It feels a little odd talking about infill in Clovis. It doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, as the city is known for its endless subdivisions. And yet in 2017, Old Town Clovis appears to have almost as much infill construction as Downtown Fresno going on.
I reported on two of these projects in July 2015, but I’ve added a few other ones here.
- Centennial Plaza
- La Quinta Inn
- Rail-Trail Housing
- New Library
- Sierra Meadows Park
- Clovis Community Hospital
Centennial Plaza
Let’s start with the big one: Centennial Plaza. This is the heart of Old Town on Pollasky, and I last took a look in May 2016 when the new plaza was finished. That update was focused on the street improvements, but now new buildings are rising up to frame the plaza.
Only 3 stories tall, the new building does make an impression in a downtown where a second story is a novelty.
No basement here
Close to the street
Construction has also started on the building framing the other side of the plaza
La Quinta Inn
A wee bit south, we find construction has finally started on La Quinta Inn. I reported on this one in May of 2015. Aside from building on a vacant lot, what makes this development interesting is that the hotel will be built over parking. This signals that demand for development in Old Town has increased to the point where large surface parking lots no longer make economic sense.
It’s a start.
Rail-Trail Housing
In that same post from July of 2015, I talked about an approved plan to build new homes on an oddly shaped lot at Sierra and Clovis. What made the plan unique was that two of the homes would front the regional bicycle trail.
Construction has begun:
The existing homes are very modest
The alley will allow for rear driving access
The existing homes are getting carports added
Construction
View from the trail
New Library
The existing Clovis library is a disgrace. It’s about twenty years overdue for a replacement, and fortunately, one is coming soon.
Here we see the completed Old Town trail, looking towards the new library complex
Nothing has started yet, but it is expected soon.
The new complex will be behind this existing resting point
As an aside, that little station has a trail map which is actually updated every year
Looking north, the property is still on the right
It will link to Clovis Avenue
Here is the exterior of the existing library, which will be retained as another government building
Odd?
I stopped by on a day they were closed. Whoops. However, you can see how narrow the building is…
Sierra Meadows Park
Moving to the more suburban areas, we have Sierra Meadows Park. This is quite possibly the slowest park project in California. It appears that every year they add one little feature. Over the past five years, they’ve added benches, some lighting, and bags for dog waste. 2017 is supposed to see the arrival of restrooms.
This might be where the new restrooms are going
Someone posted an overhead video on Youtube taken from a drone. It does an excellent job of showing that 90% of the park is still just empty space. The plan includes adding a lake, auditorium, playground etc. Maybe by 2030?
Clovis Community Hospital
This hospital doesn’t stop growing. Admittedly, the one type of development I rarely follow is that related to hospital construction. While they’re open to the public, they’re not quite public spaces. They’re also very insular.
However I stopped by to see if any work has been done on connecting the regional bicycle trail network. Green shows what exists, red what is proposed.
The Clovis Trail maps show the proposal
I did find some trail, which appears to have been built in the past two years. Not the connector though.
Walking to 168 to see where the tunnel would go
And I think that’s it for Clovis. The infill anyway. Like always, there are 500+ homes tract under construction at the city edge.
I like the use of back alleys for car access in the back of properties as opposed to the front. It's looks wise that they seem to be consolidating driveways for parking for the houses and the hotel all into the back alley, fewer cars to block sidewalks and cut pedestrians off and fewer conflict points for pedestrians overall. I'm also hoping that the alley has hard corners on either side? I for one hate unconsolidated driveways. Some low profile full cutoff warm white or even PC amber LED lighting back there would be useful after dark to.
I thoroughly enjoyed this topic. I went to Centennial Plaza last weekend and really enjoyed the design. Clovis is YEARS ahead of Fresno in downtown infill design.
YEARS ahead? its a bit premature to say, but i guess we will see once fulton is done in the next few months. sometimes its hard to judge until its fully completed
Yes I do say yrs ahead. Clovis does have better downtown design and flow in my opinion. Yes Fulton is being renovated, however look how long it took to get to this point….YEARS. We will wait and see if it pays off. Fresno just recently changed the zoning/building codes of downtown that should have happened yrs ago. Only time will tell.