Sacramento Proposal/Approval/Construction Thread - III

[aufbau]

Thanks for the view of 500CM innov8. I'm always curious what is going on behind the walls...

So, is it me, or does Sacramento have more pejorative nicknames than any city in this country? And that isn't evening counting all the gems we've come up with on this forum. Skyscraperpage seems to be heavy on the superlatives; it looks like we may have ourselves a title

[enigma99a]

March 29th, 2007. Nassi's clock is ticking.

[Phillip]

Originally Posted by BrianSac

Mercy has bent over backwards for their neighbors by downsizing their plans dramatically.
Don't forget, its Mercy's neighborhood, too. Mercy has been serving the health care needs of Sacramento for 125 years or more.
Mercy is going to build a BRAND NEW SCHOOL, and create 20 new residences in addition to the Heart Center.
The Heart Center is only 4 stories tall with only 123,350 sf.
This Heart Center will be state-of-the-art and one day may save your life, or a loved ones life.
Why would anyone push away such an important asset to our city? Those in opposition are just plain selfish. People like that disgust me.

I don't work for Mercy but I make a call there about once a month as part of my job. About half the time when I get there the parking deck is full with a line of cars waiting to get in. A guard lets a couple cars in as other cars leave. Even once I'm inside the deck it can take another 15 minutes of driving in circles before I find a space.

I can wait but patients who have appointments and employees who are late to work go into the neighborhood and park in front of people's houses and walk back to the hospital. The neighborhood is reasonably concerned that adding additional beds and new services (as opposed to renovating the outmoded facility Mercy's already got) will worsen the parking situation. I don't live in that neighborhood but until Mercy scaled back their plan I saw "Have Mercy! No expansion!" picket signs in the front lawns of practically every house up and down H and J Street. It looked to me like 80-90% of the houses within six blocks of Mercy had a "No!" picket.

Most of the signs are gone now, so hopefully the revised plans for a smaller facility are more acceptable to neighbors. I don't know the details.

Obviously I'm not opposed to more cardiac care beds in Sacramento. I don't think anyone is. Sacramento is growing fast and all of the hospitals are overburdened. But Sutter General, Mercy, and Sutter Memorial are already clustered together in one small part of town. If Mercy wants to add more beds why not in the parts of town that have no beds at all, like Natomas or Rancho Cordova?

Getting to the ER quickly is a cornerstone of cardiac care. Why add more cardiac beds to an area of town where there are already three cardiac care units within two miles? Natomas will have 100,000 people eventually and the nearest hospital is Sutter General! Mercy could do more good building a cardiac care center up there right off the freeway without all the space and road constraints of East Sac, and the neighbors would be more than grateful.

[Phillip]

Originally Posted by brandon12

In my opinion, your most glaring mirsrepresntation above is that SEIU opposed Sutter's expansion on any grounds other than purely political. SEUI didn't oppose Mercy's plans because they are not involved in a union organization struggle with them. SEIU couldn't give a 🞵🞵🞵🞵 about environmental issues related to Mercy or Sutter. That's just a smoke screen. I know it, the city council knows it, almost anyone with a passing knowledge of the situation knows it.

I agree with you completely on this, Brandon. If you thought otherwise then I didn't express myself clearly. It's positively criminal the way SEIU behaved in regard to Sutter's expansion.

[uzi963]

Originally Posted by enigma99a

March 29th, 2007. Nassi's clock is ticking.

yeah, could someone just give a quick rundown on what will happen on the 31st and the 3rd? will Nassi publicly announce that financing is or isn't in place? and if it isn't, does that mean aura's officially dead?

[BrianSac]

Originally Posted by Phillip

I don't work for Mercy but I make a call there about once a month as part of my job. About half the time when I get there the parking deck is full with a line of cars waiting to get in. A guard lets a couple cars in as other cars leave. Even once I'm inside the deck it can take another 15 minutes of driving in circles before I find a space.

I can wait but patients who have appointments and employees who are late to work go into the neighborhood and park in front of people's houses and walk back to the hospital. The neighborhood is reasonably concerned that adding additional beds and new services (as opposed to renovating the outmoded facility Mercy's already got) will worsen the parking situation. I don't live in that neighborhood but until Mercy scaled back their plan I saw "Have Mercy! No expansion!" picket signs in the front lawns of practically every house up and down H and J Street. It looked to me like 80-90% of the houses within six blocks of Mercy had a "No!" picket.

Most of the signs are gone now, so hopefully the revised plans for a smaller facility are more acceptable to neighbors. I don't know the details.

Obviously I'm not opposed to more cardiac care beds in Sacramento. I don't think anyone is. Sacramento is growing fast and all of the hospitals are overburdened. But Sutter General, Mercy, and Sutter Memorial are already clustered together in one small part of town. If Mercy wants to add more beds why not in the parts of town that have no beds at all, like Natomas or Rancho Cordova?

Getting to the ER quickly is a cornerstone of cardiac care. Why add more cardiac beds to an area of town where there are already three cardiac care units within two miles? Natomas will have 100,000 people eventually and the nearest hospital is Sutter General! Mercy could do more good building a cardiac care center up there right off the freeway without all the space and road constraints of East Sac, and the neighbors would be more than grateful.

Philip,

When I go to Sutter or UC Davis Med Center its the same story with the parking. I found the problem to be mostly the guard/ticket takers slowness, or it appeared half the parkers were not accustomed to using parking garages. Many of the parkers are used to giant suburban parking lots and they didnt know that you simply drive to the top of the garage when it's crowded on the lower floors.

Just so you know, I didnt mention anything about neighborhood opposition or support of Mercy in my prior post. (someone else in this thread mentioned that)....other than my belief that opponents are selfish for not allowing the greater good to prevail, especially when what is being proposed will have little effect/affect on the neighborhood.

You bring up a good point about Mercy building somewhere else in Sacramento like in Natomas. When I brought up the fact that no matter where Mercy expands you will have neighborhood opposition, an anti-Mercy neighbor said "fine, they dont need to expand anywhere".

One last note, my "emotion" about this issue is not directed at you,

[urban_encounter]

Originally Posted by sugit

Actually, I disagree here. There are so many issues with R Street and not enough money to fix them. From what I heard Capitol Lofts is having major problems and the vibe I got was it was in real danger of not happening.

Capitol Lofts wont make or break R street. There have already been a number of projects either recently complete, now u/c or in the planning stages. Capitol Lofts perhaps being the exception. Money will certainly be an issue as you stated, (but when isn't money an issue in Sacramento???) It will be an issue for the railyards and the Docks area as well. But in the case of R street the transformation may not be overnight, but it is slowly happening.

Originally Posted by sugit

St Anton has build thousands of apartments and condos over the last 10-15 years, they have the experiece with housing.

Being a suburban developer doesn't qualify somebody to be a residential highrise developer in Sacramento, as I'm sure John Saca can now attest; (although Saca's experience was admittedly strip malls and not apartments)...

While 21st and L is a nice addition to Midtown, it is not a highrise and to my knowledge, St. Anton doesn't have any experience with highrise construction.
Traffic studies alone aren't an idication as to a projects viabilty.

The fact remains that Sacramento's housing market remains soft, construction prices are still astronomical and it is still questionable whether St. Anton could make this pencil out. Remember what Nassi said, in regards to needing to earn $400 a sf on a highrise residential project in Sacramento. That of course was before construction prices had risen so dramatically (to the point of pushing 301 CM construction cost estimates up 50%)..

Originally Posted by sugit

The fact that they haven't gone balls to wall with the project (part because the city has made them jump through a ton of hoops with the traffic study and "historic alley") and have done do dilagence makes me actually a little more comfortable with this one.

621 and 301 CM both hit the ground running, only to hit the wall. I would caution you not to get overly "comfortable" over a traffic study.
Even the Capitol Grand is conducting a traffic study..

[urban_encounter]

Originally Posted by uzi963

yeah, could someone just give a quick rundown on what will happen on the 31st and the 3rd? will Nassi publicly announce that financing is or isn't in place? and if it isn't, does that mean aura's officially dead?

On Saturday the 31st Nassi's option to buy the property at 601 CM expires unless he can prove that he has locked up his construction loans with Corus Bank and Kenlin Capital LLC

Corus Bank (for $132 million)

and

Mezzanine financing by Kenlin Capital LLC (for $14.5 million)..


On April 3rd as a condition of his city backed loan from Bank of America Nassi must appear before the city council and prove that he he has control of the property at 601 CM from David Taylor and construction financing.


Failing this, it's hard to say whether the project is dead?

Personally I would think so, since they have contractural obligations with buyers for construction, that are already very much in doubt.

[pearljammer]

Originally Posted by downtownserg89

haha thanks. my friend and i were talking, and we came up with: sacrament-NO, and saCANTmento.

Not sure if it's been tossed out there yet, but I remember a lot of people used to call us Suckramento. But I love this city... Del Paso Blvd needs to move along faster! argh.. heheh... Anyone got any info on that? ...but our Starbucks is open and has been for a few weeks.

[sugit]

Capitol Lofts wont make or break R street. There have already been a number of projects either recently complete, now u/c or in the planning stages. Capitol Lofts perhaps being the exception. Money will certainly be an issue as you stated, (but when isn't money an issue in Sacramento???) It will be an issue for the railyards and the Docks area as well. But in the case of R street the transformation may not be overnight, but it is slowly happening.

Yes, it won't make it or break it , but considering how long that project has been in the work (late 90s) if it doen't happen, that is a huge huge setback.

Esp considering its probably the most visible and emblematic symbol on R Street (at least from the riverfront to 16th) that can produce a good density through rehad. If R Street wants to keep that warehouse, very urban gritty feel, this project needs to happen.

Being a suburban developer doesn't qualify somebody to be a residential highrise developer in Sacramento, as I'm sure John Saca can now attest; (although Saca's experience was admittedly strip malls and not apartments)...

While 21st and L is a nice addition to Midtown, it is not a highrise and to my knowledge, St. Anton doesn't have any experience with highrise construction.
Traffic studies alone aren't an idication as to a projects viabilty.

Apparently, being a big name high rise developer like Nassi doesn't make much of a difference either. There is just something about this project that makes be think it will happen. Personally, if built, I would much rather live in that part of DT than on Capitol Mall. I think others would feel the same way too.

621 and 301 CM both hit the ground running, only to hit the wall. I would caution you not to get overly "comfortable" over a traffic study.
Even the Capitol Grand is conducting a traffic study..

I think we all know CG is not going to happen. As I have said though, the more moderate projects like this one are what I think we will see move forward more now.

[innov8]

I think the Capitol Grand will happen

[sugit]

I hope you're right man...I just can't trust anything that Mohanna touches.

[TowerDistrict]

has anyone kicked the tires on the new Tools of Transparency, on the City's website. It's pretty cool. You can search by address and look up information on ownership, then look up permit and inspections for that address.

and a side note - it looks as though nothing has been issued for 601 CM.

[sugit]

I found these for Aura:

Case / Application / Permit Number - 0603785
Type / Classification - Building Commercial

New Underground / Apts 5+
Address
601 CAPITOL ML
SACRAMENTO, CA
Parcel Number - 00601510080000
File Date -3/20/2006
Status - BLDG_Com - Plan Check Wait
Status Date -N/A
Valuation - $0.00
Fees -$52,721.76
Payments -$585.00
Balance -$52,136.76
Description -FOUNDATION AND UNDERGROUND UTILITIES FOR AURA BUILDINGNG

[TowerDistrict]

hehe... i guess i need to mess with it a bit more.

[downtownserg89]

Originally Posted by pearljammer

Not sure if it's been tossed out there yet, but I remember a lot of people used to call us Suckramento. But I love this city... Del Paso Blvd needs to move along faster! argh.. heheh... Anyone got any info on that? ...but our Starbucks is open and has been for a few weeks.

i think someone at school mentioned something like that. my friend meghan came up with the funniest, "ball sackramento." it made me laugh when i first heard it. i was like god, she would say that.

[What is a Rivercat?]

Originally Posted by SacUrbnPlnr

------------------
San Diego's downtown renaissance is indeed impressive. Keep in mind, however, that it did not happen overnight. Before the mid-1980s, there was less to downtown San Diego than in downtown Sacramento today. Horton Plaza was one of the early catalist projects that started the ball rolling. Before Horton Plaza, there was little downtown shopping.

Fast forward more than 20 years, and look at San Diego now. But it took years of incremental improvements and milliions of dollars of public investments and subsidies on the part of the City. It also doesn't hurt that San Diego has a great climate, is a waterfront City, and has a new downtown ballpark.

Perhaps the lesson for Sacramento is that patience and perserverance will eventually pay off. We are in the early stages in our downtown renaissance, it may take until 2020 (or longer) before downtown Sacramento has the kind of vibrancy and verticality that San Diego has today.

I was just in seaport village for lunch - I remembered it being great when I was a kid. Turns out it is exactly like Old Sacramento - full of shops hawking tacky, overpriced 🞵🞵🞵🞵.

[sugit]

Drama continues....

(Redevelopment Agency) Extension of Loan Commitment for the Aura Project (Continued from 3-13-07; 3-20-07, 3-27-07) [To Be Delivered]
Location: 601 Capitol Mall, Central Business District (District 1)
Recommendation: Adopt a Redevelopment Agency Resolution extending the period of negotiations with Aura project for 45 days, expiring on May 24, 2007 to develop the terms of a maximum $10,000,000 market rate loan which may be incorporated into an Owner Participation Agreement for the Aura condominium project. Contact: Leslie Fritzsche, Downtown Development Manager, (916) 808-5450, Economic Development Department.

[TowerDistrict]

that's just wrong. but, i guess the city doesn't mind waiting...
they prolly don't watch it nearly as close as we do.

[greenmidtown]

I'm going to get on a soapbox for a minute.
can we quit with the name-calling of our city? you all need to train your minds to show a little pride, Sac needs it. many people are invested wholeheartedly in making this city a better place to live and the denigrating jokes made by many residents (most of whom have done little to improve this city) are getting obnoxious, not to mention old. it's too easy to sit around and taunt the efforts of the city and developers investing hundreds of millions of dollars to make this city a better place. and if you don't like what they're doing don't run away, get involved or do something creative. Or maybe, just maybe we can all boast about how Sac is improving, it might not be getting everything we all want but at least it's getting better which is something a lot of other cities can't say. the loss of a skyscraper won't take away the hundreds of restaraunts, bars, nightclubs, condo's, lofts, and other high-rises built or being built in this city.

basically we need more love for Sac