Englewood planning advisory group recommends 'horizontal mixed use' for much of city, splits on Sentinel corridor

The General Plan Advisory Committee on Wednesday recommended that the city adopt "horizontal mixed use" for large parts of its draft land-use plan instead of requiring ground-floor retail beneath housing, citing local market analysis that finds vertical mixed-use projects often do not pencil out.

Staff and consultants told the committee the change is a response to two main factors: rising vacancy and shrinking retail footprints nationwide and pro-forma modeling that showed higher construction costs and parking/loading constraints make vertical mixed use less financially feasible in most non-core corridors. "Vertical mixed use performs even worse in terms of rents and vacancies," said Brian Grant, who staff introduced as a recent appointee representing District 4. He added that developers face higher construction costs and operational challenges that make many ground-floor retail spaces hard to lease.

The recommendation preserves mandatory ground-floor retail in high-foot-traffic areas — notably Market Street downtown and expressly identified transit-oriented-development nodes — but staff urged a citywide preference for horizontal mixed use elsewhere to preserve flexibility for future market conditions. Jonathan, a project lead for the update, told the committee the team modeled scenarios at multiple retail sizes to test feasibility and is proposing land-use designations that would allow commercial, residential or both depending on site-specific conditions.

The committee debated the tradeoffs between promoting housing capacity and preserving neighborhood-serving businesses. Several members raised local examples of "ghost retail" — ground-floor retail spaces that sit vacant beneath residential towers — and warned mandatory retail can create long-term vacancies and degraded street life if tenants fail to materialize. "If you require ground-floor commercial and that retail space leaves, who's affected? The people above who lease," Brian Grant said. Other members argued the city needs explicit tools to protect neighborhood-serving shops and urged complementary policies and design standards to preserve streetfront character.

On a procedural question about outreach, staff said the engagement package included an open house with roughly 80 in-person attendees, 60 event-linked survey responses and about 1,500 total individual responses across the outreach program. One committee member pressed whether that sample is sufficient for citywide policy changes; staff replied that the outreach was complemented by technical market analysis used to inform the recommendations.

The GPAC recorded several advisory votes and directional decisions at the meeting. Members supported, by show of hands, a split recommendation for the Sentinel focus area: the western half (roughly west of Acacia/Enterprise) would be recommended for a vertical mixed-use designation while the eastern half would be recommended as horizontal mixed use. The committee also voted to remove a proposed higher-intensity "node" at one Manchester intersection and took a show-of-hands on the K1 Hollywood Park large-lot site after extended discussion about commercial uses, housing capacity and affordability.

Those GPAC recommendations are advisory; staff will present the package and a staff report to the Planning Commission, tentatively scheduled for May 6, and later to City Council. Jonathan said the Planning Commission and Council would be asked to approve the plan concept and to initiate the environmental-impact analysis, not to adopt the final general plan. The process to develop implementing policy and zoning — including potential inclusionary-housing and design standards that could preserve neighborhood-serving retail — will follow as the plan advances.

The committee’s discussion framed the tradeoffs facing Englewood’s update: balancing market realities that favor housing delivery with localized preservation of storefronts that shape walkable neighborhoods. Staff said the technical analyses will be appended to the outreach materials sent to decision-makers and that the GPAC’s recorded recommendations and the meeting recording will accompany the May submittal.