Mall shopkeepers debate outdoor seating

Changes to the Downtown Mall’s outdoor seating has sparked a feud among its business owners.

Restaurants’ outdoor cafes, a popular amenity for the mall’s visitors during the warmer months, will not be able to set up in the spring until the four-month mall rebricking and restoration is complete. But restaurant and retail-store owners butted heads at a Friday meeting, not about when the cafes would be allowed back outside but how much space they should take up.

“I don’t know what the solution is,” said Patricia Toone, who works for Miller’s.

City staff discussed possible ordinance changes with Downtown Mall business owners and residents on Friday. Many other mall modifications were discussed, such as with garbage collection, parking availability and spaces for vendors.

The change for cafes proposes to shrink the maximum amount of space to 700 square feet per business. Most restaurants that have outdoor seating now are limited to 800 square feet, but several that pioneered the concept — including Miller’s, Rapture and Zocalo — were not required to conform to those limits.

“The café spaces have a tendency to drift,” said Read Brodhead, the city’s zoning administrator.

But Eliza Dilello, Blue Light’s general manager, said she did not want to see her outdoor seating substantially cut.

“The businesses that have been here for a long time, they’re successful, they do well,” she said. “Now you’re talking about limiting our space and that’s going to hurt us.”

Jim Tolbert, the city’s director of neighborhood development services, said that while there were few restaurants with outdoor seating before, now there might barely be enough space to accommodate everyone.

“Ten years ago, we were begging people to open cafes down here,” Tolbert said.

Additionally, he said, it would be unfair for businesses with less cafe space to compete with those with more when they all sit on city property. Rapture owner Mike Rodi countered by saying the city should do whatever it can to keep people spending money downtown during the already slow winter season.

“That should be the priority, not fairness,” he said.

The discussion of private spaces did not stop there. Tolbert said that during many of the public meetings about the mall’s overhaul, the community said there should be more open space for visitors, particularly around the fountains. In response to that, the City Council deemed the fountains as space for the public and decided to include more outdoor benches as a part of the overall restoration.

“Right now most of them are completely enclosed to the cafes,” Tolbert said.

Amy Melville, who manages C’ville Arts, said she has had customers object to the limited outdoor seating on the mall not designated for restaurants.

“It happens on a fairly regular basis,” Melville said, referring to the complaints.

Lee Marraccini, co-owner of the Angelo jewelry store, said he loves outdoor restaurants, but “it gets so cluttered between the fountains, the restaurants.”

“It’s the clutter that I’d like to see cleared,” he said.