Railroad Square Land Use Analysis
Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART)
Santa Rosa, California December 2004 to January 2005
SMART – a newly forming transit agency – owns a six-acre parcel in the Railroad Square district of the City of
Santa Rosa. Strategic Economics evaluated real estate market conditions for a variety of land uses at the site
that would respond to Santa Rosa's existing zoning and also satisfy SMART's joint development goals including
ridership maximization. Using the market findings, Strategic Economics worked with the planning firm of
Community Design + Architecture to create several development scenarios for the site, and tested their financial
feasibility. The key variables included: residential tenure, density, parking ratios for the residential project, the
impact of the developer providing parking for SMART, and inclusion of different size retail spaces.