Five Syllable City

The City Administration Building is the most impressive piece of architecture in San Luis Obispo County. More than that, it represents Atascadero’s heritage and the hopes for the future of Atascadero’s commercial and cultural revival. It is also Atascadero’s signature image. Yet it sits unoccupied and deteriorating.

Four years and counting, and a course has not even been set for repairing the City Administration Building. With the earthquake having occurred in late December of 2003, it is not unreasonable to expect that by now we would at least know what the plan is for repairing the building. Yet no commitments have been forthcoming. The procrastinating has gone on for so long now that one starts to suspect that there is a strategy to neglect the matter to the point that the building crumbles to the ground on its own, thereby sparing our leaders the need to make a decision or take action. 

We have all heard about how complicated the retrofitting problems are and how challenging it will be, from an engineering standpoint, to solve those problems. But the engineering problems are not so intractable that in more than four years a plan could not have been developed to attack them. That excuse for failing to decide what is going to be done about this important matter just does not withstand analysis after all this time. There can be no excuse for disregarding this matter to the point that, more than four years after the earthquake, the Atascadero community has not even been told whether its government recommends restoring the City Administration Building, or razing it. 

The way that this crucial matter is being handled lends further support for the growing perception that Atascadero’s government representatives are not up to the task of running this city. All sorts of plans are on the books about revitalizing the downtown area. Virtually every Atascadero resident favors downtown development and it is routine for members of the city council and planning commission, as well as city staff employees, to pay lip service to that worthy objective. Yet the single most important building in the downtown, crucial to redevelopment of the area and central to the image and psyche of our community, is left to crumble in abandonment, apparently for no other reason than our government representatives are paralyzed by the prospect of having to make difficult decisions about the restoration process. 

FEMA has already agreed to pay more than $10,000,000 to repair the City Administration Building. Yes, we all know that that amount will not cover all of the costs entailed. But with $10,000,000, a good start can be made. The reconstruction can be commenced, while proceedings go forward on the appeal of FEMA’s initial decision refusing the additional funds that were applied for. 

The fact that every duck may not be lined up in a perfect row is not justification for delaying the start of reconstruction any longer. This project has to be pursued one way or the other, if Atascadero is to have any hope of revitalizing its downtown and reversing its sagging commercial fortunes. If FEMA funding proves to be insufficient to finish the job of restoring the Rotunda, the remaining costs will have to be financed by other means, either from private sources, from other government sources, from bond issues, or wherever. It can be done, and it must be done, if Atascadero is going to have any hope of revitalizing its downtown. It is time for our representatives to show a little dedication and fortitude by committing to a plan to commence restoration work on the City Administration Building within the next few months. It is long overdue.

Now that a decision has been made to let the Wal-Mart project proceed to a preliminary review, let us hope that everything else will not be tabled by the City Council and the City Staff. With the prospect of a Wal-Mart Supercenter being developed at the north end of the El Camino Strip, it is more urgent than ever to encourage countervailing upscale commercial development in the downtown area.

As things stand, down-market operations totally dominate Atascadero’s commercial sector. There are no higher end restaurants or shops, no cultural attractions and no upscale recreational opportunities in the city. When any of us wants to have a dining experience beyond that offered by fast-food dispensaries and places like Denny’s, Carrows, Players and Hoovers, we have to take our cars and our money to one of the surrounding towns. Most frequently, the destination is downtown Paso Robles, but we also find our way to nice restaurants in San Luis Obispo, Morro Bay and even the little unincorporated areas of Templeton and Santa Margarita. And when we are there for dinner, of course, we often find other things to do that involve spending money and generating sales tax revenues. Also, when we want to shop for anything beyond basic groceries, hardware or K-Mart items, we again find it necessary to flee Atascadero and spend our dollars elsewhere. Conversely, there is virtually nothing in Atascadero that is attracting residents of other communities to come here to spend their money. The expected arrival of Wal-Mart in the years ahead might draw in some outsiders, but at the expense of reinforcing Atascadero’s commercial identity as an exclusively low-end market.

It is puzzling how this situation came about. According to City-Data.com, the average annual household income in Atascadero was $57,100 in 2005, the most recent year for which the figures were available. That was above the average household income of $53,629 for the State of California overall, and above the averages for San Luis Obispo County ($49,721), Cambria ($52,700), Cayucos ($50,200), Paso Robles ($49,500), Morro Bay ($40,300) and the city of San Luis Obispo ($37,400). From this data, it is apparent that the dominance of down-market enterprises in Atascadero’s commercial sector is not due to a lack of means on the part of the residents of Atascadero. And a tour of the residential areas of the City of Atascadero confirms that. The miles of large-lot neighborhoods that spread over Atascadero’s pretty hills contain many of the most attractive and upscale residential areas in San Luis Obispo County. It is a paradox that in the midst of such a prosperous and appealing residential community, Atascadero has a commercial sector that is uniformly low-end and uninviting.

The conclusion to be drawn from this is that it is high time to get going on upgrading Atascadero’s commercial sector. The residents here who want some high-end options should be served as well as those who are content with more pedestrian stores and services. The city is all low-end now, and it will be even more decidedly so when Wal-Mart stamps its giant footprint on the Del Rio node. To prevent the situation from worsening, Atascadero needs to finally get going with the long-imagined but never-commenced, upscale development of the downtown core area. Postponing that downtown development until after Wal-Mart’s grand arrival will only make it that much more difficult to ever change Atascadero’s image as a trashy, sprawl town.