Sacramento Proposal/Approval/Construction Thread - III

[snfenoc]

http://www.sacbee.com/business/story/2188632.html

Bob Shallit: Developer buying Sacramento's Marshall Hotel
bshallit@sacbee.com
Published Thursday, Sep. 17, 2009

A national development company is acquiring downtown Sacramento's historic Marshall Hotel with plans to eventually build a 14-story "W"-style boutique hotel there.

Property owner Pete Noack tells us that Presidio Co., developer of the Hyatt Place hotel nearing completion at UC Davis, will "soon" be buying the Marshall, at Seventh and L streets.

Noack will become a major investor in the project, with construction planned when the market improves.

"We understand this is not a good time to build, but it's a very good time to get entitlements and be shovel-ready," he says.

The purchasing group has signed a franchise deal with Starwood Hotels to brand the hotel as Aloft by W.

"It's not a full-blown 'W,' " Noack says, referring to the upscale Starwood brand. "But it's a sexy, urban-style hotel for secondary markets."

Besides the Davis project, Fairfield-based Presidio has developed hotels elsewhere in California and in Hawaii, Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama.

Noack, who joined with other investors to acquire the Marshall in 2005, says the development team intends to submit plans to the city in coming months.

Those plans will call for retaining two exterior sides of the 98-year-old, five-story Marshall building and incorporating them into a stepped, 14-story structure. (To see a rendering, go to www.presidioco.com/catalysts.htm.)

Assistant City Manager John Dangberg calls the Marshall a "key downtown property" and says he supports the developers' plans to get the site "ready to go for when the market comes back."

http://www.presidioco.com/images/popup_main_aloft.jpg

http://www.presidioco.com/images/popup_sub_aloft_top.jpg

http://www.presidioco.com/images/popup_sub_aloft_sign.jpg

http://www.presidioco.com/images/popup_sub_aloft_street.jpg

[innov8]

This proposal looks tacky compaired to the Grand Heritage Group in 2007.

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/3374/marshall2007.jpg (http://img149.imageshack.us/i/marshall2007.jpg/)
Grand Heritage Group proposal of 2007

[Majin]

Both look like shit.

[snfenoc]

Better than nothing.

[innov8]

Better than nothing.

This should be Sacramento's motto. :(

[snfenoc]

Hey, if you want great ($$$$) architecture, move to another city. WE ARE POOR. We get what we get. We should be happy we're not Bakersfield.

[innov8]

Hey, if you want great ($$$$) architecture, move to another city. WE ARE POOR. We get what we get. We should be happy we're not Bakersfield.

No were not poor, the city has $31 million ready to give away to a developer on K Street.

This is about holding developers to a higher standard. The previous proposal
for this site in 2007 seemed to get it right, but the credit squeeze of 2008
killed that deal. Setting standards for developers to “try harder” is something
that can be benefit both the city and a developer. Isn’t that why there’s a
Design Commission? The city has decreased the amount of time a proposal
takes to gets though the approval process via “matrix”, it’s now time to also
ask something of developers. Were now in an age where almost nothing gets built
downtown with out subsidies, so in return for all this free money the city
should see better architecture.

For a minute there you almost sounded like neuhickman79 telling me to move to another city ;)

[SactownTom]

Innov8 is right on.

If we don't start seeing some quality work being approved by the Design Commission, I think it might be worth looking into a charter amendment stipulating that the commission members hold some expertise instead of just having it be filled with hacks.

[snfenoc]

Well, if you are a commie who thinks it's appropriate to tell a private developer what he can do with his property, I guess you have a point. ;) The government dangling money in front of developers and making them jump through hoops to get it is one of the biggest reasons I don't like subsidies. No government should have that kind of power.

If this proposal requires a city subsidy, I am dead set against it, but not because I think the architecture is lacking. Forget its awkward fusion of old and modern, I'm just glad someone wants to do something with that property. If the current proposal isn't as nice looking as the first proposal, oh f***ing well. If a developer thinks he can convert a "blighted" block filled with disgusting, smelly SRO people into a decent boutique hotel, then I'm all for it. (wburg to attack in 5...4...3...2...1...)

31 million? Really? Are you sure that's not just tricky accounting? I thought the city had budget issues. Besides, I'm not talking about the government's wealth, I'm talking about what the market can support. We are a poorer market when compared to the big boys and many cities of similar population. We can only support so many hotel rooms at such and such a rate. Let's say your desired architectural style is too expensive to meet the target rates or doesn't allow for the number of rooms they want, what then? Should the project be scrapped or cheapened? I vote for the second option. It may not look as good, but it's something instead of nothing. (For an example of "nothing" see 3rd and Crapitol.) Now, maybe the developer can come up with a better looking building and still keep his costs/price points within the dictates of Sacramento's market. But something tells me this proposal looks cheaper than the first one for a reason...$$$$

No, I'm not doing my neuhicky impression. Sometimes I just get annoyed with the constant complaints. Everyone's a critic - even I can be very critical of Sacramento. But the more I walk through the city, the more I see people (developers, citizens, business owners, etc.) trying to do the best they can with the resources they have. It's easy to complain when it's not your money. So unless you are willing to put up tens or hundreds of millions of your own dollars, shut up and enjoy what you get. It could be a lot worse. Cities like Bakersfield and Fresno would love to have this "problem".

[innov8]

First, that $31M number was given by the 8th & K St developers, thay are the ones who
requested requested the free land, tax rebates, and tax increment rebates
which all amount to $31M giveaway. I believe all developers who have
received subsidies from the city got them because they requested
them, not the other way around. This proposal doe’s not require a subsidy,
but it’s become the norm for developers to arrive at city hall with their hand
out. The last time the city did a big give away was for Lot A in the 80’s and
that did not pan out. If you can show me a project that was built because
the city shoved money at the developer to build it, I’d like to know which
ones you’re thinking of?

What’s the point of a Design Committee if they don’t set a standards and
then follow through in requiring them? These hoops have been there for
decades, so I don’t understand your disgust with the process.

I could understand you telling me to shut up if I insulted you snfenoc… but I
didn’t, so what gives? I thought this a forum where we exercise our
opinions? It’s odd that you called me out like this when you’re the one who
has the record of saying that you hate this city.

[snfenoc]

In other words, $31 million in cash is actually NOT available, and the city IS poor.

You know, it really doesn't matter whether the city or a developer initiates a subsidy. The point is subsidies give government too much power.

What's the point of a design committee? I don't know. It's a waste of time. There shouldn't be one. Build a 20-story vagina for all I care. Man, I love freedom!
(By the way, this proposal hasn't even been through the design committee process. It could have significant changes made to it. Why be so critical over what may simply be a rough draft?)

My relationship with the city is a love/hate one ("SOMETIMES I really hate this city"). Plus, I admitted in the previous post that I have complained about Sacramento quite a bit; so you are not exposing any hypocrisy on my part. Nice try :P . Also, I tend to stick up for designs that the rest of you beggars/choosers pan. (I think I was the only one who defended the Parthenon building. I still think it's better than the boring one that was built instead. Either way, I'm happy we got something.) You see, I don't feel like I'm entitled to "good design". What does "good design" even mean? It's probably SUBJECTIVE and should be answered by the developer who actually pays for the f***ing building and not the peanut gallery. Instead of being angry about architecture I don't particularly like, I'd much rather feel lucky that someone even wants to build in this two-bit town. You should too.

I'm disappointed at how far this forum has fallen. (Alliteration Alert!) Just a couple years ago, even if they thought the design was only so-so, forumers would have at least been a little excited to read about this proposal. There would have been posts out the butthole. Now, all it gets is a couple of lame complaints. Sad.

I sure hope this proposal doesn't include a separate parking structure. You guys would go ape sh*t. Man, that would be f***ing horrible. How would we cope with such a disaster? A developer building a hotel and parking in our city? F**k no! We'd much rather let things sit and fester until we get the perfect project. Yeah, that sounds good.

I'm not angry at you, innov8. You are still my buddy and skyscraper soul mate. :hug: I'm just a little surprised by your negativity. (I know I'm the king of negativity, but I can still be surprised by yours.)

[rampant_jwalker]

Cool a new Hotel! Uhmmm... gotta say I'm with snfenoc on this one. I'd rather see something get built here than nothing at all. Do they have a-loft signed on as the hotel brand? Those are supposed to be pretty nice.

The 2007 proposal is nothing to get nostalgic about, I don't like it any more than the new one. If you want to get your faux-historicism fix it's only a 6 hour drive to Downtown Disney in Anaheim :haha:

[daverave]

Well you can put me down as one of those that is very unimpressed with the appearance of that project. Parts of it have that Sacramento tilt-up look writ large. It is a fallacy to assume that good design has to be expensive. Does anyone know who the designers are? At least it's not a Golden Spike. [Sorry, snfenoc, if you were enamored of that project.]

[innov8]

My days of dancing around cheering for every proposal are long gone snfenoc.
I think the people on this forum have also matured in understanding
what it takes to make a project good too, rather than just settling for
anything and being disappointed yet again later. 621CM changed the way
I scrutinize proposals. With 621CM, only one side of the tower that faces
Capitol Mall is nice, while all other sides of the tower look like some other
building altogether. When you drive south down I-5 thru downtown and see
the northern side of 621CM, it looks vary odd, almost like it was forgotten in
the design process… what’s that about? Is it because nobody choose to ask
the developer why the northern side looks like crap or did the developer
figure no one would see it? It’s a 400’ tower that can be seen from all sides
and all angles, the building should look good on all sides… right?
After that towering disappointment was built, I started to talking to people
within the city to see if anyone else saw what I saw. Most had no clue what
I was referring to but after I pointed it out the same flaw in design with also
the EPA and Fed. Court towers, they started paying attention.

There is nothing wrong with asking for improvements to a proposal that
has to go through the entitlement process; after all, that’s what it’s
there for. I think these people on the committees are paid to look out for
the cities best interest. In the long run, higher architecture standards can
help create a better since of place, and a better since of place can make a
city memorable. Sacramento deserves to be memorable and that’s why I
give my 2 cents with just about every large project that's proposed. I don’t
wanna see crap built here anymore, so after sitting on the sidelines for all
these years I decided several years ago to start saying something. If you
snfenoc want to look the other way and not say anything even if the
opportunity is there to do so, that’s your choice… but ten years down the
line after it’s all said and done and more crappy buildings have been built,
you might question if staying silent was the right choice.

[Korey]

Well said. I love the south facade of 621 but the other sides look plain and ill fitting, it's a shame. I would rather not have towers go up if they're going to be bland and poorly designed.

[nevernude]

I was walking by 20th and Capitol and saw a construction company putting up signs on the fence around the future site of Heller Pacific's Tribute Building. Does anyone know what's going on there? Last I heard they were trying to get financing lined up. If construction is starting on this building, that's some of the best news i've heard all year. Capitol Ave really should be Midtown's signature street. For those who have been to Madison, Wisconsin, it could be our State Street, full of life and great views of the Capitol Building.

[cruz]

yes yes...great news but what about the towers....any updates?

[Formula7]

yes yes...great news but what about the towers....any updates?
Ahem... pardon me, i might be having a brain fart... which towers are we speaking of specifically?

[cruz]

im talkin about 301 capital mall...the twin towers...jejeje "perdoname"...

[Formula7]

im talkin about 301 capital mall...the twin towers...jejeje "perdoname"...

Wow... You are... Way out of the loop. John Saca's towers???

[sugit]

im talkin about 301 capital mall...the twin towers...jejeje "perdoname"...

The Towers have been dead (officially) for about two years now. CalPERS now owns the site along with CIM Group. Don't expect anything to be built there for a while.

[goldcntry]

In a related note, I can verify that the cotton wood trees are coming in nicely in what was to have been the south tower crane foundation...

I just love looking out my office window down into the nature preserve owned by CalPERS every day. :sly:

[Web]

Saca has put whatever money he has into his new development on Fulton Avenue next to his Filco store....he is building a supersized Filco store with a smaller store next door for lease. (update looks like 2 places for lease next door) Previous site of a dive bar(forget the name) and Tinys hamburgers.

[enigma99a]

ZZzzzzz

[kryptos]

For all the people on here who dont like the design of certain buildings, remember that the people on here are the MINORITY. We are but a small group of anal retentives who actually care about design, while the majority of the population drives by downtown everyday totally oblivious to how it looks or they just dont care. You could erect that golden spike and some may not even notice, even though its f*cking hideous. If the majority cared, then you wouldnt see hundreds of thousands of people living in Fresno or Stockton or Bakersfield. Give someone a job or cheap housing, and they will live anywhere and never care about how the city looks (*cough* DETROIT). Even the people working downtown dont care, since they are too preoccupied sipping their starbucks or fondling their blackberry to give a crap about the architecture they pass by everyday.

Lets keep it real. This is Sactown, not L.A., NYC or Chicago. There arent developers lining up to build here. So I'd rather see something get built, even if it doesnt reach its full potential. Atleast its not a CalPERS Nature Preserve or a tent city. And if 621 CM is only nice on one side in your opinion, be happy it looks good from atleast one angle. It can always be worse, because the last time I checked, every highrise building in downtown Fresno is ugly, from every angle!

[Dakotasteve66]

A few weeks back Bob Shallit mentioned in his column that this year only, the Midtown Business Association would be hosting the holiday ice skating rink. The most likely location, if adequate power could be established, would be the corner of J and 20th, which would include closing 20th street between J and K.

This got me to thinking about how this street, 20th between J and K, is often closed for 2nd Saturday, street fairs, Gavin Newsom's governors run announcement, etc. So what do you think about the possibility of closing this street permanently to create an urban park?

The city has often called for the need of urban parks, or oasis, where people can sit, relax, gather, eat lunch, etc. Portland's Pearl District has many such parks, tucked into their urban neighborhoods. The businesses around those urban parks thrive as it becomes a natural gathering spot, and thus I would think the businesses along 20th street would welcome it. It seems as though fire access could be accomplished via the J/K alley. And although some parking would be lost, a few would be added at the current intersections. In comparison to many other streets in the area, I think this one is also less traveled, and given that major north/south thoroughfares (21st street and 19th street) are just one street over, I would think that closing this street wouldn't cause a huge burden on traffic in the area.

I'm sure there are issues that I have not thought about, but it seems with the prospect of having this street closed for over a month for the holiday ice skating rink, it would be a great opportunity for the city to study the idea.

[kryptos]

A few weeks back Bob Shallit mentioned in his column that this year only, the Midtown Business Association would be hosting the holiday ice skating rink. The most likely location, if adequate power could be established, would be the corner of J and 20th, which would include closing 20th street between J and K.

This got me to thinking about how this street, 20th between J and K, is often closed for 2nd Saturday, street fairs, Gavin Newsom's governors run announcement, etc. So what do you think about the possibility of closing this street permanently to create an urban park?

The city has often called for the need of urban parks, or oasis, where people can sit, relax, gather, eat lunch, etc. Portland's Pearl District has many such parks, tucked into their urban neighborhoods. The businesses around those urban parks thrive as it becomes a natural gathering spot, and thus I would think the businesses along 20th street would welcome it. It seems as though fire access could be accomplished via the J/K alley. And although some parking would be lost, a few would be added at the current intersections. In comparison to many other streets in the area, I think this one is also less traveled, and given that major north/south thoroughfares (21st street and 19th street) are just one street over, I would think that closing this street wouldn't cause a huge burden on traffic in the area.

I'm sure there are issues that I have not thought about, but it seems with the prospect of having this street closed for over a month for the holiday ice skating rink, it would be a great opportunity for the city to study the idea.

bad idea. it would be just another downtown park taken over by bums and crime

[downtownserg89]

actually I think an urban park is needed in the right areas. Even if the park was just a mini park on that parking lot on 20th and J, (street still open) with grass, benches, a few tables, some trees, and like a snack booth shack with hotdogs and hot chocolate, it would be a pleasant relax zone in the heart of midtown. the bums usually go in less populated parks to have peace and do drugs, such as muir park and those parks on 21st/28th and c.


yesterday was my first time riding on the muni in sf, from the ocean into lovefest in downtown, and saw LOTS of mini parks in the city, populated with "normal" folks sitting and laughing, others reading a book under a tree, having lunch in the park, etc. and i thought, "man, sac needs random little parks like that in downtown/midtown."


good locations would be: 20th&J, 19th&L, (if carwash closed) 8th&k, (huge empty space) 21st & capitol (parkinglot accross CHASE) 16th&L, (NW corner) 18th&S, (next to safeway/panda express) 18th&L(between crepeville and bows & arrows.)

[Cynikal]

I don't think we would need to close a street for an urban park. I think the loss of connectivity would be a negative impact of such an idea. Keep in mind the Downtown Plaza's impact to the CBD. We could use an alley or some of the surface parking in that area to a better end. Just my 2 cents.

[wburg]

Once the city is no longer broke, there will be a "pocket park" going in at 19th & Q Street, the triangular "wye" next to the Light Rail near Safeway. The city owns the land, but I imagine in the current budget foofaraw there is no money to add park amenities.

Personally I think 8th & K would be a cool place for an underground park: turn the old underground sidewalks along both sides of that corner into a tourist attraction, landscape the ground, and you've got a pretty neato amenity as long as you can figure out away to stop people on K Street from falling into it. However, i think the city wants to put a skyscraper there, and there is already a "pocket park" a block away--St. Rose of Lima Park at 7th and K, currently undergoing some serious renovation.

The other spaces mentioned are all private parking lots, mostly owned by Priority Parking. I imagine the owner of the lot would want to be paid for the value of the land. As much as I'm not a fan of parking lots, in Midtown there is a definite shortage of parking and most of those parking lots are pretty parked up during the day with workers, and at night with people going to the clubs. Until Sacramento has better public transit and/or a lot more people living downtown, it's going to be tough to justify getting rid of parking.

MARRS across the street is already a pleasant relax zone in the heart of midtown (at least during the daytime, when it isn't a bustling party zone): with shade from the building and the trees, places to sit, and places to get pizza, coffee etcetera, it seems like that corner is pretty well covered.

The other mini park we should get back is the lot at the corner of 21st and N. For a while, tenants of the building next door were landscaping and decorating the vacant corner lot with plants, a path and even a park bench. The owner of the property kind of threw a fit about it, tore everything out and threw a fence around it. Now it's just an ugly vacant lot again.

18th & S was supposed to be a mixed-use building project that failed in the housing bubble burst, so far as I know it's just sitting fallow. It might not be the best place for a park, considering that there was an electroplating site on the corner of 18th & S for decades and there is probably all sorts of interesting stuff in the soil there.

The existing city parks (the original Sutter Jr. grid parks) get used by the homeless sometimes, but they also get used by the neighborhoods for public events, picnics, meetings, celebrations etcetera. Heck, two weeks ago I did a street fair on the street medians in Boulevard Park.

[downtownserg89]

Yeah 8th&K has TONS of potential. if not the hotel thing, an underground park would be neat. like some wide steps that leads from the park straight to the lightrail stop so people can go wait for the LR in the park and relax, maybe a cute lil playground to enforce the friendly park vibe.

K st mall needs picnic tables! there arent any. something about walking and seeing people eating outdoors gives a place a more safe vibe, ya know? idk.
I was born and raised in downtown sac, and I feel like I know what is needed for a more inviting vibe.


Also needed on k st mall:
-a handful of 24hr joints, such as a coffee lounges and food joints (with security, duh!)
-an AMERICAN APPAREL. trust me, guys. SACRAMENTO NEEDS ONE ASAP.
-lots of outdoor tables and such.
-a store like crossroads/bows & arrows
-bring back taco bell and the 2 story burger king! (because KSM needs cheap fast food too.)
-heavy upstairs housing/rooftop parks
-a music store like The Beat.

these things would make k street mall a cool place to visit.

[wburg]

downtownserg, you were born too late. K Street used to have almost all of that when I started hanging out there in the late eighties. Now & Again was the cool place to get secondhand fashions (before they moved to 21st & L) and stuff you normally couldn't get without a trip to SF, several fast food places and a lot more inexpensive greasy-spoon type restaurants, a lot more upstairs housing (the number of housing units on K Street has dropped enormously in the past 20 years) and there were three cool record shops on K Street, all on the 700 block: Records on K Street, Tower Records (the mural is still there) and Makoto Records on the corner. Add to that Comics & Comix, with World's Best Comics just a block away on J Street, and a few other interesting little businesses, and of course Woolworth's and a couple of general-purpose drugstores. Kids with Mohawks and pink hair hung out on K Street when that sort of thing still got you beaten up in the suburbs.

There was more outdoor furniture, and yes, it is very useful, but the latest excuse is that outdoor furniture is bad because homeless people sit there (of course, in its absence, nobody can sit there. Making places uncomfortable for homeless people also makes them uncomfortable for everyone else.)

There were also more 24 hour joints and late-night eateries--the Denny's on K and 3rd was still open 24 hours, and there were a bunch of coffee shops open until 11:00 or midnight.

So, how do we get that stuff back? Local businesses along the model of Bows & Arrows would be great, relatively inexpensive food would be great, and turning some of those buildings back into housing would allow people to move into the neighborhood again. Most of it would require redevelopment funds, but so would things like hotels.

[downtownserg89]

wburg, you just painted a lovely picture in my head of what KSM used to look like before I was even in the womb. My earliest memories of KSM are from the mid 90's when they had woolworths, famous footwear, payless drugstore, mcdnlds, bk (then became arby's) Hit or miss, tower records, and etc.
nowadays, everything that was cool in the 80's is making a comeback, so why not the life of KSM for us 20 yr olds enjoy like you guys did? :)

My dream is to make clothes and open up a shop on J st in midtown, because thats where its at nowadays, but if KSM were to be resurrected, I would consider opening shop there!
86% of my friends HATE living in sac cuz it has died down. my goal is to do what I can to make it better. If I open up a shop someday, I'd sell locally made clothes/music/art/food, and put out tables out front everyday. It's just a dream but it's what I reeeeally wanna do in my 20's! It will be one of those cool KSM stores people will talk about. I love Sacramento and I want to show it. Dont laugh at me!

[TWAK]

there are a lot of ugly ass lots over there by q and 19th that I look at every day (I live on 18th and P). There are also soo many empty lots along light rail

[kryptos]

wburg, you just painted a lovely picture in my head of what KSM used to look like before I was even in the womb. My earliest memories of KSM are from the mid 90's when they had woolworths, famous footwear, payless drugstore, mcdnlds, bk (then became arby's) Hit or miss, tower records, and etc.
nowadays, everything that was cool in the 80's is making a comeback, so why not the life of KSM for us 20 yr olds enjoy like you guys did? :)

My dream is to make clothes and open up a shop on J st in midtown, because thats where its at nowadays, but if KSM were to be resurrected, I would consider opening shop there!
86% of my friends HATE living in sac cuz it has died down. my goal is to do what I can to make it better. If I open up a shop someday, I'd sell locally made clothes/music/art/food, and put out tables out front everyday. It's just a dream but it's what I reeeeally wanna do in my 20's! It will be one of those cool KSM stores people will talk about. I love Sacramento and I want to show it. Dont laugh at me!

k-street is ghetto thanks to the hoods and hobos that congregate there.

IMO, they should open up k-street to cars, ban all RETAIL alcohol sales in the K&J street corridors, and get rid of the bus stop and light rail stop on K.

[rampant_jwalker]

Also needed on k st mall:
-a handful of 24hr joints, such as a coffee lounges and food joints (with security, duh!)
-an AMERICAN APPAREL. trust me, guys. SACRAMENTO NEEDS ONE ASAP.
-lots of outdoor tables and such.
-a store like crossroads/bows & arrows
-bring back taco bell and the 2 story burger king! (because KSM needs cheap fast food too.)
-heavy upstairs housing/rooftop parks
-a music store like The Beat.

these things would make k street mall a cool place to visit.

I totally agree about needing an American Apparel, Sacramento has got to be the biggest city in the US that doesn't have one. For example Burlingame has one! OK so I've already gone to this website http://americanapparel.net/contact/suggeststore/ and suggested that they open shop here. Maybe if enough people do it they'll get the hint! The new mixed use building on S and Alhambra might be a good place for it?

[tronblue]

I don;t know, the issue with suggesting that they come here, is that it might just end up at the gallaria mall. I've never cared much for the store or its std card carrying founder, but yea it would be a good idea for other people in sac.

[downtownserg89]

ew, American Apparel cannot be just some store in a suburban mall. American Apparel belongs in the inner city. It becomes apart of the neighborhood. But knowing how business folk think, they'll prolly just go where the money is, and the money is usually at the galleria.

American Apparel would fit perfectly on 8th and K, where the old tower records used to be. Or in midtown on 18th and L, at the space below L street lofts, next to aoli, or areola, whatever its called.

Urban Outfitters came to sac, and it was successful. (I was even hired there! but got fired New Years, GUESS WHY.) so successful they put in The Fountains area. Urban Outfitters and American Apparel are somewhat similar stores. for those who don't know what they, sell,

http://americanapparel.net

http://urbanoutfitters.com

so yeah American Apparel, come this way please. :)

[TWAK]

I'll stick with buying most of my clothes at walmart and my shirts online!

[downtownserg89]

actually, Walmart is coming up in the game! they now have acid washed deep v necks for like $7.50, compared to the same shirts at American Apparel for like $26.
Walmart is becoming hip.
I used to be the biggest anti WAL*MART person, but it's just not the same. It makes me go there when I need.... just about anything.

I always bike to the 24hr one in west sac, and OMG 3 am trips to Walmart are extremely therapeutic. And now they're building a ROSS. oooh. What else are they building over there? That shopping area needs like a Deseret Industries type store!
and like a Fresh Choice. mmm.

West Sac has tremendous potential. especially the riverfront omfg they really need riverfront housing someday. INCREDIBLE VIEWS OF SACRAMENTO AT NIGHT, AHHH!

I cant wait to see what it will like around here 10 years from now. Bullet train will be done by then... right?? :p

[wburg]

Aren't there still some thrift stores on West Capitol near Harbor? I used to find amazing things at the Goodwill on Merkeley on a pretty regular basis. Normally thrift stores don't go into brand new shopping centers, and to be honest, we have plenty of not-so-new ones.

I still chuckle at the irony of having a store called "Urban Outfitters" in a suburban mall.

[tronblue]

AH I wouldn't say American apparel and Urban are the same. Production wise to economic relationship with consumer, they are completely different. Urban sales brands made over seas by cheap foreign labor and young indonesia children. In that sense it similar to Walmart and their owned sweatshops and production factories in China. Glad to see that you dropped ethics and a sense of quality for crappy products at walmart. thats a good sign of coming of age. Urbans brand is somewhat cheaper than American only because of cheap foreign labor, the rest is expensive because of branding. American apparel only sales its own goods not other brands, and produces in America only and until recently had a good record for hiring legal immigrants and paying them at California wages. They did just do a self check and found hundreds of illegals that had used fake documentation to work and fired them etc. Mostly these stores cater to young 20's and teenagers with moms money. Thing is, is mom willing to drive from granite bay to down town. Hmm actually she might be to make her kids happy, but she'd rather drive to roseville.

[ozone]

Hey sorry if this has already been discused but I haven't been in here for some time. I drove past construction at Alhambra and Stockton and was wondering what's going on. Anyone know? Thanks.

[wburg]

Hey sorry if this has already been discused but I haven't been in here for some time. I drove past construction at Alhambra and Stockton and was wondering what's going on. Anyone know? Thanks.

Two-story medical office building, Domich Separovich is the developer.

[ozone]

That's too bad. It looks more like a grocery store. I was hoping for a Nugget. Oh well.

[Ghost of Econgrad]

Monday, October 12, 2009, 11:41am PDT | Modified: Monday, October 12, 2009, 12:06pm
Kyriakos Tsakopoulos to head AKT Development
Sacramento Business Journal - by Michael Shaw Staff writer

Kyriakos Tsakopoulos, son of AKT Development Corp. founder Angelo K. Tsakopoulos, has been named president and chief executive officer of the company and its affiliates, following the announcement Friday that his sister who formerly held the position, Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis, has been nominated to serve as ambassador to Hungary,

AKT is the largest land development company in Sacramento based on acreage owned, according to Business Journal research. The company is known for large residential developments, but also runs farming, ranching, and water and mineral operations.

“I am delighted and honored to be entrusted with the leadership of our family companies,” said Kyriakos Tsakopoulos, who was previously executive vice president.

Kyriakos Tsakopoulos has also served as trustee of the California State University System, trustee of Columbia University, is a private pilot and active in many civic institutions. He served on the national finance council for the Obama for President campaign.

http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2009/10/12/daily7.html

[snfenoc]

And the CADA projects continue to disappoint.....

http://www.sacbee.com/shallit/story/2254725.html

Bob Shallit: Sacramento's midtown development back to square one
Published Thursday, Oct. 15, 2009

Another planned midtown condo and rental project has hit a now-familiar snag: no financing.

Last summer, a partnership headed by Sacramento architect/developer David Mogavero was selected by the Capitol Area Development Authority to build a complex at 16th and P streets. The project's innovative features included a dorm-like rental annex and a hydraulic-stack parking system.

But the partnership "came up against a brick wall" in terms of getting capital, Mogavero says.

Now, CADA's board is asking Mogavero's group and two other developers who were project finalists to revise their proposals and try to find financing.

"We're saying, 'Let's start over and let all three get a shot at it,' " says Tom Kigar, CADA's development director.

The three � including D&S Development and SKK Developments � have until Dec. 20 to submit new plans and get commitments from lenders.

Kigar says CADA's preference is still to have a for-sale housing component in the project. But he says the group's board is being flexible.

"If somebody comes up with rentals that would be converted to ownership later, that would be acceptable," he says.

Bay Miry, a representative for D&S, says flexibility could help. But it may not be enough, given the dismal financing climate.

"Every bank we talk to says they haven't made a construction loan in a year and a half," he says.

[innov8]

Architects chosen for new Sacramento courthouse

Sacramento Business Journal
http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2009/10/12/daily96.html
Friday, October 16, 2009

Nacht & Lewis Architects and HOK have been chosen to design a new courthouse in Sacramento, the Judicial Council of California’s Administrative Office of the Courts announced Friday.

The $500 million project is scheduled to start in 2012, though no location has been set.

The new courthouse would take pressure off the overcrowded Gordon D. Schaber Courthouse on 9th Street in downtown Sacramento. The plans call for building 35 courtrooms in the new facility. Twenty-six of the 44 criminal courtrooms at the existing courthouse would be relocated to the new facility.

The new courthouse will be funded under Senate Bill 1407, which was passed by the Legislature last year and established a lease-revenue bond fund of up to $5 billion to rebuild courthouses in California.

Nacht & Lewis was founded in Sacramento in 1922 by Leonard Starks. The company’s portfolio includes the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Sacramento and the Sacramento County Jail.

HOK is an international design firm founded in 1955 by George Hellmuth, Gyo Obata and George Kassabaum.

[urban_encounter]

Architects chosen for new Sacramento courthouse

Sacramento Business Journal
http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2009/10/12/daily96.html
Friday, October 16, 2009

Nacht & Lewis Architects and HOK have been chosen to design a new courthouse in Sacramento, the Judicial Council of California’s Administrative Office of the Courts announced Friday.

The $500 million project is scheduled to start in 2012, though no location has been set.

The new courthouse would take pressure off the overcrowded Gordon D. Schaber Courthouse on 9th Street in downtown Sacramento. The plans call for building 35 courtrooms in the new facility. Twenty-six of the 44 criminal courtrooms at the existing courthouse would be relocated to the new facility.

The new courthouse will be funded under Senate Bill 1407, which was passed by the Legislature last year and established a lease-revenue bond fund of up to $5 billion to rebuild courthouses in California.

Nacht & Lewis was founded in Sacramento in 1922 by Leonard Starks. The company’s portfolio includes the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Sacramento and the Sacramento County Jail.

HOK is an international design firm founded in 1955 by George Hellmuth, Gyo Obata and George Kassabaum.



500 million? Wow why so much?? How many stories is this thing going to be anyway?

[downtownserg89]

okay since no one has posted in about a week, I figured I'd ask you guys something and hopefully we can discuss.


How do you guys feel about allowing cars back on K street mall and converting J and L streets into a two way, or at least a 2 lane one way with bike lanes?

[goldcntry]

I'm not sure about K Street, but I wouldn't mind making L & J 2-lanes with bike lanes on both sides. 2-way on L & J? Heck no!

[wburg]

Cars on K Street no (bikes yes), I wrote a big ol' article on this subject on Sacramento Press which included a lot of things we have talked about here over the past couple of years.

Two-way on J/L would create a lot of havoc, especially from the freeway ends, as many of the interchanges were designed to work with those streets as one-way streets. Going to 2 lanes might work well, though--it would allow bike lanes on both (even if bikes are allowed on K, they won't be able to go fast because of pedestrians and obstructins) and changing from 3 to 2 lanes on a lot of Midtown streets has actually made traffic easier to navigate.

[Ghost of Econgrad]

Cars on K Street no (bikes yes), I wrote a big ol' article on this subject on Sacramento Press which included a lot of things we have talked about here over the past couple of years.

Two-way on J/L would create a lot of havoc, especially from the freeway ends, as many of the interchanges were designed to work with those streets as one-way streets. Going to 2 lanes might work well, though--it would allow bike lanes on both (even if bikes are allowed on K, they won't be able to go fast because of pedestrians and obstructins) and changing from 3 to 2 lanes on a lot of Midtown streets has actually made traffic easier to navigate.

Why at CSUS, there are pictures of K street filled with crowds and cars (black and white pictures)? If it would be a problem now, why was it not a problem back then?

[Ghost of Econgrad]

Published Thursday, March 26, 2009, by the Sacramento Bee

Editorial

Bring K Street back to life after 40 years

A lot of U.S. cities, including Sacramento, once thought they could compete with suburban shopping malls by turning their main street into its own kind of mall. So they ripped up the street, closed it off to cars and made it a pedestrian/transit-only thoroughfare. Chicago did it to State Street. Philadelphia did it to Chestnut Street. Sacramento closed the K Street Mall to cars in 1969. In fact, more than 200 cities created pedestrian/transit-only malls. But it didn't help. These streets became ghost towns, just like K Street between Ninth and 12th streets in downtown Sacramento. So now these cities are reversing course, turning their malls into streets again. Chicago's State Street was reopened in 1996 and has been a fabulous success. So have others. On Tuesday, the Sacramento City Council approved a motion to study options to open K Street to cars and light-rail transit. The city's Design Commission already has been working on this and draft guidelines to be considered next month recommend that for K Street, the city should "allow vehicular traffic to share street space with light-rail tracks" and include on-street parking. The commission suggests that Sacramento look at two models for doing this, what they're calling the "Portland Option" and the "San Jose Option."
To follow the Portland Option, Sacramento would have one-way car traffic that would share space with light rail (as cars and light rail currently do on 12th Street). To follow the San Jose Option, Sacramento would have a lane for one-way car traffic, but light rail would have a dedicated lane not open to car traffic. These options are worth considering, as are others. But the main principle is a good one: reopening K Street to car traffic.
As the Design Commission has looked at this, a major issue has cropped up: the construction period. Observers have noted that when light rail was being constructed in Sacramento, "huge chunks of K Street went dead." They worry about what will happen to new businesses, such as Cosmo, the Social Club, Ella and the Citizen Hotel if K Street undergoes jackhammering.
It makes sense and there's good evidence from other cities that added traffic will help businesses in the long term. But if brand-new businesses go dead during the construction period, what will have been gained? The new study, city planners and council members must address this issue as they explore reopening K Street to car traffic.

[Dakotasteve66]

In my opinion, it seems to be a waste to add cars back to K street, specifically because K Street is blocked at 13th Street by the convention center and at 7th Street by the mall. If either end of K Street were not obstructed I'd be for adding cars back, but it seems nearly pointless other than parking. What I think would be more interesting would be to remove light rail from K Street (move it to J and L) and then fill K Street with more outdoor dining, street vendors, etc. K Street has the potential of creating something unique that cannot exist on any other street in downtown due to the fact that it does not have cars. That uniqueness should be exploited rather than destroyed.

[Ghost of Econgrad]

In my opinion, it seems to be a waste to add cars back to K street, specifically because K Street is blocked at 13th Street by the convention center and at 7th Street by the mall. If either end of K Street were not obstructed I'd be for adding cars back, but it seems nearly pointless other than parking. What I think would be more interesting would be to remove light rail from K Street (move it to J and L) and then fill K Street with more outdoor dining, street vendors, etc. K Street has the potential of creating something unique that cannot exist on any other street in downtown due to the fact that it does not have cars. That uniqueness should be exploited rather than destroyed.

Like the article above, K Street has been dead for 40 years. This is because of no cars, sure it would be a unique place IF people could access it and WANT to access it without cars, but reality is, K street is DEAD. We need to open it up to cars...

[Surefiresacto]

...but reality is, K street is DEAD. We need to open it up to cars...

Which seems to work so well for J Street (between 10th & 12th)?
Crowds are slowly moving closer and closer to that part of the city. In fact, larger crowds of people are coming to many different parts of the city that never used to get traffic (28th & J, MAARS, 16th & J all the way to The Park, 15th & R). The bulk of this new traffic happened just prior to or after the recession began.
Prior to the Park opening, there wasn't much to draw people West of 16th Street. Now there are plenty of options along 15th and 16th. These new throngs of traffic spurred new options along K Street (Cosmo) and heightened talks of that area becoming a night club district (at least among the people on this forum).
The real issue right now is patience. Sacramento isn't going to climb out of a recession any faster by adding vehicle traffic on K Street, and once we are out of it we may regret taking away the one-of-a-kind opportunity that a street closed to vehicle traffic has.
I think that area will change quite a bit when the Greyhound station moves. If that happens in a timely manner, and we haven't messed that street up yet, I think the potential for that area to turn around (without vehicle traffic) goes up exponentially.

[Dakotasteve66]

I don't know about the streets in other cities mentioned in the article, but K street in Sacramento has a particular problem in that it is strangled at 13th street and at 7th street. What's the point of putting cars on a 5 to 6 block stretch of street that people have to then get off of to get to a main thoroughfare?

It would make sense that cars on K street could help revitalize the strip if it became a thoroughfare to places other than the 6 blocks that are being opened up. If it were a thoroughfare, you would have cars going along that 6 block section to get to other places and inadvertently notice the businesses along that section, and thus increase interest. But that's not the case with K street.

I think our core businesses (Macy's, etc) should have main entrances on J and L Streets where you already have abundant traffic. And then, instead of replicating J and L streets on K street, make it something different. Make it something attractive and unique, different than what you can get anywhere else and people will come.

[wburg]

Why at CSUS, there are pictures of K street filled with crowds and cars (black and white pictures)? If it would be a problem now, why was it not a problem back then?

Because those photos are from the 1940s or earlier. Until the late 1940s, there were NO suburban shopping malls--K Street was the largest shopping district in the entire Sacramento Valley, so anyone who wanted to shop at major department stores, pretty much from Redding to Stockton, came here. There were cars, but most people who came to K Street didn't need to use a car.

Most of them could get here by streetcar or train. Every streetcar line in town stopped on or near K Street, including the suburban lines that ran to Rio Linda and North Sac, West Sac/Woodland, and Colonial Heights/Colonial Acres (not to mention interurbans to Chico, Marysville/Yuba City and Stockton.) Thousands of people lived within short walking distance of K Street. Most stores still offered delivery, so you didn't need a station wagon to haul home your loot after shopping.

All that changed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when Sacramento's streetcars shut down, auto-centric suburbs exploded to the east, and shopping centers and shopping malls were built to serve people in the suburbs. At the same time, the central city was emptied of most of its residents by urban renewal. Within a decade, K Street went from crowded to a near-wasteland. As early as the late 1950s, it became clear that K Street was dying, as it was far easier for people in cars to visit suburban malls than to drive downtown. It was too far away, parking too hard to find, and the settings uncomfortable for the new suburban dwellers (remember, back then most suburbs were racially restricted, so the new malls were de facto segregated places.) The suburban malls had the same stores and products, their parking lots were immense, and the new indoor ones even had air conditioning. Similarly, suburban theaters (both walk-in and drive-in) showed the same movies as downtown theaters, but were newer and cleaner--plus drive-in theaters allowed visitors to enjoy movies in the comfort and privacy of their own car.

The nonwhite populations who had lived near K Street didn't have much reason to visit either. As the businesses closed down there were fewer jobs and poor neighborhoods became poorer, plus with inadequate public transportation it wasn't practical to go downtown very often.

The pedestrian mall was NOT what killed K Street. K Street was aleady in sorry shape, and the pedestrian mall (along with improved freeways, and the "ethnic cleansing" of the neighborhood) was a last-ditch effort to encourage suburbanites back to the central city by pretending that K Street was just another sort of suburban mall. They were not fooled.

It was not the removal of cars off of K street that killed it--it was its permanent loss as the retail and cultural center of the region. Putting cars back on won't do a thing to change that. It is a passing fashion in the mind of suburban mall planners, because new suburban malls are now designed to resemble old towns, with cars driving through, instead of the mid-century enclosed mall model. Making K Street into a bad copy of a circa-2010 suburban mall won't work any better than making it into a bad copy of a circa-1970 mall did.

[Mr. Ozo]

No cars on K Street is not the problem. No business's on K street is the problem. A lot of that blame is on the city for forcing everybody on K from 7th to 9th to move.(They really did this) All in the hopes for a Z gallery that never came.

Why not take advantage of the car less situation instead of waste more money? Music venues and bars come to mind, along with unique businesses like the ones that were there only 5 years ago.

[downtownserg89]

J street would be cool if it became a two lane one way, with a bike lane on the left, and a streetcar on the right.

J street is Sacramento's main street. anything on J is "happenin."
a streetcar would be nice, from hustle and bustle downtown, straight into midtown's local artsy scene. a stop right on 20th & j, another on 25th, all the way up to 28th and J, where harlows and centro and all those hotspots are. and then loop around onto L st and all the way back to downtown, maybe somehow do a lap in old sac, and from old sac straight back onto J street! ARE YOU READING THIS, MAYOR KEVIN JOHNSON?

[wburg]

The suggested plan for a Sacramento/West Sac streetcar is via K Street, using existing light rail plans, and running in a loop around the Convention Center via J, 15th and L Street and back to K.

A "best case scenario" map produced by RT suggested extending the line down J Street, possibly running all the way through East Sacramento to Sac State, and then north up Howe Avenue to Exposition Boulevard. That's pretty theoretical, though, and dependent on transit suddenly getting all the money it wants.

There was originally a J Street streetcar line that went from the train station downtown to 46th Street, where it turned south all the way to the state fairgrounds at 48th and V.

Not sure how the folks in Old Sac would respond to the idea of a streetcar--the overhead wires wouldn't fit in too well with the 1850s-1860s theme they're trying to maintain (trolley overhead wasn't used in Sacramento until 1891.)

The big issue is how to cross the train tracks between 19th and 20th--the height of the trolley wire is probably lower than the maximum height of double-stack containers coming through town on freight trains. That plus the fact that the FRA frowns on diamond crossings means getting east of 19th Street will be very difficult.

[Ghost of Econgrad]

^^
I think you guys are just anti-car, none of those posts are convincing...moving on.

[Ghost of Econgrad]

Tempers flare as disputed Curtis Park railyard development plan nears Sacramento City Council hearing
jwasserman@sacbee.com
Published Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009

It may be 2020 before Sacramento developer Paul Petrovich finishes building his proposed Curtis Park Village project on a toxic, abandoned railyard, but at long last his colorful, almost unprecedented, journey to get it to City Hall for a vote is nearing the finish line.

For weeks, Petrovich has kept a grueling schedule of group and neighborhood meetings, rallying support for his proposed 72-acre residential and commercial development near Sacramento City College, next to two of Sacramento's oldest and most politically connected neighborhoods.

Last week at neighborhood meetings in Curtis Park and Land Park, the sometimes-combative developer told people it was time to make up their minds or risk losing one of the most significant urban "infill" projects planned for Sacramento.

He barked into a microphone at 140 Curtis Park neighborhood residents, some hostile and others supportive, saying: "This is where the rubber meets the road. Do we have a project or not?"

Neighborhood opponents, specifically board members of the Sierra Curtis Neighborhood Association, have worked equally hard, seeking changes to a design they consider too suburban, too commercial and too car-friendly for their traditional, century-old walkable community.

As city hearings approach, probably in December, foes have turned up the pressure. Petrovich has responded with his own. The developer, who boasts an array of suburban and urban shopping center projects in Sacramento, Woodland, Elk Grove, Natomas and Roseville, has threatened repeatedly to walk away from his development plan if sued or delayed.

A constant theme: What he's proposing – even if not perfect – is far better than existing conditions at the site, which has sat vacant for years, a weedy field dotted with puddles and filled with toxics-laden dirt.

"I'm gone," Petrovich threatened Monday night during a public meeting at his Stone Pointe Center in Land Park. Citing his $4,000 daily "carrying costs" on the project site, Petrovich promised again to turn the railyard into an unappealing industrial site if blocked.

The saga of the Curtis Park railyard has featured a level of neighborhood involvement in the micro-aspects of planning that is unusual in the annals of Sacramento development. The adjacent neighborhoods are home to lawyers, land-use planners, state government staffers and many process-oriented regulators with an environmental bent.

The Sierra Curtis Neighborhood Association has pushed back hard against Petrovich, whose adamant, combative nature has made him something of a legend in Sacramento development circles.

On Wednesday, the association hosted a meeting where noted Davis architect Michael Corbett and design partner Elizabeth McDermott – encouraged by the association – presented a rival plan.

Corbett, who has no financial stake in the railyard, argues that his plan is superior in terms of ambience, walkability and effect on climate change. On Friday, the association compared the plans in its neighborhood newspaper.

Petrovich has labeled Corbett's vision a "fantasy plan" with no basis in the financial reality of real estate.

"Most of what you've seen tonight is based on theory," the developer said Wednesday.

He said the renderings ignore the project's financial underpinnings and conditions set by banks and tenants.

The final say lies with the Sacramento City Council, whose members are being lobbied extensively. Within weeks it will decide whether to approve the environmental review for Petrovich's project.

If the council certifies the study as adequate, the next step will be a vote on the plan itself, which includes 522 residences and 259,000 square feet of commercial space – the equivalent of five modern grocery stores. Petrovich said this week he might start construction in 2012, 2013 or 2014, and will need about seven years to finish.

He plans a standard-sized grocery store, drugstore, restaurants and a possible athletic club. He estimates the commercial development will produce $900,000 a year in city sales taxes and pay $15 million in city fees. He also has promised to knit the housing styles into those of the existing neighborhood and sell no more than 10 lots to each builder to prevent a tract look.

So, far, though, his assurances haven't been enough to quiet opposition in Curtis Park, a quiet, leafy neighborhood that ranks as one of the city's most desirable places to live.

Some opponents are trying to sway public opinion toward the Corbett vision, which they say better fits the area. Corbett is a former Davis mayor and City Council member, who is known for his work developing the acclaimed 1970s Village Homes project there. At Village Homes, most of the houses face common green space, walking paths and gardens rather than parking.

Corbett proposes much less parking, smaller stores, residences above stores and a more walkable environment in his rendering for Curtis Park Village.

"It's unusual to be in a position where you're presenting an alternative to a developer's plan," he acknowledged at Wednesday's meeting in Curtis Park. But he noted that he grew up near Curtis Park and was shaped as an architect by its beauty and the craftsmanship of its houses.

"I think we're moving into a newer time period, and I think it's important to point out what is possible," he said.

At an interview at his Davis home last week, Corbett said Petrovich's design is less a village than a suburban shopping center. "It could use a little more scrutiny," he said.

Corbett's design puts more parking behind stores to keep storefronts along wider sidewalks in a Main Street style.

Petrovich said he doesn't personally object to parking behind stores but that grocery store owners don't want it.

"Seventy percent of grocery shoppers are women. How many women want to park behind a store at night?" he said.

Petrovich has steadfastly refused to trim his commercial space, saying it's necessary to finance higher-than-expected costs of cleaning up the toxic railyard he bought in 2004.

Rosanna Herber, president of the Sierra Curtis Neighborhood Association, has pledged to help Petrovich win more federal funding to offset his costs, curbing the need for so much commercial space to make it pay. She said her urban neighborhood shouldn't be forced to endure a highly commercial project because of the developer's surprise cleanup costs.

"There are federal dollars out there, especially with the economic stimulus environment," she said. "I think that could be brought to this project to transform this impasse."

Petrovich said he studied that possibility and didn't find any easy sources.

WHAT'S NEXT

The Sacramento City Council has final say on the proposed development. Members likely will decide within weeks whether to approve the project's environmental review.

If so, the next step would be to vote on the plan for 522 residences and 259,000 square feet of commercial space. Construction could start in 2012, 2013 or 2014, and would take about seven years, says developer Paul Petrovich.

[Ghost of Econgrad]

Editorial: Time for City Council to mind the store
Published Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009

Citizens of Sacramento, your City Hall is in disarray.

The Community Development Department is an embarrassment.

Its employees have been caught disregarding federal law by issuing of permits in Natomas. For years, it now appears, they also brushed aside city codes and allowed favored businesses to start operations through a streamlined construction process.

Your City Council is out of touch and deeply divided. It has been splintered by personal political agendas and a mayor focused on the big media event – his once-a-day vitamin.

Relations within the executive branch are ugly. Mayor Kevin Johnson has a non-relationship with the city attorney, whose legal opinions, he believes, are politically motivated.

Instead of seeking her input, he seems to be relying on his own lawyers for legal advice.

Perhaps that's why he came to the misguided conclusion he could hold closed-door meetings to ferret out who is leaking information about the scandals du jour.

Last week's City Council meeting illustrated, more than ever, the dysfunction of Sacramento's bifurcated leadership.

The main focus was Nestlé Waters, which is building a bottling plant in south Sacramento that could soon employ 40 people. Nestlé last month became the target of environmental activists worried about water privatization.

They organized a grass-roots campaign to block the plant, a campaign that drew the attention of Councilman Kevin McCarty, who is running for the Assembly.

McCarty drew up a draft ordinance aimed at stopping Nestlé and somehow got that ordinance placed on the council's Tuesday agenda. Only after it appeared did someone bother asking City Attorney Eileen Teichert what she thought. Teichert concluded that Nestlé was already "vested" in its project, to the tune of several million dollars. Thus, any ordinance couldn't apply to it.

Mayor Johnson seized on this moment, apologizing to Nestlé and working out a side agreement for the company to resume work.

Yet the mayor was apologizing to the wrong party. He should have apologized to the people of Sacramento, for allowing Nestlé to get so far into its project through a process that was legally questionable.

As Teichert and acting Community Development Department Director David Kwong revealed Tuesday, Nestlé was allowed to start work, with no notice to the council or public review, through the city's mysterious Facilities Permit Program.

The program allowed certain favored companies – those with a "track record" – to begin construction before formal permits were issued.

The problem here? Nestlé had no track record in the city and shouldn't have been included in the program, even if it were legal.

As it turns out, the program probably isn't legal. That's why the city suspended it Tuesday.

Nestlé shouldn't have been penalized for following a flawed process, but the flawed process is symptomatic of what's wrong with the current state of affairs at City Hall and on the council. Distracted by district business and personal political agendas, the City Council – individually and as a group – is not minding the store. Neither is the mayor.

It is not that these are bad people. They are not. Each one of them cares for the city and the district they represent. But they are so torn and splintered that, as a group, they seem unable to act in the city's broader interests.

The only way that will change? If voters insist upon it.

[wburg]

^^
I think you guys are just anti-car, none of those posts are convincing...moving on.

Lovely handwave, but no, we're not anti-car, just pro-facts.

Taking traffic off of K Street isn't what caused the problem. I can point you towards studies at the Sacramento Room at the central library done in the 1950s that pretty clearly show that K Street business tapered off sharply as soon as the suburban malls started opening and the central city's population dropped.

On the flip side, econgrad, what sort of evidence do you have that re-opening K Street will help at all? What I have seen so far isn't very convincing either.

[What is a Rivercat?]

On the flip side, econgrad, what sort of evidence do you have that re-opening K Street will help at all? What I have seen so far isn't very convincing either.

How could it possibly make it any worse?

[wburg]

How could it possibly make it any worse?

Take a look at the 700/800 block of K Street for the answer to that question. This ped-mall switch would require resurfacing the street and new sidewalks, which would also include work on the existing Light Rail tracks. That means massive disruption to light rail service, and a long period of noisy, dusty, smelly construction site in front of the existing businesses at corners like 10th & K. That means the real risk of killing off those businesses for minimal benefit.

The end result would be a token traffic lane, connected to nothing--at 13th is the convention center, at 7th is the Westfield mall, so K Street won't serve any traffic function. None of the plans call for any street parking, which means that even if you see a store you want to visit from the safety of your car, you can't just stop and get out--you still have to go park in a garage and walk back. And even if there was street parking included in the plan, the total capacity of the K Street pedestrian mall (from 7th to 13th) is less than 100 cars--it would park up very quickly. Nothing will make K Street resemble a suburban "power center," just as it never resembled a 1970s shopping mall.

Not to mention the issue of cost: who is going to pay for this, and where is the money coming from? Last time I checked, we were pretty broke. None of this stuff is cheap.

Reading some of these editorials, a lot of the folks writing about the horrors of K Street don't seem to have much idea where it is (like the one who claims the mall is limited to the blocks between 9th & 12th) or what is there now. I can only assume that they never go to K Street during the work-week, when it is actually pretty busy with pedestrians of all sorts, or visit the corner of 10th & K on weekends, when it is pretty crowded with patrons of the half-dozen or so places that are all busy well into the night.

[Ghost of Econgrad]

Published Sunday, April 26, 2009, by the Sacramento Bee

What will it take to bring K Street to life? Planners and a developer weigh in

By Ryan Lillis
rlillis@...

Over the past decade, public and private investors have poured more than $170 million into the K Street Mall. Results have been mixed for the six-block pedestrian strip between Downtown Plaza and the Sacramento Convention Center. In the 700 and 800 blocks, 14 empty storefronts face K Street. Most evenings the street is empty.
There are signs of improvement. Work has begun on a nightclub, bar and gourmet pizzeria between 10th and 11th streets, and a 409-room hotel has been proposed for the vacant lot at Eighth and K. The city is about to begin a $4 million streetscape project. But success remains elusive.
The Bee asked a local urban planner, a K Street developer and a Denver planning expert what it takes to bring a street to life. Finding a tipping point
A number of factors have conspired against K Street over the years, said Paul
Shigley, editor of the California Planning and Development Report. The decision four decades ago to close off the street to vehicle traffic didn't
work, and some current and former property owners didn't do enough to help turn it around, he said.

The city of Sacramento also made "a series of bad decisions that at the time did not seem that bad," he said. He referred to putting light rail tracks and stations in spots that cut off parts of the street. Other factors he cited were cold, uninviting storefronts, and the lack of quality residential options in the area.
"When you've got people living there, they're always watching the neighborhood," he says. "Right now, you would want to be planning for the next real estate market." As for the million of dollars that have been poured into the street, Shigley said, "It seems like you should be getting a bigger bang for that."
"You need to get to a tipping point when more things start happening, when
success feeds off itself," he said. "It seems like K Street can never get to
that point." Shigley doesn't think the down economy has been any rougher on K Street than it has other places.
"K Street has been through three or four different recessions and booms," he
said.
Still, he said, some of the projects that have recently opened or are being
planned provide "lots of reasons to be optimistic" about K Street.

Less retail, more night life

Bob Leach created the luxury Le Rivage hotel on the banks of the Sacramento
River near Greenhaven. Now he is developing a proposal for a hotel at Eighth and K with 409 rooms, meeting space, a day spa, fitness center, elevated pool and sky bar, and a parking garage that would serve K Street. The Hilton chain is interested in the project.
Leach said he has a letter of intent from a financial backer to provide $80
million toward the $110 million project and plans to go to the city with a
formal presentation within a month.

Despite the blighted canvas in the 700 and 800 blocks of K Street, Leach is
optimistic.
"If we can launch this hotel, it will really help the 700 block retail-wise,"
Leach said. "Great things are happening at the (east) end. We just need to pick up on that momentum."
Leach likes that many of the newest projects are aimed at night life and don't
rely on shoppers.

"The idea that it's shaping up as an entertainment district is better than
putting all your money into retail," he said.

Create people magnets

John Desmond, vice president of urban planning and environment for the Downtown Denver Partnership, helped turn around its 16th Street.

Today, the street is a collection of more than 200 businesses along 16 blocks.
It has free buses that make frequent stops, granite sidewalks, trees, vendor
carts and sidewalk cafes. An estimated 50,000 people ride the bus system and 30,000 pedestrians hit the mall every day.

Zoning changes have led to more welcoming storefronts, and the mall has become the first- or second-most visited destination in the Denver area every year, Desmond said. Unlike many downtowns that rely on 9-to-5 business, 16th Street is bustling 18 hours a day.

Entertainment drives the district, as 60 percent of tax receipts come from those businesses. There is also a steady stream of public investment in the mall, including money spent on transit, holiday lighting and new businesses.

Dense residential projects have developed in the area. A vacant high-rise was
converted into apartments, and 10,000 people live within four blocks of 16th
Street.

Desmond said in order to succeed, urban areas must offer something special to attract people.

"You can't count on the space itself to be the anchor," he says. "You've got to have other things that feed into it and support it."

Besides its shops and restaurants, 16th Street has benefited from its proximity to an art museum, stadiums, a convention center and the state Capitol. Desmond suggested looking at several factors when mapping out K Street's future, including maintenance, public safety, a mix of businesses and pedestrian access.

"If it's seriously wrong, you've got to take a hard look at all of the elements
that are not contributing to its success," he said.


Call The Bee's Ryan Lillis, (916) 321-1085.




WBURG: Quit the "Suburban Malls the reason for the decline of Urban K Street" argument. If the "Urban Mall" cannot compete against the "Suburban Mall", then the Urban Mall should NOT exist. But I am sure the idiots who run Sacramento will continue to subsidize all the so called "Urban" projects because they cannot survive on their own, unlike the suburbs. Just keep sucking the money out of our wallets and continue calling it "good for Urban renewal".. By putting Cars back on K Street, and allowing the market to take over, you will see a booming K street, with businesses that people want to go to, not over planned garbage that continues to need subsidies.
-- Yours Truly, The Ghost of Econ

[wburg]

WBURG: Quit the "Suburban Malls the reason for the decline of Urban K Street" argument. If the "Urban Mall" cannot compete against the "Suburban Mall", then the Urban Mall shout NOT exist. But I am sure the idiots who run Sacramento will continue to subsidize all the so called "Urban" projects because they cannot survive on their own, unlike the suburbs. Just keep sucking the money out of our wallets and continue calling it "good for Urban renewal".. By putting Cars back on K Street, and allowing the market to take over, you will see a booming K street, with businesses that people want to go to, not over planned garbage that continues to need subsidies.
-- Yours Truly, The Ghost of Econ

Glad to see that you agree with me completely about the "urban mall." I have said, many times now, that trying to copy a suburban shopping mall model is a foolish endeavor. It was desperate at best in the 1960s, when K Street was dying due to suburban competition, and it is foolish now. Of course, the suburbs wouldn't exist if they weren't subsidized by huge government welfare programs like highways, and the services that cities provide but suburbs don't, but that's a separate discussion.

Bringing cars back to K Street has NOTHING to do with "the market taking over." The free market isn't going to pay for resurfacing K Street, that is done with city urban renewal subsidies. The plan is simply a half-assed way to try to create a circa 2010 suburban power-center--which, like the latest K Street plan, have driving lanes through them.

Let me repeat: Putting cars on K Street is yet another plan based on the assumption that K Street is a shopping mall, and if we follow the latest trends in shopping mall design it will suddenly succeed instead of continuing its failure. It is based on the idea that it was the pedestrian mall that killed retail business on K Street, which is not true.

The scenario that makes more sense, and is more likely to succeed, is to abandon the "shopping mall" mode entirely and focus on entertainment destinations instead--not just bars and restaurants, but ideally theaters, live music venues, and entertainment ideas like arcades, bowling lanes, history tours (underground sidewalks tour, anyone?) etcetera.

It is already very easy to drive to the vicinity of K Street, and there is plenty of parking on the street and in parking structures nearby, especially at night. Having a pedestrian plaza (instead of an auto street) means that people visiting this entertainment district will have an easy time walking from place to place. Having public transit (ideally in the form of streetcars, in conjunction with light rail) means that people won't necessarily have to drive to visit this destination.

And, finally, LEAVING IT AS A PEDESTRIAN PLAZA WILL BE MUCH CHEAPER. Again, tearing out the tracks and the pedestrian pavers will require a great deal of money, and play havoc with the existing businesses that are there. Exercise some fiscal restraint already!

[snfenoc]

Econgrad, sorry buddy, but I think you've been outmatched. Look, I don't mind the suburbs, and I love my car, but you are wrong when it comes to K Street.

As wburg said (a bunch of times, now), K Street didn't decline because of the pedestrian mall. Instead, the pedestrian mall was a half-assed attempt to stem the tide of K Street's decline. Whether it welcomes cars or not, K Street needs to have a reason (or reasons) for people to come. Something beyond the shopping malls and "lifestyle centers" that suburbanites find conveniently located within a stone's throw of their driveways. The pedestrian mall alone isn't unique, but neither is bringing cars back to the street.

wburg, although I think removing light rail from K Street would be helpful, its removal PLUS the addition of a street car line seems expensive. Little things, like allowing for street performers and vendors (maybe a farmers market or bazaar of some sort?) should be considered before anything too costly or complicated.

I went to the K Street Visioning meeting two weeks ago. I have to say, I was discouraged by it. First, the meeting seemed like the same old charattes we had during the old "regime". Nothing really specific was discussed. No funding mechanisms. No business models. No developers lined up and ready to go. Much of the meeting was simply a bunch of substance-less suggestions and unachievable dreams. Also, it seems KJ and the power's that be have their minds made up. They want cars back on K Street. They want an arena. They want a tall, shiny hotel or two. They want big. They want new. They want to plant magic seeds (watered with our tax dollars) in the hope that skyscrapers grow out of the ground. Just stupid. According to KJ (paraphrased), "Small things are nice, but big is better. I only have four years as mayor, so I need to do big things." I like big buildings, cool hotels, busy arenas and swingin' nightclubs as much as the next guy, but from where is the money going to come to pay for all of these things? Is there even a market for these things?

It seems to me that city planners, "visionary" developers and slimy politicians have always been unable to deliver on their grand plans for Sacramento. So why not ditch those plans (gimmicks) and work on the little things first? If we get those right, then people will come, businesses will locate and thrive, jobs will increase and so will the number of residents.

Sacramento should be concerned with being a good place to live. It is not, nor will ever be, a world class city. Wasting time, money and effort trying to turn Sacramento into Coolville is bad for us citizens.

As a libertarian, it pains me to use one of Michael Moore's films as an example, but I will anyway. Roger and Me focused on the city of Flint, Michigan as it dealt with the loss of the automobile industry (circa 1984). In a desperate effort to remake the city, government and private interests built an indoor mall, an indoor amusement park and automobile history museum called AutoWorld and a 16-story Hyatt Regency hotel. The projects were geared toward attracting tourists and making Flint, MI into a world class city. All three projects failed - miserably. The mall wasn't attractive to tourists (they already had malls closer to home) and Flint citizens were too poor to support it (that usually happens when nobody is working), so it closed. AutoWorld was boring - a poor mix of educational crap, slow rides and a cheesy midway. The $80 million park was closed within 6 months and finally demolished in 1997. And since nobody had a reason to visit Flint, the $30 million hotel was useless. It changed hands numerous times and was finally bought by a charitable foundation last year. So what's my point? Simple. No matter how much we spend and no matter how hard we try, we can't beat the market. It always wins. This notion that a new hotel and cars on K Street will turn everything around is ridiculous. People have to have a reason to come here. Being able to drive 5 or 6 blocks down K Street before having to turn back onto L Street or J Street ain't enough. Adding 500 more rooms to a market that is already saturated ain't enough either.

[wburg]

wburg, although I think removing light rail from K Street would be helpful, its removal PLUS the addition of a street car line seems expensive. Little things, like allowing for street performers and vendors (maybe a farmers market or bazaar of some sort?) should be considered before anything too costly or complicated.


snefnoc: Streetcars and light rail use exactly the same track and overhead. In other words, adding streetcars to K Street would require NO infrastructure cost. NO construction necessary. Nothing needs to be torn out--we could even run them while still operating Light Rail on K Street. Run them back & forth between Alkali Flat and 29th Street every 10-15 minutes. We'd have to buy the streetcar and pay the operator, but nothing else would have to be built or installed. If we want to expand it later, we can do so for a fraction of the cost of light rail. At some point, we could relocate Light Rail proper via a line up Richards or North B, but RT could add streetcars next week if they wanted to.

Agreed on the street performers, vendors, daily farmer's market. Stuff we can start doing RIGHT NOW with little cost, for a lot of benefit--more street fairs and public events, and you don't even need to pay the city for a street closure. Start having fun with K Street and the investors will start sniffing around, instead of the current idea that if we only slather enough public money on it someone will bite.

[snfenoc]

That would be a busy set of tracks.

I'm sure you have an argument against, but I'll post this anyway: There were some business owners at the K Street Visioning meeting a couple of weeks ago. They are not happy about light rail's presence. They said it chases people off the street. As someone who walks down there nearly every day, I do agree that having a loud (the metal on metal sound is definitely not attractive), thug-filled train barreling down at you is not very welcoming. One business owner said restaurant patrons don't want to eat outside with trains moving passed them. A month or two ago I was walking passed Ella just as a train was going by. Many of the patio diners complained about the noise, "Maybe we should go inside." A few complaints may not be enough to warrant the removal of light rail, but I'm in support of it. If we are gonna have a pedestrian mall, let's have a pedestrian mall.

I guess I just don't like trains very much. However, after getting my bike tire stuck in a light rail track and snapping my femur in half last autumn, I reserve the right to be biased against them.

[Majin]

You kind of have a point with the light rail trains. I personally don't mind it but I can see how it can turn a lot of people off, especially if you're sitting on the patio outside of Ella.

[wburg]

That would be a busy set of tracks.

I'm sure you have an argument against, but I'll post this anyway: There were some business owners at the K Street Visioning meeting a couple of weeks ago. They are not happy about light rail's presence. They said it chases people off the street. As someone who walks down there nearly every day, I do agree that having a loud (the metal on metal sound is definitely not attractive), thug-filled train barreling down at you is not very welcoming. One business owner said restaurant patrons don't want to eat outside with trains moving passed them. A month or two ago I was walking passed Ella just as a train was going by. Many of the patio diners complained about the noise, "Maybe we should go inside." A few complaints may not be enough to warrant the removal of light rail, but I'm in support of it. If we are gonna have a pedestrian mall, let's have a pedestrian mall.


I have called, repeatedly, for reorienting the Blue Line to 7th/8th Street (as the Gold Line already is) by putting in a connector as I mentioned above. The point is, you wouldn't have to do it immediately in order to add streetcars to K Street, and the built infrastructure cost would be zero.

And, just to make it clear, streetcars are very different than light rail. They are smaller, lighter, cheaper, quieter, and closer to pedestrian scale, making them an ideal way to move pedestrians around a business district--or between Midtown and Downtown--in a way that is a bit too far to walk conveniently but too close to bother with driving (and re-parking.)

[downtownserg89]

So, are 3rd saturdays at K street mall succesful or what?


I hate to admit, but I have never attended one before. I usually forget that it's going on. Why dont they just do it on 2nd sat? I ALWAYS GO OUT TO 2ND SAT.

It would be cool to have K st mall just as packed as midtown on 2nd sat, so people can start in downtown and slowly make their way into midtown, and vice versa. To me, Sacramento DOES NOT feel like Sacramento on 2nd saturdays. I look around and it ALMOST feels like I'm somewhere on market st in SF! Tons of people and people watching, good memories, new friends, 2nd sat is my favorite night of the month. K street mall needs in on that.

3rd saturdays seem like a generic cheap attempt of the prior saturday, and eh, idk. Still haven't been to one.

Also, KSM has potential to have really cool parades! Parades bring hungry people, hungry people bring $, etc. A parade for halloween, thnxgivng, & xmas would be pleasant. and then a nice PRIDE parade in the summer! $$$$$$$ hungry/horny gays! $$$$$$$$$

[Ghost of Econgrad]

Because those photos are from the 1940s or earlier. Until the late 1940s, there were NO suburban shopping malls--K Street was the largest shopping district in the entire Sacramento Valley, so anyone who wanted to shop at major department stores, pretty much from Redding to Stockton, came here. There were cars, but most people who came to K Street didn't need to use a car.

Most of them could get here by streetcar or train. Every streetcar line in town stopped on or near K Street, including the suburban lines that ran to Rio Linda and North Sac, West Sac/Woodland, and Colonial Heights/Colonial Acres (not to mention interurbans to Chico, Marysville/Yuba City and Stockton.) Thousands of people lived within short walking distance of K Street. Most stores still offered delivery, so you didn't need a station wagon to haul home your loot after shopping.

All that changed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when Sacramento's streetcars shut down, auto-centric suburbs exploded to the east, and shopping centers and shopping malls were built to serve people in the suburbs.

Quote from Snfenoc:
Econgrad, sorry buddy, but I think you've been outmatched. Look, I don't mind the suburbs, and I love my car, but you are wrong when it comes to K Street.

As wburg said (a bunch of times, now), K Street didn't decline because of the pedestrian mall. Instead, the pedestrian mall was a half-assed attempt to stem the tide of K Street's decline. Whether it welcomes cars or not, K Street needs to have a reason (or reasons) for people to come. Something beyond the shopping malls and "lifestyle centers" that suburbanites find conveniently located within a stone's throw of their driveways. The pedestrian mall alone isn't unique, but neither is bringing cars back to the street.

So, as I understand from Wburgs quote above, he was blaming the Suburban Malls for the decline of K street, and therefore Snfenoc your incorrect.

[wburg]

No, econgrad, you're mixing up causes and effects. The pedestrian mall was a response to an already-dying K Street. Snefnoc wasn't saying that the mall was the cause of the decline, but that it was a response to the decline (and yes, that's the same thing I said, a bunch of times now.)

But, obviously, it was an unsuccessful response. Treating K Street like a suburban shopping center (with or without cars) is never going to work. But because the pedestrian mall did not cause the problem, removing the pedestrian mall probably won't solve it.


So, are 3rd saturdays at K street mall succesful or what?
I hate to admit, but I have never attended one before. I usually forget that it's going on. Why dont they just do it on 2nd sat? I ALWAYS GO OUT TO 2ND SAT.

They got off to a slow start, possibly due to the first one taking place on a near-record-high temperature day. However, Second Saturday didn't take off like a rocket either--they started in the early 1990s and didn't really become popular (in terms of drawing a lot of foot traffic) until a few years ago. I have been to a couple, they are still trying to find their stride and it is a very different scene (it's all about street vendors, as there aren't too many open shops adjacent to the walking path to participate in the event.) The SN&R puts it on, and they started with a big blaze of promotion but it seems to have tapered off.

Part of the idea of having something on 3rd Saturday is the radical idea that this can be an interesting town more often than once a month. Personally I think having more interesting things going on *every day* is a better long-term strategy than trying to jam everything into one monthly festival.

One problem 2nd Saturday is running into is sheer size--there is so much going on that you can't possibly see it all, or even much of a chunk of it, in a single night. The idea behind starting a 3rd Saturday (and then 1st, 4th etc.) is to have special events happening more often than that one night. There is also the issue of competition--because Second Saturday is free, it's tough to draw foot traffic, and tougher to charge admission to an event because they can just go see stuff for free that night.

There are plenty of events that happen on other nights of the week/month--they just don't get much attention, and because Second Saturday gets the lion's share of attention people assume that Midtown is closed for cleaning the rest of the month. A full-time busking/vending/street entertainment program would mean that there would be something happening on K Street pretty much all the time, thus eliminating the need for people to check their calendars before visiting downton.

Serg, have you been to Midtown's Thursday night live-music events yet? It is focused around L Street and Capitol in the teens--every Thursday there are live bands playing in various stores and in the street.

[downtownserg89]

No I have not. Sounds interesting though. How'd you discover this thursday music event? I wanna go sometime.

anywhoo, so wburg, are you implying that 3rd saturdays have a cover charge? if so, how much does it cost?

I was biking down J last month and I was riding past 10th st when I looked over to K st and saw like a buttload of people, looked like a concert or something, idk, looked fun. Definitely gonna stop by 3rd sat this month.


ALSO, CAN WE TALK ABOUT 12th STREET? The first street we see after coming off the 160 and driving thru scary north downtown? Do you guys realize how much POTENTIAL this street has?? all the way up from C street with globe mills, down to JKL? The enterprise on 12th&E is now vacant. That alkali flats lightrail station has potential to be a SAFE urban cluster of housing and nice shops, minutes away from midtown/KSM. 12th street could be an amazing WELCOME TO DOWNTOWN street. it needs more eye candy and less crackheads. Lots of MAARS esque potential. what do yall think? yay? nay?

[Surefiresacto]

No I have not. Sounds interesting though. How'd you discover this thursday music event? I wanna go sometime.

anywhoo, so wburg, are you implying that 3rd saturdays have a cover charge? if so, how much does it cost?

I was biking down J last month and I was riding past 10th st when I looked over to K st and saw like a buttload of people, looked like a concert or something, idk, looked fun. Definitely gonna stop by 3rd sat this month.


ALSO, CAN WE TALK ABOUT 12th STREET? The first street we see after coming off the 160 and driving thru scary north downtown? Do you guys realize how much POTENTIAL this street has?? all the way up from C street with globe mills, down to JKL? The enterprise on 12th&E is now vacant. That alkali flats lightrail station has potential to be a SAFE urban cluster of housing and nice shops, minutes away from midtown/KSM. 12th street could be an amazing WELCOME TO DOWNTOWN street. it needs more eye candy and less crackheads. Lots of MAARS esque potential. what do yall think? yay? nay?

I completely agree and was saying something similar to my wife a few months ago. The street is wide, and would be awesome if it was lined with multi-story residential and retail/restaurants.

[nevernude]

I've thought that about 12th Street as well.

Quick! Name a street that you'd love to see more development on.

I think 34th Street between Stockton and Folsom could be really cool. DEEDA Salon is there kinda by itself right now, but there are some great warehouse/industrial buildings that could be rehabbed. Think the Muzio Bakery building. With the new housing on Alhambra and S and the nice concentration of places on Folsom (including the upcoming Good Eats place) it could be a cool area.

Oh, and K Street doesn't count!

[wburg]

No I have not. Sounds interesting though. How'd you discover this thursday music event? I wanna go sometime.

anywhoo, so wburg, are you implying that 3rd saturdays have a cover charge? if so, how much does it cost?

I was biking down J last month and I was riding past 10th st when I looked over to K st and saw like a buttload of people, looked like a concert or something, idk, looked fun. Definitely gonna stop by 3rd sat this month.


ALSO, CAN WE TALK ABOUT 12th STREET? The first street we see after coming off the 160 and driving thru scary north downtown? Do you guys realize how much POTENTIAL this street has?? all the way up from C street with globe mills, down to JKL? The enterprise on 12th&E is now vacant. That alkali flats lightrail station has potential to be a SAFE urban cluster of housing and nice shops, minutes away from midtown/KSM. 12th street could be an amazing WELCOME TO DOWNTOWN street. it needs more eye candy and less crackheads. Lots of MAARS esque potential. what do yall think? yay? nay?

I forget whether found out about the Thursday events on Sacramento Press, or at a neighborhood/business meeting I attended a while back. A lot of this stuff I just pick up on from wandering around the central city, something I do pretty much every day.
3rd Saturday does not have a cover charge--I was talking about events that take place on 2nd Saturday that do have a cover charge (in past years I have run a music festival and nightclubs that took place on 2nd Saturday, and found that competition from the plethora of 2nd Saturday events meant it was harder to get people to attend.)

There is an approved project for 12th Street on the vacant lot near the Alkali Flat light rail station, a residential building 3-4 stories tall, the details were posted here a few months back. There are a few bright spots, like 524 and a couple of recently rehabbed buildings along 12th--some are among the handful of surviving examples of the same sort of mixed-use building that used to be more common here, with ground floor retail and apartments above. I noticed that a playground was recently installed in a mid-block lot near the Boys & Girls Club, another positive sign, and J. Neely Johnson Park (along 11th) is about to undergo some rehab, including a community garden--they also have a Tuesday afternoon farmer's market.

[downtownserg89]

yeah I remember seeing the post about the proposed residential with the rooftop pool. I swear, once that gets built, it will start a chain reaction.

the vacant site where the enterprise used to be could become a nice restaurant, and on the empty lot across the st, they could build a couple more shops with housing upstairs.

I'm desperate for Alkali Flats to be polished into something nice because I've lived here all of my life! I reside by Zapata Park, and I'm BEGGING for the gangsters who live around here to leave because they keep vandilizing everything with their dumb grafiti.

They need to hurry and build something where the Crystal factory used to be. I heard they have an awesome project up their sleeve.

That intersection where goldies is could be a lot better. I HATE biking around there because the hobos always yell at me and they frighten me.

I'm obviously full of TONS of ideas. I've always had them and I feel like can share them on this forum. This city needs to stop being looked at as a cowtown!

[wburg]

Last night the city council voted to support staff's effort to work on the hotel project at 10th & K Street. This project is for a 169 room hotel of about 15 stories, built on a quarter city block currently occupied by a vacant bank building. They have about 50% bank financing and 25% equity investors, and are asking the city for about $10 million in financial support in the form of a loan. This loan would be paid back to the city over the course of a decade or so, in part by using half of the "Transient Occupancy Tax" (a city surcharge on hotel occupants) generated by the project.

This one is a lot different from the 8th & K proposal. It is smaller, but it is located next to the most active corner of the mall at 10th & K. The hotel will not have a full-service restaurant, but it will have a bar and a "grab & go" lunch counter on the ground floor, and a retail space for lease adjacent to the lobby. The second floor will have a big patio and pool area, directly across from the Cosmo patio. The developer, Tony Giannoni has considerable experience building projects in Sacramento, including hotels (he built Meridian 1, the hotel at 15th & L) and is definitely looking for union support. He also said that if the 8th & K/L project was approved, he probably would not proceed with 10th & K.

City Economic Development staff also mentioned that it would be very difficult to provide city funding for both projects. The 8th & K project is seeking $31.5 million in city money, including forgiveness for tax increment and transient occupancy tax. The 10th & K project uses the TOT money as repayment on the loan.

They have not yet finished the exterior skin, so no fancy renderings yet...it is supposed to come back before council next month, so hopefully there will be a clearer picture by then.

Incidentally, Giannoni is the same developer working on the Crystal Creamery project. While I think it was a mistake to demolish the old brick buildings on the site (they would have made cool industrial lofts like the ones at 14th & R) it looks like their planned project will look a lot like the SoCap lofts or Tapestri Square--detached townhomes--although they are aiming for a lower price point. Here's a story about that project from last year:

http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2008/08/11/story3.html

[snfenoc]

Thanks for the update, wburg.

I'd like to see the hotel on 10th and K have a quality entertainment piece associated with it - something beyond just a bar. That corner has the possibility of a being decent entertainment area. I'd really like to see them build on what is happening across the street.

I don't like either proposal (10th and K or 8th and K). Of course, I'm against government financing. Also, I'm not sure if we need another hotel. I'd rather see reasonably priced housing and unique retail, dining and entertainment establishments.

[Phillip]

I'd like to see the hotel on 10th and K have a quality entertainment piece associated with it - something beyond just a bar.

Not sure what you mean by "a quality entertainment piece", snfenoc. Restaurant and/or nightclub come to mind.

If it's those the hotel companies have guidelines outlining the amenities required and forbidden for each of their brands. A limited service hotel--like what's proposed at 10th and K--doesn't have a full service restaurant (3 meals a day plus room service) or a nightclub with entertainment, by definition.

When you add a lobby restaurant and nightclub to the mix the hotel moves towards the full service model, dictating a different brand name (e.g. Hilton vs Hilton Garden Inn; Marriott vs Courtyard by Marriott), and usually a higher room rate. Those "extras" don't always pay their own way and need to be subsidized by higher room rates.

I think a hotel priced below Hyatt, Sheraton, and Citizen, with no restaurant or entertainment---just a nice room, basic bar, breakfast only---would be good for Ella, Cosmo, Crest, and the rest. Those places need more customers, not more competition.

[Web]

Last night the city council voted to support staff's effort to work on the hotel project at 10th & K Street. This project is for a 169 room hotel of about 15 stories, built on a quarter city block currently occupied by a vacant bank building. They have about 50% bank financing and 25% equity investors, and are asking the city for about $10 million in financial support in the form of a loan. This loan would be paid back to the city over the course of a decade or so, in part by using half of the "Transient Occupancy Tax" (a city surcharge on hotel occupants) generated by the project.

This one is a lot different from the 8th & K proposal. It is smaller, but it is located next to the most active corner of the mall at 10th & K. The hotel will not have a full-service restaurant, but it will have a bar and a "grab & go" lunch counter on the ground floor, and a retail space for lease adjacent to the lobby. The second floor will have a big patio and pool area, directly across from the Cosmo patio. The developer, Tony Giannoni has considerable experience building projects in Sacramento, including hotels (he built Meridian 1, the hotel at 15th & L) and is definitely looking for union support. He also said that if the 8th & K/L project was approved, he probably would not proceed with 10th & K.

City Economic Development staff also mentioned that it would be very difficult to provide city funding for both projects. The 8th & K project is seeking $31.5 million in city money, including forgiveness for tax increment and transient occupancy tax. The 10th & K project uses the TOT money as repayment on the loan.

They have not yet finished the exterior skin, so no fancy renderings yet...it is supposed to come back before council next month, so hopefully there will be a clearer picture by then.

Incidentally, Giannoni is the same developer working on the Crystal Creamery project. While I think it was a mistake to demolish the old brick buildings on the site (they would have made cool industrial lofts like the ones at 14th & R) it looks like their planned project will look a lot like the SoCap lofts or Tapestri Square--detached townhomes--although they are aiming for a lower price point. Here's a story about that project from last year:

http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2008/08/11/story3.html


Tapestri square places are nice....just way way way too $$$$$ 250k a sq ft in this day and age just aint gonna cut it when you can get many places at 100 or less. 399 for the smaller units is just too much for my wallet.:shrug:

[snfenoc]

Not sure what you mean by "a quality entertainment piece", snfenoc. Restaurant and/or nightclub come to mind.

If it's those the hotel companies have guidelines outlining the amenities required and forbidden for each of their brands. A limited service hotel--like what's proposed at 10th and K--doesn't have a full service restaurant (3 meals a day plus room service) or a nightclub with entertainment, by definition.

When you add a lobby restaurant and nightclub to the mix the hotel moves towards the full service model, dictating a different brand name (e.g. Hilton vs Hilton Garden Inn; Marriott vs Courtyard by Marriott), and usually a higher room rate. Those "extras" don't always pay their own way and need to be subsidized by higher room rates.

I think a hotel priced below Hyatt, Sheraton, and Citizen, with no restaurant or entertainment---just a nice room, basic bar, breakfast only---would be good for Ella, Cosmo, Crest, and the rest. Those places need more customers, not more competition.

I'm aware of what limited (select) service means. What I am saying is I don't like that the proposed hotel is limited. I'd love to see entertainment on all four corners of that intersection.

In terms of entertainment, I guess you think what exists is reason for people to come and stay down town, I'm not sure it's reason enough.

Would people fill those 165 rooms just to eat at Ella and see a show at the cabaret? I'm not sure. Does Sacramento even need another hotel? I guess it would be nice to have something at a lower price point, but I can think of a few in the down town area that already fill the void.

[Phillip]

Would people fill those 165 rooms just to eat at Ella and see a show at the cabaret? I'm not sure. Does Sacramento even need another hotel? I guess it would be nice to have something at a lower price point, but I can think of a few in the down town area that already fill the void.

Sac's downtown hotels live off business and government related travelers paying full rate Monday-Thursday. Weekend rates are discounted and the "weekend in the city" theater and dinner crowd--to the degree it exists in Sacramento--is frosting. The real question is if there are enough full price weekday business travelers to justify a new hotel.

You're right, snfenoc, that Downtown Sac already has some decent midrange hotels---Holiday Inn by Downtown Plaza, Vagabond Inn Executive on J, Holiday Inn Express at 16th & G come to mind. Some weekends Holiday Inn Express has a prepaid rate of $59 or $69--excellent deal for a recently renovated hotel with parking, internet, and continental breakfast included.

Most visitors don't find those hotels comfortable walking distance from Downtown/Midtown's nightlife and entertainment centers though. You can't park your car for the weekend and have the "big city" experience of multiple restaurants and entertainment venues just outside your hotel's front door, with busy sidewalks that feel safe after dark, like you'd have to a degree with a hotel near 10th and K, or 20th and K.

And downtown's second-tier hotels are all 25-30 years old or more, which doesn't mean they're bad places, but they don't compete well in "freshness" against the shiny new alternatives ten minutes away in Natomas or by Cal Expo.

Downtown Sac will never be Union Square, but it would be nice to have a few contiguous busy blocks downtown. The foundation is already there at 10th and K, and another hotel right in the thick of it would help.

But probably it will be a long wait for another hotel downtown---at 10th and K, or 8th and K, or anywhere. Even with a fat subsidy from the city the financing for new hotels just isn't there now. In last week's Bee article Giannoni said as much--with a city subsidy there's "a good chance of some financing in the future".

Unless trends turn around soon it could be years before a new hotel gets built anywhere in the state of California. Probably we've got to make do with what we've got for awhile, and keep imagining and waiting and hoping.

[Schmoe]

The only factor of importance in the K Street argument is housing. The rest of its renaissance would be the natural result of high-density housing along the corridor. If you bring residents to the street, they will need places to play, eat and shop.


Housing, Housing, HOUSING!!!!!!!!

[Mr. Ozo]

I’ve been thinking about this StreetCar alignment that is being proposed. In it’s current form it really benefits West Sac, more than Sacramento. That’s great for West Sac, it will work well with their high-density plans and devolving the riverfront further. However what about Sac? Only going to the Convention center and back down Capital mall will only help tourists and again people going back and forth from West Sac. This could change with more housing on the K street Corridor, but in the meantime there isn’t too much there.

So where would Streetcar get some actual ridership? As Wburg points out getting over the train tracks will prove a costly challenge. But that leaves 19th street as a great alternative. The Streetcar would head up J (or wrap around the Convention Center and then return to K, this may make more sense) turn at 19th and K (20th and K being a huge nightlife center). There is already a ton of stuff along 19th(restaraunts, retail and housing) and so the train would head down 19th, under the light rail bridge and turn on R street into the Safeway parking lot and head down R street. It could hook up with light rail tracks at 8th and head back to Capital Mall. So now you develop that giant lot on 19th and Q, fill up the vacant lots on R, and finish Capital Lofts on 11th and R.

This would provide the connection between Midtown and Downtown/OldTown that is currently lacking and hits a good lions share of Sacramento’s nightlight(18th and Cap, Divebars around 20th and P, R street, Safeway, K street, Old Town.) and some of the densest areas. It could bring tourists staying at the hotels on K street to Midtown and back.

[wburg]

The only problem would be going under the Bee Bridge and through the Safeway parking lot--you'd have to cross Light Rail tracks twice and eat up a lot of the parking lot. Simpler to curve westward just past 19th and Q and cut a switch into the existing surface Light Rail tracks (the northbound Blue Line) right before the Bee bridge and use the existing Light Rail line to 16th Street--that way you don't have to run tracks parallel to Light Rail for 8 blocks, only half a block away.

The ideal place to start a streetcar line is where there "isn't much there." 100 years ago, real estate moguls built streetcar lines to their new subdivisions--back in the day when you just bought a dirt plot and built a house on it. 10 years ago the "Pearl District" in Portland was nearly unoccupied, a disused warehouse district--it started gaining investment (and occupants) only AFTER the streetcar line went in.

A major reason why that works in the modern day is because a city can provide incentives to new development adjacent to the streetcar line--liked reduced parking requirements or other sweeteners, things that would normally cause problems but are mitigated because of the presence of the streetcar. In an already built-out area the incentives are harder to sell because things are already constructed. A streetcar works as a catalyst for new construction. It can also enhance an existing neighborhood, but more so as an extension of an existing system than a starting alignment.

Once a starter line is built, it is very easy to build extensions like the one you describe. The key, though, is to start building the line and then extend it to other places you want it to go. Looping around 19th rather than 15th (via J, 19th and L) would make a lot of sense--as would operating over the Bee Bridge in order to send another line into Midtown proper, maybe down 24th Street, or a line into Southside.

[wburg]

So Mr. Ozo, I was thinking about 19th Street, and I realized something: where the Bee Bridge sits now was once the location of a "wye," a Y-shaped set of tracks that allowed Western Pacific's trains running on Whitney Avenue (the alley between Q an R Street) to get onto the Western Pacific main line (the tracks that run between 19th and 20th.) The tracks that lead to the South Line (on either side of the Bee Bridge) run on the southern leg of the old wye, but the northern leg is currently vacant--it is on a parcel of property purchased by the city, to be turned into a park.

Here's the interesting part--if the streetcar runs down 19th Street, wouldn't this "pocket park" be a perfect place for a station stop, running along the same space where the north leg of the wye was, and then rejoining Light Rail tracks on the Q/R alley? The coffee shop, restaurants and Safeway on one side (handy for shoppers and diners) and the park on the other (handy for the neighborhood.) It would even be handy for customers of the two auto mechanics on the kitty-corners--drop off your car for some work, hop on the trolley to go to work or to shop while your car is being worked on. It would also make the vacant quarter-block at the northeast corner of 19th & Q (the one that Ceemo was going to build condos on) into a fairly prime spot for a transit-oriented condo project.

[DALINSAC]

Sacramento officials push for Capitol Mall redesign
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Buzz up!By Ryan Lillis
rlillis@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 6B

Paris has the Champs-Élysées. In Barcelona, it's Las Ramblas. And in Washington, D.C., it's the National Mall.

Sacramento, however, has an underachieving Capitol Mall, a stretch of barren sidewalk and a desolate median that you won't see on many postcards.

Designed in 1911 as the gateway to the city, the mall has stood for years as a mostly unwelcoming thoroughfare running from the picturesque Tower Bridge to the Capitol.

City officials want to change that by enlisting the help of architects from around the world to redefine Capitol Mall.

At tonight's City Council meeting, economic development officials are scheduled to ask for permission to develop a design competition for the mall that acts as the entryway to the state's seat of government.

Working with business owners along the thoroughfare and the American Institute of Architects, the city could launch the competition in six months.

If that happens, the competition could last a matter of weeks – and work based upon the winning designs could begin as early as next year.

"Right now, it's pretty bland," said Councilman Ray Tretheway, who has pushed for the mall's face-lift with Councilman Steve Cohn. "You've got lots of surface roads, but very little traffic. There's greenery, but it's just grass. It could be so much more; it could be the mall of the West."

Some ideas already discussed include:

• Narrowing the grass median and widening the sidewalks to promote cafes and patio settings.

• Planting trees to create a tree canopy along the mall.

• Holding festivals and events along the mall. That could include developing the area near Seventh Street and Capitol Mall into an area where events could be held.

• Building a fountain or other signature piece near the Tower Bridge end of the mall.

• Creating stronger pedestrian links between Capitol Mall and Old Sacramento and the Sacramento riverfront.

"It's very stark, and frankly people aren't using it much," Cohn said. "The key for me is that we want something that will enliven Capitol Mall and tie it to the (Sacramento) riverfront, but also complement what we're doing on the J-K-L corridor and the railyard."

In the past, local efforts to enliven Capitol Mall were hampered because the city didn't even control the street. It wasn't until 2005 that the state relinquished control of the mall – from Tower Bridge to 10th Street – to the city.

As part of that deal, the city was given $1.2 million, which it could use to get the revamping of Capitol Mall under way, said Beth Tincher, a senior project manager with the city's Economic Development Department.

Tincher expects "national, probably even international architects" to participate in the design competition. A local group has been working for a few years on a handful of ideas, but bringing in an outside designer "will focus our efforts and give us a clear direction on how to proceed," she said.

"We have wonderful bookends and a who's who of the region's businesses on the mall," Tretheway said. "It's really worthy of a national competition where somebody can tie it all together and bring out the best of all of its features."

[Majin]

They have been talking about redoing the mall for years, will they actually follow through this time?

The tree thing is a bad idea, especially if they plant them in the median. This city is notorious for planting huge trees and not taking care of them, it will only make the mall dirty and (eventually) obstruct a lot of views.

The only thing that is good about the mall right now is that the streets/median/sidewalks are very clean. Take a look at that K street looks like right now at St Rose park.

[Mr. Ozo]

Wburg that is a great idea, since the city owns that parcel anyways, you build a park based around the StreetCar stop. The question I have, is wouldn't running streetcar on the light rail tracks interfere with keeping the light rail cars on time?

[wburg]

Light rail on the Q/R alley runs every 7.5 minutes during peak periods, every 15 minutes in the evenings. So there are still seven-minute gaps in the schedule where streetcars can run in between light rail runs. 100 years ago, we ran multiple streetcar lines on K Street and other streets, so frequently that you could look down K at a busy hour and see several streetcars going either direction down the block--and that was when things like centralized traffic control and electronic signaling were far in the future. The interurban lines Sacramento Northern and Central California Traction (the early 20th century equivalent of light rail) ran local streetcars on the same tracks as their interurban trains to Stockton, Oakland or Chico. It's just a matter of planning.

[rampant_jwalker]

I've thought that about 12th Street as well.

Quick! Name a street that you'd love to see more development on.

I think 34th Street between Stockton and Folsom could be really cool. DEEDA Salon is there kinda by itself right now, but there are some great warehouse/industrial buildings that could be rehabbed. Think the Muzio Bakery building. With the new housing on Alhambra and S and the nice concentration of places on Folsom (including the upcoming Good Eats place) it could be a cool area.

Oh, and K Street doesn't count!

Yes! Every time I walk up 34th street to work I think about how much potential it has for some high density development. Put a light rail stop on 34th street and Stockton Blvd. and it could be a really convenient mixed use neighborhood with an urban feel like living in San Francisco or Brooklyn, especially if all the potential sites there were filled with mid rise or even high rise housing. It would seriously help the businesses on Folsom Blvd. too. Density = convenience, prosperity, and efficiency

[NikeFutbolero]

I'll ask again, whatsup with the lighting on 500cm?

[downtownserg89]

schmoe is correct. high density housing above k st mall, and the shops will come. there needs to be some low income housing for young students who are on a budget and need somewhere cheap and hip to live, and some high end lofts for the business suit folk with love affairs. I WOULD LIVE ON K STREET, but only if it was more populated.

if it became more populated, it would be GREAT to have a nearby grocery store, like on K and 11th or 12th, that way you wont need a car to drive out to safeway or wherever u go for food.



so are the projects on 16th/17th and R still gonna happen or are they dead? because those proposals were awesome and totally would change that area completely.



OH AND THE MIDTOWN ICE RINK LOOKS AMAZING. CANT WAIT FOR IT TO OPEN OMGGG