■ Panel OKs plans for exterior remodeling of Southampton store, but worries about effect on rest of shopping plaza

Despite their concerns that the new look would outshine the rest of the Southampton Shopping Center, Benicia Historic Preservation Review Commission unanimously approved designs Thursday night for Raley’s Supermarket’s exterior renovation.

For several weeks, the inside of the grocery has been undergoing an extensive overhaul that is expected to reflect the company’s new focus on fresh fruits and vegetables. Once the outer façade is finished, the garden display and cart storage will be moved, replaced by café seating, among other changes.

The solid beige band that runs the length of the store and holds its primary name sign as well as smaller labels will be gone, and an open framework will support the new name sign. Next to it will rise a clock tower.

Below that, the store will have roll-up doors and plenty of glass windows the panel decided must remain 70-percent free of advertising or coverage.

The front will be trimmed extensively in wood veneer, and the front façade will be broken up by vertical green-screen landscaping — meshwork that gets filled in as plants grow.

At the store’s free side, plans call for construction of a Raley’s e-cart drive through, where customers would pick up groceries they had ordered online.

Commissioners found the new design appealing, but several wondered how the modernized anchor store would make the rest of Southampton Shopping Center look.

No one was present to represent Weingarten, the real estate firm that owns the plaza. But Mark Marvelli, a member of Stafford King Wiese architectural firm, said Weingarten representatives have inquired how some of the new Raley’s design might be incorporated elsewhere at Southampton Shopping Center.

“I can’t promise they’ll do it,” Marvelli said, “but they have started conversations.”

Raley’s new design not only incorporates elements that show local influence, such as the clock tower, but also emphasizes its “fresh market” approach, Marvelli said. Associate Planner Suzanne Thorsen and Commissioner Maggie Trumbly said it harkened back to the look Raley’s had two generations ago.

But it’s not the start of a different cookie-cutter approach, Marvelli said. A new store in Rohnert Park reflects that area’s agricultural roots and has barnlike elements, he said.

While Commissioner Steve McKee said, it “sounds exciting and interesting” to have such change happening in “an isolated shopping center with a ’70s look,” Chairperson Luis Delgado said, “This is getting renovated and the rest of the shopping center is looking bland.”

Noting that the rest of the structure would resemble its original 1970s appearance, he said, “This building will look different. That concerns me.”

“The rest of the shopping center is shabby-looking,” Commissioner Toni Haughey said. “But I don’t think that should be Raley’s issue.”

John Bunch, a former Benicia planning director, said when the city approved Safeway’s design at Solano Square, conditions were set so its look would be compatible with its neighbors.

“I would hope the city would encourage the shopping center to bring in a contemporary look,” he said. “When this is in, the rest of the shopping center will look pretty dated.”

He also worried whether the new sign design would set a precedent for those who want rooftop designs, suggested the store limit outdoor displays and advocated for keeping its windows clear of signage.

Commissioner Trevor Macenski expressed hope something could be done with the shopping center’s sign, which bears the name of Raley’s and other tenants. Bunch suggested one condition of approval would be to require a Weingarten representative to address the condition of the sign before building permits would be issued.

But Marvelli said his clients had no authority to address the sign, and Trumbly, countering another suggestion that Raley’s set aside money for its share of sign upgrading, pointed out no such escrow account currently exists, and that prices change with time.

“I don’t want to prohibit this, but represent the city’s best interest,” she said.

“I understand the desire to see the center upgraded,” Thorsen said. But if the commission made those changes a challenge, Weingarten might be reluctant to explore an upgrade. “We don’t want to put up obstacles,” she said.

In the end, Macenski moved for approval, but asked for greater detail about the storefront canopies’ design, wanting assurance they would shelter customers from weather; staff review of building details on the side where it links with one corner of the shopping center; and a promise windows would remain 70-percent free of signs and other obstructions. Other commissioners concurred.

In another matter Thursday, the commission met in a workshop session with the Rev. Ken Jensen, senior pastor, and Dave McMurtry, director of adult ministries, who presented revised plans for the multi-phase expansion of Northgate Christian Fellowship Church, 2201 Lake Herman Road.

They asked for comments from commissioners before developing the final proposal that the HPRC would see at a public hearing.

One of Jensen’s concerns is the current need for four weekend services to accommodate the 800 or so who worship at the church’s current sanctuary. The planned expansion would increase the worship assembly room by two-thirds.

Other modifications to plans that originally were approved in 2003 have been designed to address the strong winds that blow in from the southwest. An outdoor café seating area has been moved from the building’s windy side, as has the assembly room’s entrance.

Macenski suggested, with support from Trumbly, that the redesign might be incompatible with the surrounding ridgelines, and asked whether that meant the expansion plan might face a full review under the California Environmental Quality Act.

That turn of the conversation caught the Northgate representatives by surprise. McMurtry said when the city first examined the project 10 years ago, obscuring the church site so it couldn’t be seen “never came up.”

Nor can church plans be redesigned to move the main building back so its topline is obscured, the commissioners learned.

That’s because a major municipal water line runs under the property, and if Benicia needed to repair that line, any structure in its way would need to be broken open.

“You can’t build over the city water line,” Jensen said.

McMurtry said Benicia Fire Department has its own requirements, especially about traffic circulation that can accommodate firefighting equipment. “It’s not possible to scotch it back,” he said.

Delgado said the church’s current structures can’t be seen from Interstate 680 except briefly as motorists drive toward Sacramento.

“I’m having trouble getting excited about the ridgeline,” McKee said.

He recommended spending extra money “on some killer trees” that would screen the structure. “Break up the mass with shadow lines and rely on landscaping,” he said.

But he added, “I’m finding it weird everyone’s saying, ‘You can’t see the building.’”