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ground floor uses. Staff completed a field survey of existing ground floor uses <br />within historic buildings on Main Street and on Downtown streets subject to the <br />active ground floor active use requirement. Survey results are contained in Table <br />1 below: <br />Table 1: Summary of Existing Ground Floor Uses in Historic Buildings <br />Street Historic <br />buildings <br />Total <br />ground floor <br />spaces* <br />Inactive <br />ground floor <br />spaces* <br />Active <br />ground floor <br />spaces* <br />% of Active <br />ground floor <br />spaces* <br />Main Street <br />(between Broadway <br />& Middlefield) <br />8 16 4 12 75% <br />(12/16) <br />All Other Streets with <br />active ground floor <br />use requirement <br />22 41 14 27 66% <br />(27/41) <br /> * In historic buildings today <br /> <br />As documented above, a majority of existing historic buildings have active <br />ground floor uses, both on Main Street (75%) and in the other areas subject to <br />the requirement (66%). Staff recommends a use permit process to evaluate <br />historic buildings on a case-by-case basis rather than exempting them outright. <br />This would allow the few historic buildings that currently have inactive ground <br />floor uses to continue their operation, such as the Fitzpatrick Professional <br />Center, and preserve the remaining historic buildings with active ones, such as <br />Martin’s West Gastropub. <br /> <br /> <br />Fitzpatrick Professional Center Martin’s West Gastropub in the Alhambra Building <br /> <br />In addition, inactive uses tucked discretely behind active uses may also be <br />acceptable. The DTPP currently allows a number of inactive uses on the upper <br />floors, or on the rear portion of the ground floor, defined as a minimum of 20 feet <br />from the front of the building. These uses are identified as “Permitted – U” in the <br />Use Regulations Chart and include office, lodging, and residential. The intent is <br />for ground floor uses to have active frontages and allow inactive uses to be <br />subsidiary with little public presence. A successful example of this is Philz <br />Coffee shop. In this case, most people aren’t aware that there is an office on the <br />ground floor since the frontage is dominated by an active use, with narrow <br />hallways to the rear office use. <br />7.A. - Page 4