
Owner of the popular local bar “Tony’s Darts Away” and founder of Golden Road Brewery, Tony Yanow is partnering with the City of Burbank to open a new restaurant and brewery at 10 W. Magnolia Blvd which will be called “Burbank Common.”
Located adjacent to the downtown Burbank Metrolink station, the project will involve the demolition of a 70,000 square-feet storage warehouse to be replaced with a restaurant, a craft beer pub, a roller derby rink, and possibly food carts. Space will be reduced to 33,000 square-feet to provide an outdoor recreation area. It is currently unknown how many restaurants the 2.4-acre site will include.
Burbank Common will utilize the 471 parking spaces located near the Metrolink station. Although more than half of the spaces are used by those riding the Metro during the day, it is hoped there will be enough room to accommodate customers in the evening.
“For intermittent larger events that will occur one to two times per month, it is anticipated that parking can be provided offsite in existing parking facilities in Downtown Burbank and a shuttle system could be employed to shuttle attendees to and from events,” said Ross Young, a project manager for Burbank.
To ensure that the Metrolink parking will not be overwhelmed, a “full parking study” will be conducted during the environmental review process.
Although the city will retain ownership of the property, Yanow will operate Burbank Common with his restaurant group, the Artisanal Brewers Collective.
“His company has the resources and experience to independently build and operate the facility and they are proposing to incorporate features that would provide significant community-wide benefits,” said Young.
“If approved by the City Council, the proposed project would have a number of benefits for the City. The project would also provide a much-needed event center which would complement the existing businesses and hotels in Downtown Burbank and throughout the City by attracting outside visitors to Burbank.”
In 2008, the city attempted to demolish the same warehouse but could not receive support from City Council due to the high cost. The warehouse which was formally owned by AmeriCold has six-feet thick cement walls that make it difficult to demolish. From 2011 to 2016, the property was controlled by a different redevelopment agency.
“From a fiscal standpoint, the project would facilitate over $10 million in private sector investment, while creating jobs, boosting tourism, and increasing the City’s tax base,” said Young.
Burbank Common is currently going through its environmental analysis and “community outreach phase.” The project is expected to be presented to the Burbank Planning Board and City Council before September.
Existing municipal parking requirements are literally squeezing a sustainable future away from Burbank.
Burbank is facing a critical housing crisis. A full 9,720 of Burbank Households or 24% pay more than 50% of their income on housing cost. And yet whenever a residential, mixed-use or commercial development is proposed locally, thousands of square feet are required to be reserved for phantom users: cars.
The “full parking study” Burbank proposes for the new “Burbank Common” development must review outdated old parking policies for this, as well as other similar new planned rezoning developments – to be carefully re-evaluated for a more-aligned adherence to new SB-375 Green House Gas reduction requirements and the new Mobility Element policies of the approved Burbank General Plan.
In place of artificial minimum parking requirements, commercial, mixed-use and residential Developers should be allowed to trade-off, or offset their minimum parking requirements – to help fund expanding BurbankBus public transit services, alternate transportation choices, create better more-humanized streetscape, and better support of SB-375 including other considerations, such as more affordable housing near transit – with amenity improvements, such as public bicycle parking and improved bus shelters.
Don’t let old post-WWII parking requirements continue to rob us of a vital sustainable future for Burbank.
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