CARLSBAD — A mixed-use project containing 23 apartments and around 5,400 square feet of ground-floor commercial space is officially moving forward in the Village area on Roosevelt Street, after being approved by the City Council in a 4-1 vote on Tuesday.
The infill project, known as The Roosevelt, is brought forward by Carlsbad-based real estate development firm Fabric Investments and will replace an existing 8,000-square-foot commercial building, the current home of Community Interface Services, at 2621 Roosevelt St. between Laguna Drive and Beech Avenue.
The 45-foot-tall structure will contain a first story with five commercial retail suites, a lobby, a 4,000-square-foot pedestrian alley/courtyard, and a covered garage with 24 pedestrian parking spaces; a second story with two office suites and 10 apartments, an open courtyard, and bike storage; and a third story with 13 apartments, four of which will have upstairs rooms and decks that expand onto a partial fourth story.
“Largely, this is a three-story project in line with the Village General zoning. The only area that we actually elevate to a fourth story is on the very western portion of our lot,” said Brendan Foote, managing principal of Fabric.
The public courtyard and alley on the north side of the lot will serve as an area for residents to enjoy the ground floor commercial tenants, which Foote said could include businesses like a coffee shop, flower shop, and art gallery.
This courtyard will also provide some breathing room between the building and the neighboring Michelin-star restaurant Lilo.
“The importance of the Village long-term is creating great open space with the development that’s inevitably going to come,” Foote said.
Because of its inclusion of two very low-income units and two moderate-income units, Fabric Investments was granted density bonuses increasing the number of allowed units from 11, as set under the base density for the site, to 23.
The project was also granted various concessions and waivers of development standards under density bonus law. These include waiving all requirements for commercial parking, increasing the allowed height from three to four stories and from 35 feet to 45 feet, and reducing front setbacks from three to five feet.
The city also agreed to waive various objective design standards, including prohibitions of large mixed-use buildings in the Village General District and requirements for 75% ground floor window frontage.
Councilmember Melanie Burkholder cast the dissenting vote against the project. She said while the design is beautiful, she had major concerns about the project supplying just 24 parking spaces for a site with 23 residential units and commercial businesses in an already busy area.
“Developers can choose to be good neighbors or not, and in this design, they’re simply slapping us in the face with gross negligence in the parking spaces being proposed,” Burkholder said. “It will immensely and negatively impact the district as a whole, and specifically the businesses that are already struggling to get people in the doors because of inadequate parking in the Village.”
Resident Socorro Anderson raised similar questions about parking.
“You’re going to have an awful lot of drivers that are going to be parking on the street, and we have a lot of problems already in the Barrio and in the Village with people driving around trying to find parking,” Anderson said.
City staff said they are limited in the parking requirements they can set for projects, as Assembly Bill 2097 prohibits cities from setting minimum parking requirements for projects located within a half mile of a transit station – like The Roosevelt.
Other council members also echoed parking concerns but said that the project does ultimately comply with California law.
“I will be voting for it for two reasons — one, the state law requires it, and two, it is a very beautiful project,” said Mayor Keith Blackburn.
Parking also came up as a concern when the project was discussed by the Carlsbad Planning Commission in April. The commission recommended approval of the project in a 4-0 vote, with three commissioners absent.
The Roosevelt will be Fabric’s seventh approved project in Carlsbad Village, following several nearby developments on State Street like the State Street Commons, Tyra Biosciences, Surf Labs, The Reserve office building, and the coworking space Kiln and Michelin-star restaurant June et Jolie.
Fabric also developed another small mixed-use commercial and residential project called Beech House down the block from The Roosevelt site.
“This is about long-term investments in the community that we live and work and play in, and we hope that our previous work is a testament to the quality of what we intend to build here with this project,” Foote said.
Fabric is also currently seeking approval from the city for another mixed-use project on the southwest corner of Carlsbad Boulevard and Beech Avenue called Blvd Beach.
