Huge project stresses transit
A 65-acre residential and retail development is proposed for north of downtown railyard.
By Jim Wasserman - Bee Staff Writer
Last Updated 12:05 am PDT Saturday, June 23, 2007
A plan for one of the largest downtown-area residential developments in decades is about to be considered at Sacramento City Hall -- and it's not the railyard.
A local development team -- Capitol Station 65 LLC -- wants to build nearly 3,000 condominiums, town houses and apartments on 65 acres just north of its better-known neighbor.
They're calling it Township 9, a $1.7 billion transit-oriented development plan that backers say will usher an urban lifestyle into an aging Sacramento industrial zone called the River District. Many compare the proposed development -- bounded by Richards Boulevard, North Fifth and North Seventh streets and the American River -- to those that helped redevelop older downtown-area neighborhoods of Dallas, Denver and Portland, Ore.
The project's ultimate goal: fewer cars and a pedestrian-friendly environment. In fact, the plan largely avoids widening roads. Among its key features is a planned light-rail stop at Richards Boulevard and North Seventh Street.
The riverfront project, with its urban mix of housing, retail and possibly offices, is set for an introduction Thursday to the Sacramento Planning Commission.
Until recently, Township 9 has flown below the radar of the nearby 240-acre railyard development, considered one of the largest urban infill projects in the United States. But unlike the complicated railyard project, it has no underground contamination issues to resolve and no disputes over existing structures.
It also follows recent River District improvements that include a connection to downtown via an extension of Seventh Street. A new trail also is attracting more bicyclists and joggers and helping reduce homeless activity in the area, say the developers.
The high-density development, which proposes about 60 residences to the acre, is winning plaudits from area transit officials, regional planners and other Sacramento officials.
"If you wanted a first project (in the River District), this would be it," said Sacramento City Council member Ray Tretheway, who represents the redeveloping area. "It sets the bar pretty high for the rest of them."
Suheil Totah, vice president for Georgia-based Thomas Enterprises, developer of the railyard, said the project complements his company's plan for about 12,000 homes.
"We look at this from the perspective of more is better," Totah said. "We're in contact with them regularly."
The project is driven by Sacramento-based Nehemiah Corp. of America, which earned millions of dollars the past decade providing down payment assistance to the nation's lower-income homebuyers. With its down payment program now diminished by the rise of 100 percent financing and under renewed attack by the federal government as counterproductive for buyers, Nehemiah has increasingly turned its focus to urban development. Nonprofit Nehemiah is running Township 9 as a separate for-profit venture.
The plan is to start construction next year, then build mid- and high-rise buildings for 6,000 to 7,600 residents by about 2016. The buildings would range from two to 15 stories, the developers said. About one-third of the 65 acres would be open space, parks and plazas.
The developers would make room by razing 1.4 million square feet of buildings once owned by the Bercut-Richards Packing Co. and Tri-Valley Growers cannery. Part of the complex now houses Nehemiah, which bought the land in 1999 for an undisclosed price. The name Township 9 comes from the property's historical designation by surveyors.
Sacramento city officials said the Planning Commission is tentatively scheduled to vote on the project July 19 and send it to the City Council for August hearings. That puts it ahead of the railyard development project, which is scheduled for October hearings before the Planning Commission.
Combined, the two projects -- blending residential, office and retail development -- could add 30,000 or more people to downtown Sacramento.
"We consider this one of the developments, along with the railyard, where Sacramento is really going to make its stamp about the kind of city we are evolving and growing into," said project partner Scott Syphax.
Syphax has been president and chief executive officer of Nehemiah since 2001. Other equity partners are Sacramentans Steve Goodwin and Ron Mellon, both with longtime ties to Nehemiah.
Syphax said the trio are "in discussions" with Wall Street investment houses and pension funds to raise additional capital. The California Public Employees' Retirement System is not among them, he said.
"It's a transit-oriented development within about a mile of the state Capitol of one of the largest economies in the world," Syphax said. "The site is ready to go fairly shortly. There's a great interest in that sort of development."
He said the region's housing slump will have little effect on the project.
"Given the timetable of work we have to do and demolition and putting in the infrastructure, we think we're going to be coming out of the ground at a perfect time when the market should be moving forward," he said.
Syphax also stressed pricing advantages of buying the property eight years ago, before the housing boom pushed up land prices.
But first Township 9 must win political approval. The Sacramento City Council must approve the project's environmental impact report and approve zoning changes from industrial to residential mixed use and open space.
Also needed is an agreement specifying the project's financial contribution to infrastructure work. City officials, who estimate the railyard's infrastructure costs at $530 million, say they haven't determined a figure for Township 9.
Among the project's most significant issues is the potential traffic generated by 7,000 residents. The development's 677-page environmental study projects "a significant and unavoidable" impact on nearby Interstate 5.
But the study identifies no mitigation measures because the city has no system to collect fees for the state Transportation Department for upgrades. Freeway widening near the Richards Boulevard interchange also is considered impractical, as is widening the onramps and offramps. So the study recommends that Township 9 pay traffic impact fees to widen parts of Richards Boulevard near the freeway ramps and also for traffic signal timing improvements.
Developers and the city say the point of the project is fewer cars.
"Someone could live there and not have a car at all," said David Kwong, city of Sacramento planning manager.
"We want to encourage people not to have to use cars to live in a place," said Goodwin, one of the partners.
Area transit and regional planning officials praise the project for addressing their goals of putting more people on less land and seeing them drive less. Township 9's residential density is in sharp contrast to neighboring suburbs. Its nearly 3,000 dwellings on 65 acres compares, for instance, to 4,260 dwellings on 1,483 acres in West Roseville's new WestPark community.
"We're very supportive of the project," said Mike Wiley, deputy general manager of Sacramento Regional Transit. His agency expects to open a light rail station at Richards Boulevard and North Seventh Street in 2014.
Another backer is Mike Mc- Keever, executive director of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments. SACOG helped create a "blueprint" to steer more of the region's population growth into existing neighborhoods.
"From our set of issues it's a good project," he said. "It's a real sweet spot in terms of transit ridership. It's up in the 60 units an acre-plus range. All our modeling shows when you get to that point it's a true transit-oriented development. We're very happy to see that coming in there."