small plates. According to the March issue of Diablo, its chef is Robert Sapirman, who was formerly the top chef at Bradley Ogden's Parcel 104 in Santa Clara and Michael Mina's Arcadia in San Jose.

--Get ready for another burger joint coming to Walnut Creek. No, it's not In-N-Out, but another burger restaurant, like The Counter, that likes to boast of its fresh, quality ingredients.  This new burger place is The Habit Burger Grill, which is the first tenant to go into Centre Place, the retail and office complex under construction at South California and Olympic Boulevard.

Does anyone know The Habit? Any Santa Barbara/SoCal folks? The chain was started by two brothers in Santa Barbara more than 40 years ago. They caught the, um, wave of California beach culture, and became enamored of the taste and smell of charbroiled burgers. This burger restaurant distinguishes itself by serving charbroiled burgers and other beach-inspired fare: grilled albacore tuna sandwiches, which the restaurant's website emphasizes are line-caught. For those keeping track, Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch rates line-caught albacore tuna as a "best choice."

The Habit Burger Grill, which will also have outdoor dining, is seeking approval from Walnut Creek's Design Review Commission this Wednesday to erect signs in front of its business.

All Gone:14,000-square-feet demolished next to Alma Park, and yes, there were redwood trees on the removal list

Here’s a photo of what’s left at the two-acre site, next to Alma Park, and at the corner of South California and Olympic boulevards. As I’ve reported previously (or not adequately, according to some readers), the Hall Equities Group is redeveloping the site to create two buildings, with a total of 17,000 square feet. These buildings would house a bank, restaurant, and retail and office space. This new complex will be called Centre Place.

So, in the last couple weeks, 14,000 square feet of the existing California Plaza have been knocked down cleared away. And, more controversially, for some readers of this blog, a bunch of trees were removed, including what one reader claimed was a grove of redwoods.

According to city Planning Commission and City Council meeting records, Halls Equities ultimately proposed removing a total of 18 trees. Seventeen of these were on the applicant’s property, and one small redwood was on city property. Back in early 2009, the city arborist said he would not recommend removal of many of these trees, including at least one of the redwoods. But the Planning Commission and City Council eventually said yes to the removal of all 18 trees. Five redwoods were on a list of the trees planned for removal,  and these redwoods were among those that the city arborist surveyed. In his survey, the arborist had recommended preserving three of those trees.

A Crazy reader raised concerns about the redwood tree chop-down, and another reader said that the trees being chopped down were not coast redwoods, but Canary Island pines. Well, it looked to me liked the demolition team removed a redwood or two. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. The city arborist conceded that “the upside … relating to tree removals is that all of the trees are young and therefore not irreplaceable. … The sycamore and redwood trees are very fast growing species so replacements would be acceptable in my opinion.”

One issue that came up in the discussion about this project, specifically as it relates to Alma Park, the city’s 19th park, is a proposal to redo the entryway to the park—by chopping down and removing trees around it. It turns out that Walnut Creek police had expressed concerns about security and safety in Alma Park and supported the idea of opening up the plaza and park entry way, by creating a wider walkway, eliminating the trellis and vegetation. These improvements, according to city reports, would allow for more “eyes on the park.”

Unfortunately, for at least one reader, who lives in one of those buildings around Alma Park, the news that the KFC and Baja Fresh buildings will remain was disappointing: “I was further dismayed by the fact that KFC and Baja Fresh will still stand, as I've secretly been plotting for their particular demise ever since I moved in.”

What's going in to the corner where the trees were removed

Here you go, folks. Gayle Vassar, the city's community relations manager, kindlly tracked this down for me.

Demolition is currently underway at South California Blvd. and Olympic Blvd. (near Alma Park) to make way for a new commercial development known as Centre Place. Hall Equities Group is redeveloping the two-acre commercial site currently known as California Plaza at 1231-1275 South California Boulevard. The project will include demolition of a 14,742 square-foot portion (~75%) of the existing one-story retail building (all but KFC/Baja Fresh), and construction of two new buildings totaling 17,707 square feet with retail, bank, and office uses at the north end of the site. Building #1 is a two-story, 13,157 square foot office/bank combination designed for a single tenant with the bank component on the first level and associated offices above. Building #2 is a one-story 4,550 square foot retail/restaurant building designed for one or more tenants.

Limited, additional work will include grading and re-landscaping within the City’s adjacent Alma Park. The developer will also enlarge, re-design, and re-landscape the entire Alma Park entryway plaza at the intersection of S. California and Olympic Boulevards. The plan includes new flat work with different paving materials and all new landscaping within a larger, more open plaza at the corner and possible artwork locations. Additional improvements include a wider throat within which a more linear, wider, and ADA accessible walkway would be created from the intersection up into the park. Park entrance improvements will include the removal of several mature pine trees.

So, that answered my question, which one reader said I should have asked before I printed my original post. Well, I did. Just near the time that office hours at the city were closing ... Could I have waited? Did I violate good journalistic standards? Maybe I could have waited. Still mulling that one over. Maybe I violated journalistic standards.  Still mulling that over, too, and the question of whether certain journalistic standards have really served the public as well as claimed... Many big questions to be asking in the middle of the night.

Oh, and from the conceptual site plan, it doesn't look like the builder is going to allow the widening of California Boulevard to make room for bicyclists. However, making California Boulevard more bike-friendly, if not with a whole, actual bike lane, is supposed to be a high priority for the city's Bicycle Plan, as I reported earlier this week.

Of course, it's already been debated and approved--and supposedly covered by the Contra Costa Times. Old news, right? So why did I ever bother to bring it up?  Just Crazy that way.