Over the years, detailed plans for a re-make of Mammoth’s Main Street have evolved with the hope of creating a different image upon entering the town. Officials gave it another go recently and hired Winter and Company Urban Design and Planning Studio. Nore’ Winter went through the current plans for Main Street which sound attractive but have no obvious method of funding.
Mr. Winter described an attractive project with a landscaped median down the middle of Main Street, on-street parking, a bike lane, sidewalks and landscaped strips, and outdoor venues for businesses, some of which would relocate right up front on the street. The total projected cost is just over $18 million. Mr. Winter did propose phases of development which would start with obtaining Caltrans rights of way, the landscaped median, new asphalt and traffic signals at a projected cost of $2.3 million. The pedestrian- bike zone and other development would come in around $5.2 million. Business re-development and utility relocation was listed at $2.7 million.
So, how to pay for all this? Mr. Winter suggested a bond issue, some grants, Development Impact Fees, funds from existing tax measures and the new Tourism Business Improvement District money. He added the possibility of an Infrastructure Finance District and Parking District. Later, Councilman Matthew Lehman said that bond issues and TBID funds are not really available for a Main Street make-over. Grants are very limited too.
No one could dispute Mr. Winter’s assertion that the current Main Street is basically a thoroughfare that does not invite walking. He said parking is in front of buildings and you don’t see businesses from Main Street. He said the goals of a make-over would be to “create a greater sense of identity.” Winter said when people arrive in Mammoth “There is not a lot of there, there.”
Winter said there are businesses who say they will never relocate their stores closer to Main Street, some say they will and others say they might. The recession and available financing is a big factor. Winter said that re-development opportunities are not that good due to just coming out of a recession, but he did say that residential sales in Mammoth are better and so is commercial occupancy in town.
Another issue is snow. He said that early on, a snow management district must be formed to haul the snow out of Main Street. The draft plan paints a picture of a far more attractive Main Street with more landscaping, more ways to park and walk around or bike around. Mr. Winter said zoning code changes could help encourage developers, and retail can be mixed with commercial.
For the next 30 days, the public is invited to comment on the Draft Main Street Plan, which is available on the Town website. Comment forms are also available on the site.
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Mammoth Local-
You took the words right out of my mouth about the posts of a particular individual. On websites such as this one I try not to write what I wouldn’t say to a person’s face– keeps it civil in a way and a little more respectful. Unfortunately there will always be those who are downers and criticize anything of value to the discussion. We live in a beautiful area so lets all be happy and work together towards community progress.
Ken, please stop dominating every conversation with your incessant posts. We get you. You hate everyone else’s plan and love your own plans, which you so lovingly submitted to the Sheet (check their archives!) Get over yourself. You have nothing productive to say and you are a “downer” for this community. Please, please, move somewhere else and annoy those people.
Charles,
I personally don’t find sitting next to a busy street drinking expensive coffee relaxing. But that’s just me.
Is there a plan I would support? Yes and I wrote about what I thought would be good for the town many times and the Sheet published them. You can search their archives for those comments — assuming you really care what I think.
I gave my comments to the DNDP workshop a few years ago. I handed them to Bacon. She looked like I was giving her a bag of dog s**t.
Basically, my ideas revolve around turning the Shady Rest Tract in the middle of town– the old Forest Service property — into a beautiful park. I’ve been writing about that for years also. People forget.
If that was done, all the property around it would increase in value. Manzanita, Center St. Laurel Mountain Rd. All the condos on Meridian within walking distance. A beautiful Central Park would benefit everybody and bring business to Mammoth Laks without giving Main St. to the big developers.
Redeveloping Main St is just an unnecessary gift to the big developers. We should give grants to the local businesses to help them refurbish their stores. We don’t need to give money to “consultants” to sell us fairytailes.
I’ve said this dozens of times. People forget.
You may have said it dozens of times, but this is the first time I’ve heard it. I like it! I think a central park type of idea would be great addition to the community. The Shady Rest tract and Main Street are really apples and oranges though.
I get that you don’t like this plan, but Main Street in its current semi-dilapidated condition is not serving the local economy to the extent it could. Maybe that isn’t a concern for you, but it is for many residents. Maybe someday the TOML will have the financial ability to address it – I can’t imagine when though.
Charles, it’s not just Main St. The town has become fixated on Main St. The whole town needs cleaning up and refurbishing and we can do it ourselves if we stop depending on consultants and developers to do it for us. It’s our town. We can fix it up our selves if the will is there.
But the will seems to be to want buy a quick and easy fix like in a drive through window for urban renewal. The town used to be able to take care of itself. Something happened.
All you hear are complaints about how bad Main St. is and you don’t hear anybody saying how they can take one small portion of it and fix it up. The owners of the A-Frame liquor are fixing it up. They figured it out for themselves. Why can’t the rest of you who are “vested” in Main St. figure it out for yourselves?
The town should grant special dispensation to facilitate people just doing what needs to be done — without hiring consultants.
Ken,
I realize it’s not just Main St. that needs attention – but that was the subject of the article and the basis of the discussion.
FYI – I am not “vested” in Main St. or any any other location in town. I am one of the few lucky ones whose livelihood doesn’t hinge on the local economy. I do however share many of the the concerns of those who do depend on it. And while your grass roots approach to the town’s needs is noble, it’s not based in reality. The town is competing for tourism dollars with many other locations, and it’s going to take more than a little paint and landscape clean up if they want to be competitive.
Seems like it’s bass ackwards to spend a bunch of public money to prettify the town unless the town is already cool enough that people want to come to it – meaning great food, drinks, interesting stores and great services for recreational tourists. If the town had that going for it, development would follow as business expanded to service its customers. Building stuff for little purpose than to make work creates some short terms jobs and makes the developer a bunch or money, but doesn’t establish a real business or give people a reason to go to Mammoth.
Why not make Mammoth a great place to live first and a great place to stay second, and forget about developing a bunch of real estate investments for the moneyed classes in LA?
Charles,
Ok, you win. Go for it. Who’s going to do it? When will they start? How much is it going to cost? Where is the town going to get the money (not from me ’cause I don’t got it)? And what exactly are they going to do?
I’m not stopping this project from proceeding. I’m just telling people that it’s another dumb idea and a giveaway to the big developers — like our 60 million dollar airport and the beautiful Village that everybody likes so much.
One small suggestion — build bleachers so the unemployed locals can have someplace to sit and watch.
@Ken,
It’s not about winning Ken, at least not to me anyway. It’s just an exchange of ideas and perspective, that’s all. And seeing that the town is broke, our exchange is really no more than pointless internet chit chat.
@MajorTom,
Would you want to invest your hard earned $$ to open a great place to dine or shop on a dilapidated stretch of Main St.? I wouldn’t. There are already plenty of good reasons for visitors to come to Mammoth, unfortunately the town is way down the list and our local economy suffers from it.
The fact that Main Street has continued to look like a pile of crap for the past 30 years should be a pretty good indicator of how good the town (by which I think you mean, individual property owners) is at “doing it ourselves.” It’s great when individuals take initiative and invest in their properties, but solving the aesthetic and functional failure of Main Street to actually look or feel anything like the sort of place that people want to see in a beautiful place like Mammoth, is way beyond any one, two, or ten individuals to solve on a piecemeal basis.
As the economy gets flatter and flatter (and believe me, we’re heading towards Great Depression II) and money is drying up for John Q. Consumer leaving only the wealthiest Americans to have fun in the snow … you see them going where the other “beautiful people” go skiing – Park City, Vail, … those places. There will always be the family vacationers who have always come to Mammoth – but they too are watching their pennies, (as they should). This area may just end up being a mecca for the snowboarding crowd and the snowboarders don’t have any money. All you can offer them are discounted rooms (5 to a room) and Zig-Zag cigarette papers.
Zig Zag makes good papers for the price. Mammoth should be glad to be the Zig Zag of resorts.
Who gets the contract to print the money for another White Elephant proposed to be built for those plane loads of rich tourist that will show up any day now?
Is this plan going to be funded before or after the purchase of Sam’s wood site?
Commenting on the town web site has been so effective in the past. Anyone else going to waste their time advising the brain trust their peeing into the wind?
Vote with your money, the only thing they’re really interested in!
Honestly, I hope all the skiers and tourist go to June Lake anyway. It’s nicer.
Not much après-ski in June
Maybe they can Dead Head signs leading to the pot shops?
since the mccoys vanished from the town, it has gone down,moral,and attitude have gone down,now it all seems to be about greed and selfishness
To all you negative Nelly’s – The past isn’t the future. I’m wondering how many of you smack talkers and negative personality types actually have anything invested in Main Street. I bet the answer is a big fat zero. All you’re capable of doing is sitting back and complaining about the people who were actually trying to get something done and make mammoth a better place.
Dear TOML please keep pushing this project forward…and ignore the smack talkers whose only skill consists of complaining online.
Here’s the reason for this effort to sell the idea of redeveloping Main St. It’s a gift to the big developers. All through out the Draft Plan they refer to “creating more space for development”. They are selling a wonderful world of fantasy to the local population just to gain the opportunity to make money developing something — anything.
Since the Village opened and since the airport offered air service, the business climate has tanked. Both were sold with the idea that they would be a “benefit to the community” — empty promises. Skier days have more or less stayed the same yet revenue from sales tax and TOT has declined.
pp26 Draft Plan
“Annual sales tax revenues peaked in fiscal year 2006-
2007. Since then the tax collected from retail sales in
Mammoth Lakes has declined by 38% through 2010,
with slight increases in fiscal year 2010/11 and 2011/12”
And they promise a wonderful world yet again but their real goal is simply to sell the town more development.
pp26 Draft Plan
“…to achieve the vision set forth in its
General Plan. However, in order to achieve that vision,
there will need to be a concerted effort by the Town to
assure that regulatory or financial barriers to the desired
development are overcome by a focused combination of
regulatory reforms (as contemplated in the new zoning
ordinance), financial incentives, and improved economic
and real estate market conditions. ”
In other words, we’ll develop more stuff you don’t need if you make it easy for us to take your money.
And there are actually fools who believe them.
Just curious. Why do you oppose development?
BK
Benett, sometimes you are as reactionary and simplistic as the neo-teabaggers on you blog.
I’m not opposed to growth. I’m not opposed to development. I want better development for Mammoth Lakes. We don’t need more condominium hotels or more retail space. We have plenty of both.
What we don’t have is an Olympic size swimming pool. year round ice rink, beautiful central park — like Bishop for example. There’s plenty here already if it was just taken care of. Instead we spend money on studies and consultants who tell us fairytailes.
We’ve had development and growth and yet the town is massively in debt and the revenue for the town has diminished. If we have anymore growth and development like that, we’ll have to have a yard sale to keep the lights on.
No need to name-call, Ken. I’m looking for intelligent, civil dialogue, and you did reveal more about why you think the way you do as a result of my question.
BK
The state of California is a very complex web of cultures. The Sierra area falls into the culture ( that originated in the L.A. area) that buys land, hope that it’s value increases, sell the land.
Start all over again. And Again. And again. However – When overall buying power diminishes for the masses and only the wealthiest can afford the best land … Uh-oh!
Now, everything changes. The wealthiest (and smartest communities) like say … Carmel-by-the-Sea actually build around their trees. Here in The Sierra everything living thing goes to put up the latest track housing development.
Of course, you will never hear that kind of talk from a realtor or developer. No matter how obvious the economy is going into the toilet.
Uh…, speculating in land started in LA? Maybe Mammoth should invest in some history books before investing in Main Street.
Why not just lower the speed limit. That won’t cost much, will slow traffic down so people can see what businesses are available to them, and will add to the city coffers in the form of speeding fines.
Main St used to be narrower – they made it wider. Its time to make it narrower again. Old Mammoth used to be wider – they made it narrow. Its time to make it wider again.
The comedy of Mammoth just does not stop. It just writes itself.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Why stop now. Never mind the money. Never mind the logic.
Spend more money you do not have. Tax, Tax, Tax.
Applaude! Applaud! Encore!
I can’t wait for the next act.
I think you’re on to something. Now that landscaped median makes sense. After a few years, they could scrape it off — after some public fund raising — and then make news with how wide 203 is.
I like it….
I remember when Mammoth was a volcano with hourly earthquakes and houses were $19,995. Back then a snow board was a sheet of plywood you put across the driveway so you could get your car across the ditch.
Ken Warner, do you ever have anything positive to say? I think the Main Street plan is a good plan. It involved a lot of the public and property owners on Main Street. Did you ever attend any of the meetings? Do you ever go to council meetings? Why don’t you send some constructive comments to the town about the Main Street plan, they’re taking comments for the next month. Or stop being such an old tired negative clueless uninformed loud mouth.
you can paint a pig pink and its still a pig, the town stinks and has a bad reputation,
work on that,get back to basics, like treating tourists well,then maybe,the money will come back,not putting flowers in front of motel 6
Interesting that when the TOML is paying back a $42 million settlement NOW they propose adopting into their road inventory SR 203 (Main St)….which Caltrans has been wanting to get rid of for years and the numerous times the offer has been made (with a sizable amount of $$$ attached to its relinquishment) the TOML has refused it. Also the offer has to include the ENTIRE route, not just the portion that goes through the TOML. The TOML is run by a serious group of short-sighted BOZO’s!!
Reroute traffic down Meridian, tear down businesses on both sides of Main St and turn it into an airport with terminals at the Village gondola. With two airports, TOML will then finally be a world class destination. Really, trust me.
Just wire grant money to my account in Jackson Hole.
I like it !!!!
Main street clearly needs a massive facelift. As does the Main St retail experience. I’m happy to see someone is working on it. Please keep the ball rolling.
If you want to know what you’ll get — assuming anything is ever done — go sit in front of the bagel shop on Minaret Rd by the Village. That’s the “experience” you will get. Trash, unkempt grounds, empty store fronts and traffic and dust. A real joyful experience.
All those pretty renderings the “consultants” use to hoodwink the population — all lies.
@ Ken. -I am there (The Village) a few times a week. I spend a lot more $$ at the village on food and drinks than anywhere else. I wish there was a greater variety of stores.
I am guessing you really like the look and feel of the beat down appearance of Main Street. I don’t. I much prefer the Village and so does my wallet.
So when it comes time to vote I will happily vote in favor of whatever gets Main Street looking good. And yes that means more modern or you may call it Village-like.
I would like to see city leaders putting more discussion and effort into how to incentivize private property business owners to upgrade their properties on main street. Funding the pretty median and better parking can be done. How do you get property owner to step up their game to match what the city invests in Main st?
I don’t know Ken.
While I agree with your questions of whether this will project will ever see fruition, I actually enjoy sitting on the patio at Toomey’s and having coffee or lunch. I think the concept has merit, but funding it is another thing altogether.
The town should secure their basic services before they start building dreams.
That’s not something I would do let alone like it. To each his own.
But your last sentence is right on. Focusing on how 203 looks seems like it misses the point entirely. There’s so much more Mammoth Lakes needs than to remodel a perfectly functional thoroughfare.
I think the article quoted 18 million as the price tag. That seems a little low. But for 18 million, that would buy a finished, year round ice rink — or an Olympic sized swimming pool, — or maybe even buy the Shady Rest Tract back from the current owners who have more or less abandoned it.
Priorities….
The local business owners who think they are getting a gift that will make them rich are not thinking it through and if and when this mess ever happens, they will be shocked by the price tag levied on them personally. But they can always ask all the fervent supporters of this project to bail them out I guess.
The consultant did make it clear that not all businesses would move their buildings right up close to the street. So, owners can apparently opt out of spending anything. One point that comes up often in discussions of resorts – people like to visit those areas which are attractive, fun to dine, shop and walk in. So, the spiffing up of Main Street does have a point.
Benett Kessler
Benett,
Sure, people like spiffy malls. But this is snow country. And nobody really knows what they are supporting. This “plan” is at least the third iteration of “plan” Remember the Hart-Howerton plan? And then the town sponsored a DNDP work shop and the plan that came out ot that was different. And now we have this “plan” which is still in the study stages which is different than before. We could have countless more “Plans” before anything ever gets done.
Nobody on this blog or anywhere else really knows what “the plan” is. And none of the businesses know what the cost will be or what they will have to do to fit in.
But lets leap ahead. Lets say that in spite of all my concerns, “The Plan” is a huge success. People flood into town. Skier days double. Recreational shoppers are crawling all over Main St.
Do you think the big chains would not notice? Would Cabelas or REI or Sports Chalet or Big-5 not want to come to town? Or some of the big restaurant chains — I won”t even give an example because there are so many. Or the Liquor Barn. Or even CostCo? If this “Plan” really works, what will really happen to the local businesses? The big guys would hire the best and brightest from all the small local store leaving them with — what?
I hear lots of drum beating and very little sense of what they are beating the drums for. And there’s so many other things that could be done for real, positive effect now for the local towns folk that is ignored in favor of this fantacy.
But it’s entertaining to read the posts from the neo-teabaggers screaming about something they know nothing about.
I guess I don’t fear growth. I fear lack of growth. But this means a great deal of thoughtfulness and study and, of course, money to support it. If we sit back and say no change is good because big business might try to take it away from us, we would likely never do much of anything. It is doubtful that skier visits would actually double – from 1 million give or take to 2 million. Again, thoughtful plans slowly carried out seem most likely to succeed. You might want to go to the Town website and check out the draft plan. The consultant did suggest doing things in phases. Something to think about and observe as it goes through the public process.
BK
Bennet,t,
You’ve changed the argument to growth vs. no-growth. That’s not the point of this discussion — or in some cases, rant.. The question is what is the right thing to do for Mammoth Lakes now and in the future. And nobody really knows.
The Village and the airport and the ice rink were all supposed to have meaningful positive impacts on our economy. It would be difficult to show that they have had any positive effect. In the meantime, the money spent and the diminution of the quality of life over the last 10 years tell me that those choices were wrong choices for Mammoth Lakes. They might be helping Starwood — but not me.
So now we are told that redevelopment of Main St. is going to save everybodies bacon. I just don’t see it happening and I see yet another give away to the big developers and another notch down in the overall quality of life — for me.
Where is the money going to come from? Another tax? More grants? Mana from heaven? These grand plans just don’t seem like they are really good for me or my quality of life. Who are they really good for?
Have the local businesses really seen that much improvement from the development that has already happened? I see a lot of empty store fronts, dilapidated and struggling businesses. Who’s really going to benefit?
@ Ken,
So you don’t like to relax in a street-side cafe and enjoy a meal or a drink? Fair enough, but many, many people do, particularly those on vacation. I think it would be short-sighted to ignore Mammoth’s rough edges when the town’s economy relies almost exclusively on tourism. Tourism dollars impact everyone in Mammoth either directly or indirectly. I sense that you are well aware of this though some residents seem to be unable to connect these dots.
Again, I don’t see how the town proposes to afford this plan with their current state of affairs, but lets just pretend for a moment that they could afford some redevelopment. Would there be a plan, any plan, that you would support?
SW, how much did TOML spend on this study?
I believe it was a grant for $240,000.
BK
And who got the money, he asked rhetorically — the developers!!! Smell the coffee…
It was the consultants.
BK
“Winter and Company Urban Design and Planning Studio”
Yes, consultants — who make plans that favor big developers. Winter got this money to tell the town what the developers want to do because the developers will get the money eventually if not immediately.
Do you or anybody else know where Winter and Co. get their money from — other than the rubes who hire them to sell them fairy tales?
If Harold Hill came to town, we’d have a marching band with 76 trombones. .
I smell more UNAmerican taxes in our future…
PS please hire a consultant that has lived in the snow or anything they say is just more marketing fluff from city folks.
PS MLT and Rusty are leading the way with their UNAmerican ways. Clue in now and tell them to kiss off!
I like the plan.
But can the town even begin to afford this?
I appears the consultants are getting rich while the TOML can’t even afford to put cops on the street.
If 203 is made into one lane each way, people exiting Mammoth on Sunday will simply drive down Meridian. That doesn’t meet the goal of increasing business for Main St. businesses.
Also, pumice is use to gravel the road for traction during and after a storm. That pumice is turned into fine dust particles that make a cloud of dust 50 yards or more on each side of Main St. that is a real health hazard. And you want businesses to be “street front”? That’s madness.
And the pictures Mr Winter showed are nothing like what the end result will be — if the town is stupid enough to proceed to the planned conclusion. Look at the early pictures of the Village and look at the Village now. Which, by the way, is what Main St. will look like. One long Village.
Good luck people.
KW, is there ever a positive plan, idea, etc. coming from you? Seriously!! Our town needs upgrades but responsibly done!
I’m pretty sure that most of us have seen 203 reduced to two lanes with 10 high berms filling the outside lanes. Take the center away with a landscaped median that can’t be plowed and what will be left?
What is so great about a landscaped median anyway? The dust and the traffic will not be a nice environment for whatever is planted there. You are not going to stroll down the median like you are in a park. It’s just silly.
And is it really “nay saying” to point out easily detected flaws in these grand plans that the developers try to sell the population so they (the developers) can make money off the locals? Or do you think this idea is purely altruistic benevolence by the developers — who ever they will be after MMSA sells out.
But the likelyhood of this grand plan ever really happening is not something that will happen in my life time. So what do I care?
Part of the plan is to set up a snow management district to haul off the snow from Main St. The idea of the center median is to create a very different visual driving into town – not just a big thoroughfare but something more attractive. Not a bad idea to make the entrance more inviting. The big question is how to pay for it.
BK
While I can’t offer any proof, I’m pretty sure the people coming to Mammoth — Winter or Summer — aren’t going to need a mile of pretty landscaped median to look at after driving through the Owens Valley. But then, what other reason could a developer offer to sell snake oil..
I wrote several rather long, detailed “plans” for downtown redevelopment that pointed out that Center St.and Laural Mountain Rd. were the real golc mines for redevelopment because they fron on the Shady Rest Tract which could be a World Class central park that could offer old growth forest and open space accessible to all and with room for all kinds of interesting amenities like a BMX park running/joging trails and an outdoor concert area.
I pointed out that none of the existing businesses would likely survive a 3 or more year construction effort.
I wrote them and the Sheet published them. I gave them to the Downtown Redevelopment Work Shops that were held years ago. They were ignored
And people soon forget.
Ken is often a nay-sayer. but I have to agree with him on this issue. The proposed ‘improvements’ look awful. What we have now, for whatever drawbacks people may perceive, is still much better than a narrower road, with on-street parking (how will that work when the snow comes?) and landscaping down the middle. On-street parking is awful for bicycles. As it is, you still have to watch it at every intersection, but with parking along the steet the hazards are continuous.
The plans show a continuation of four lanes on Main Street with a landscaped median down the center. Presumably, land into the frontage roads would be used differently. You can check out the plan on the Town’s website.
Benett Kessler
I do not understand why California does not adopt the kind of de-icing fluids like Ice-Bite (made from sugar beets) that do not cause as much corrosion as brines or rock salt, are less hazardous to the environment and don’t leave a layer of decomposed granite on the road to become dust over the spring and make everything dirty.
What is never talked about is paying for the development with money saved from tax revenue, instead it’s always more taxes, fees and debt.
Don’t think I would buy a bond from TOML unless it was paying 40% yearly.
The town Probably does not have any Existing funds to pay.
Hey I got up at the original TC meeting and spoke of the grandeur and wonderfulness of the ideas but asked “Where is the money going to come from” ” we are just playing an Adult game of pretend ! ”
We have TBID I don’t think another BID will pass.
If those arrogant bastards at TC did not waste money fighting the loosing battle with Terry Ballas we would have lots of funds to play with.
To think that we could have settled for some 5 mill back in the hey day and settle for the millions we have to pay each year, All I can say is OMG.
This type of revitalization is needed, but we don’t have the funds.