Sacramento Proposal/Approval/Construction Thread - III

[wburg]

Parking seems like kind of a non-issue for a business like Newsbeat: it isn't really a place that people drive to, a newsstand lives and dies by foot traffic. I go to Newsbeat because I walk by there all the time, and while there's foot traffic at 20th and K, most of it is night-time/nightclub foot traffic, not so much during the day. Maybe having a Peet's right there will change that (makes it easy to buy something to read with your coffee) but it seems like it will open up a hole for another newsvendor along L Street. Despite rumors to the contrary, there is a heck of a lot of pedestrian activity on that corner.

[travis bickle]

Originally Posted by TWAK

more apartments would be cool for downtown.
like cheap apartments that I can afford. If I am ever a multi millionaire I'll build a middle class rental tower in Sacramento. Mark my words.

In my experience, rental towers are the single most difficult type of project to make pencil out. Because of the inherent construction costs, you almost always have to make them high-end.

[downtownserg89]

hi y'all. so i got fired from urban outfitters, and MAN DOES IT 🞵🞵🞵🞵!!

no more discount!!


anyway,

what's all that action on 16th and F st?

i see construction taking place on an old lot that's been vacant for so long.

maybe a cute restaurant is being conceived?

[wburg]

I have noticed dirt being dug up there over the past few weeks on that lot and am curious about it myself...it's not really the neighborhood for a cute restaurant yet, unless the owner is real, real confident.

[downtownserg89]

maybe a cute restaurant is what that "hood" needs to make it go from a hood to a neighborhood! and that ugly cheap motel on 16th and E has the potential to get rennovated into something more hip. kind of like what they're doing to the travelodge on 11th and like h. that'd be nice.

upper 16th street could use more of that hip crowd.. and that hip crowd could only be applicable if there is like hip housing and cute restaurants to go and be hip at!!

kind of like what they did with temple coffee.

some random little building, now like this totally hip happening spot.

oh sacramento.

barely growing hair on its nuts.

[Phillip]

Originally Posted by wburg

Parking seems like kind of a non-issue for a business like Newsbeat: it isn't really a place that people drive to, a newsstand lives and dies by foot traffic.

I don't think any location in Sacramento, even Downtown, can support a newsstand on foot traffic alone now. Maybe 30, 40, 50 years ago.

Lots of people drive to newsstands, especially large well-stocked ones that carry magazines you can't find at the corner Rite-Aid or Safeway. I do anyhow. A good portion of Tower Books old customers were there for the newspapers and magazines. Most of them drove, I'm pretty sure, even to the store on Broadway.

With Tower gone a store like Newsbeat will be one of the few places around Sacramento to carry certain obscure and specialty journals; titles that Borders or Barnes & Noble doesn't or won't. There's no Borders or B&N downtown anyhow. If you live in Carmichael and want the new issue of "🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵" (real magazine sold at Newsbeat) where do you go?

There's the atmosphere of a good newsstand too, something you can't get on the Internet or a suburban strip mall, and if the atmosphere is there it attracts people and some will drive, even if they could have bought the same magazine at a Walgreens near home.

I never thought L Street Newsbeat had much atmosphere (and I haven't been there for years). It didn't invite lingering. But I really like the Newsbeat in Davis and I've driven there from Sac on impulse. I'd do other things in Davis once I got there, usually eat. But Newsbeat was the hook.

I like the cigar smell in Davis Newsbeat, and that you buy newspapers, mags, postcards, greeting cards that the chain stores don't carry, plus Jones sodas, Swiss chocolate, tobacco all in one compact place. You can indulge all your senses there on items that don't cost much. The people watching can be good too. People watching at MAARS should be better than it was on L Street...not that state employees aren't beautiful in their own way.

Do you know what prompted the Newsbeat move? Is the rent lower at MAARS? More space? Parking? MAARS will have foot trafic after 5pm, which L Street didn't, a big plus.

[wburg]

Phillip: I'm not talking about foot traffic from residents (although I figure they do get some, from nearby apartments and SRO units) but foot traffic from nearby offices. I used to stop by there in the early nineties for the International Times-Herald (before you could get international news on the Web) and Dunhill cigarettes (back when I smoked) on my lunch hour, and I stop by often on my way to work now.

While I suppose some people drive downtown just to go to Newsbeat, I'd imagine that they are more of a stop of opportunity--someplace people visit on their way to someplace else, or because they happen to be downtown. That won't change with the move: parking is dreadful until 5:00 at their current location, and at all times at 20th and K, so foot traffic will be very important in either spot.

There isn't a B&N downtown, but there is a B. Dalton (which is owned by B&N) in Downtown Plaza, albeit not a very good or well-stocked one. The Avid Reader at Tower has a magazine selection almost as extensive as Tower's was, although without the depth of newspaper selection. The Tower location on Broadway has free parking, making drive-up visits a lot easier than at Newsbeat.

One plus of the MARRS move is that they will be open later (although how much later is a good question--Peet's closes at a disappointing 8 PM on weekdays.) It would be kinda cool if they stayed open until midnight (or later.)

[BrianSac]

Originally Posted by wburg

Phillip: I'm not talking about foot traffic from residents (although I figure they do get some, from nearby apartments and SRO units) but foot traffic from nearby offices. I used to stop by there in the early nineties for the International Times-Herald (before you could get international news on the Web) and Dunhill cigarettes (back when I smoked) on my lunch hour, and I stop by often on my way to work now.

While I suppose some people drive downtown just to go to Newsbeat, I'd imagine that they are more of a stop of opportunity--someplace people visit on their way to someplace else, or because they happen to be downtown. That won't change with the move: parking is dreadful until 5:00 at their current location, and at all times at 20th and K, so foot traffic will be very important in either spot.

There isn't a B&N downtown, but there is a B. Dalton (which is owned by B&N) in Downtown Plaza, albeit not a very good or well-stocked one. The Avid Reader at Tower has a magazine selection almost as extensive as Tower's was, although without the depth of newspaper selection. The Tower location on Broadway has free parking, making drive-up visits a lot easier than at Newsbeat.

One plus of the MARRS move is that they will be open later (although how much later is a good question--Peet's closes at a disappointing 8 PM on weekdays.) It would be kinda cool if they stayed open until midnight (or later.)

Way cool -- that Newsbeat is moving into MARRS!

Hopefully,
Peet's will wake up and smell the coffee and stay open until at least 10 or 11.

[TWAK]

i need to get into the loop of some of these acronyms that you guys use. I've never heard of mars

[wburg]

TWAK: It's the big warehouse building on 20th Street between J and K: MARRS is the name of the project (no relation to the folks who did the "Pump Up The Volume" dancefloor hit about 20 years ago.)

Originally Posted by downtownserg89

maybe a cute restaurant is what that "hood" needs to make it go from a hood to a neighborhood! and that ugly cheap motel on 16th and E has the potential to get rennovated into something more hip. kind of like what they're doing to the travelodge on 11th and like h. that'd be nice.

upper 16th street could use more of that hip crowd.. and that hip crowd could only be applicable if there is like hip housing and cute restaurants to go and be hip at!!

kind of like what they did with temple coffee.

some random little building, now like this totally hip happening spot.

oh sacramento.

barely growing hair on its nuts.

Actually, the hip crowd usually gets there far before the housing, or even the restaurants. The problem with cafes is that they aren't high-dollar enough operations to justify building new construction, except for big chains like Starbucks. Typically a cafe (an actually hip one, not a Starbucks) will go into an already constructed building that has low rent because (a) it's in a not-so-great section of town, and/or (b) the building isn't in that good of condition.

Witness the building that Temple is in; it is owned by none other than Mo Mohanna, so you know the rent is cheap and the maintenance is shoddy. While the building is primarily known for Temple now, until about five years ago the top floor was the EMRL Studio, an art space that hosted many experimental music performances and parties.

Back to 16th and F: Hip stuff will slip into the existing buildings: probably not into what they're building on that lot, but maybe in the building next door, just as the very hip Sampino's Towne Foods deli slipped easily into the strip mall across the street. There are already what I'd consider hip people in the neighborhood (I went to a movie premiere party a block away from that corner last weekend, at the house formerly owned by serial killer Dorothea Puente) because the rent is still comparatively cheap. But then, they've been living there for quite a while: the second-to-last time I was offered crack in this town was on my way to visit a friend who lived on 16th and E back in 1994.

Oh yeah, about the state of Sacramento's 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵: We're not entering puberty. Sacramento is an old city, with a pedigree as old as San Francisco, Seattle or Portland; not as old as Los Angeles, but we were a bustling city when Los Angeles was still a cattle ranching backwater. We're just getting a facelift and maybe some fake 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 so we look younger than we actually are.

[urban_encounter]

Originally Posted by wburg

We're just getting a facelift and maybe some fake 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 so we look younger than we actually are.

Didn't you hear wburg, the 🞵🞵🞵🞵 job is a no go. Cal Pers pulled the plug...

[TowerDistrict]

Originally Posted by wburg

Oh yeah, about the state of Sacramento's 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵: We're not entering puberty. Sacramento is an old city, with a pedigree as old as San Francisco, Seattle or Portland; not as old as Los Angeles, but we were a bustling city when Los Angeles was still a cattle ranching backwater. We're just getting a facelift and maybe some fake 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 so we look younger than we actually are.

Hahah... that's good stuff there.

[sugit]

The project DDA was approved by CADA today. It spelled out the developer must start by Nov 25th, 2008. Last I heard though, they want to start in July/August.

East End Gateway Sites II and III
16th and O Street
Developer: Ravel Rasmussen Properties
Architect: Chang Partners
Site II: 4 Stories, 24 Apartments, 4900 sf retail
Site III: 5 Stores, 60 Apartment, 7100 sf retail

[/QUOTE]

[urban_encounter]

The apartments are a good idea considering the rents that they're able to pull in downtown. Can't wait to see constructin start.

[urban_encounter]

Fresh & Easy plans four stores in capital region
By Jon Ortiz - [email protected]
Published 12:00 am PST Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Story appeared in BUSINESS section, Page D5



Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, the U.S. unit of Britain's biggest grocery retailer, plans to open four stores in the Sacramento area, according to liquor license applications with the state.

The Sacramento locations named in the filings include 3311 Northgate Blvd. and 3615 Bradshaw Road. Two Folsom sites, 25000 Blue Ravine Road and 9522 Greenback Lane, also are cited.

Fresh & Easy spokesman Brendan Wonnacott on Monday acknowledged the company has bigger plans for Sacramento and the surrounding region.

"We'll be making a formal announcement of more (Sacramento) store sites next month," he said. The company plans to name several Bay Area store locations on Wednesday, but Wonnacott declined to say when any of the Northern California stores would open.

The stores combine the elements of a traditional grocery store and a convenience store. At about one-fifth the size of a supermarket, they emphasize fresh items, take-home meals and private label goods with a limited selection of national-brand merchandise.

Fresh & Easy's entry into Northern California continues Tesco's aggressive global expansion plans, intended to offset its slowing growth at home. On Monday, the Financial Times reported the company next month will open its first Tesco Express brand convenience stores in China.

Tesco, based in Cheshunt, England, already has opened about three dozen Fresh & Easy markets in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona. It has plans to open at least 200 in those three states by the end of this year.

Industry experts have speculated that the company could open 500 or more Fresh & Easy sites over the next few years if the concept takes off.

The Bay Area's Fresh & Easy sites include so-called "food deserts" – poor neighborhoods underserved by grocery stores, Wonnacott said. He said the chain is committed to finding similar sites in the Sacramento area.

[LandofFrost]

I live next door to some lofts being build at 27th and N street ( the ones with the red brick façade). I think loftworks is the builder. Anyone have the inside scoop: price?, info? I can’t find anything.

From the looks of it, and the proximity to Sutter Hospital, I’m thinking they are going to be expensive …. Though they did use cheap windows.

[LandofFrost]

Oh i found this,

"Looking to purchase new digs? Good things come to those who wait. . . LoftWorks is very excited to announce that they have begun construction on their first residential for-sale project, Sutter Brownstones. We are anticipating beginning sales in March 2008. Not a bad way to begin the new year, huh?"

But thats it.

[wburg]

The Loftworks project on 27th and N are okay, they're pretty spacious and include features like storage space and multiple bedrooms, with one-car garages for each unit. Price is anybody's guess, any price you'd see now would be subject to the fluctuations going on in the market, but comparable units like Tapestri are running about $400-600K for similar sizes.

The next thing coming down the pike in that neighborhood is another SKK project next to the parking structure, expected to be about the same height, combining residential with two theaters (about 600 total theater seats.)

[jsf8278]

Originally Posted by wburg

The next thing coming down the pike in that neighborhood is another SKK project next to the parking structure, expected to be about the same height, combining residential with two theaters (about 600 total theater seats.)

Are you talking about the parking lot that is fenced off with that wooden fence that has some kind of painting on it ? I think the lot is next to Monkey Bar...So that will be a theater the size of the parking structure?

[sugit]

The B Street Theater is moving to that location.