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EIR No. 2020-01, GPA No. 2020-02, & AA No. 2020-01 – The Bowery Mixed-Use Development May 11, 2020 Page 6 Project and Site Background The subject site was developed with the three existing industrial buildings containing a total of 212,121 square feet between 1979 and 1985. The buildings served as a campus for Ricoh Company, Ltd., a multinational electronics and imaging corporation, which vacated the site in 2018. Following Ricoh’s departure from the site, a variety of uses subsequently began occupying individual buildings on the project site. These include a warehouse/assembly use at 2310 South Redhill Avenue, and a temporary homeless shelter operated by Mercy House at 2320 South Redhill Avenue. Should the applicant’s request be approved, all buildings on the subject property would be demolished in order to facilitate construction of the mixed-use development. Analysis of the Issues The applicant’s request requires approval of several discretionary action applications, certification of an environmental impact report, and adoption of a mitigation monitoring and reporting program (MMRP) to facilitate construction of the mixed-use development. In analyzing the applicant’s request, staff reviewed the project’s site plan, mixture of land uses, onsite parking, the general plan amendment application, and the amendment application to establish a specific development zone. Additional analyses are provided in the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and Economic Development sections of this staff report. Site Plan The project’s site plan has been designed to integrate the project site into the surrounding community. The development’s primary access points will be from a right-in, right-out driveway on Redhill Avenue, and from a signalized intersection on Warner Avenue. These access points have been designed to ensure the safety of residents and visitors of the project site, as well as commuters, employees, and residents of the surrounding community. Onsite circulation has been designed to ensure a high-quality pedestrian experience, with wide sidewalks, a central paseo, and plazas and courtyards that buffer or separate pedestrians from onsite vehicular traffic. Moreover, the project has been broken into four primary buildings and two freestanding commercial pads, which reduces the overall massing of the project and creates a more pedestrian-scale village of buildings onsite. The two future roadway connections on the project site will allow the development to become integrated with the adjacent site to the southwest, should an application for redevelopment be approved. As of this writing, no application for redevelopment of the adjacent site to the southwest has been submitted for the City’s consideration. Mixture of Land Uses The proposed development contains a large commercial component of 80,000 square feet of leasable retail, service, and restaurant area. This volume of commercial space complements the residents, visitors, and employees working and living on and around the project site. The 80,000 square feet of leasable commercial area is among the largest commercial components proposed in recent mixed-use developments. For comparison, the Elan project (1660 East First 3-6