STAFF REPORT
The Truckee Railyard project inched forward this fall, with applications for 90,000 square feet of development, broken up into two projects, routed for comments and conditions by the Town of Truckee Planning Division. For reference, that square footage is equivalent to roughly one Manhattan city block.
In addition to the 35,000 square foot Nugget Markets project, which the planning commission is slated to review again on Dec. 19, the division has received a land use application for a 54,297 square foot, multi-story, mixed-use structure and two 320 square foot ground-mounted shipping container structures to be built adjacent to the Nugget Market in the southwestern section of the balloon track of the Downtown Extension district of the Railyard Master Plan.
This Phase Two project — dubbed the South Balloon Track Commercial Building project — is supported by a larger infrastructure plan for Phase One of the Railyard Master Plan.
The assumption with this application is that the required infrastructure, including Church Street Extension/Donner Pass Road Extension into the balloon track, will be completed prior to or current with development within the balloon track. The applicant for the project is Doug Wiele with Foothill Partners.
The specific land use approvals include a Development Permit for a large project over 15,000 square feet in the Railyard Development Master Plan area, a Use Permit for two mini or pop-up retail spaces, and a Comprehensive Sign Program for all signs in the project site. An approval for an exception to the Railyard Project Master Plan’s height requirement may also be needed due to the project’s proposed height, which is 17 feet over the plan’s limit for the area — which now sits at 50 feet.
Jason Hansford of Truckee Development Associates LLC, said it is too early to speculate which entities what entities will be occupying the other building.
The applicants for both projects are proposing to share 150 parking spaces in a shared private parking lot located between the two projects and 154 pay-to-park public parking spaces in proximity to the site within the anticipated town right-of-way, according to the town. Comments from the Nugget Markets routing may be similar to the comments provided for the South Balloon project.
The planning division requests that comments, conditions of approval, and requests for more information regarding the South Balloon project be submitted no later than Dec. 14.
