Sactown Photos

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But this time all the pols with a chance at gov are bay area!! No excuses this time

[ThatDarnSacramentan]

Hey dudes, I've been taking pictures of Sacramento (my hometown, born and raised) for over a year now, and I figured this would be a good place to put some of my shots. As I've learned from reading this forum, there are more Sacramentans online than I would've thought.






















































































You know, when you get above the city and look down on it, you realize just how many empty, worthless buildings there are and how many unnecessary parking garages there are where there could be real development happening. I'm sure we can all imagine what some of these views would look like with John Saca's towers on Capital Mall. That's about it for now. If anyone's interested where I got some of these shots, I've managed to find a few sweet places to shoot from.

[ltsmotorsport]

Nice work, TDS. You're very handy with that camera.

[wburg]

What makes a building worthless? Is it mere emptiness?

With our current public transit system's limitations, do you think we can do without parking garages? Are they unnecessary if they are occupied eight hours a day during the work week, as they are intended to be?

[ThatDarnSacramentan]

Originally Posted by wburg

What makes a building worthless? Is it mere emptiness?

With our current public transit system's limitations, do you think we can do without parking garages? Are they unnecessary if they are occupied eight hours a day during the work week, as they are intended to be?

I'd say a building is worthless to the urban environment if it doesn't contribute something good to the whole. Take the Plaza Building on 10th Street, right there on Cesar Chavez Plaza. It's completely abandoned, partially boarded up, and, if I do say so myself, ugly to begin with. It probably wouldn't be as bad in my mind if it weren't for the fact it's a mere fifty feet from the new jewel of the city, the Citizen. Small, abandoned buildings like that could readily be torn down and replaced with new buildings, whether they're five stories or fifty stories. Right now, all a building like that does is take up space and create a sense of deadness downtown.

As for the parking garages, I know that some need to be there. But, having spent a lot of time in parking garages around this city, I know that no single garage is ever completely full. When I said some garages are unnecessary, I meant that they could be torn down and replaced with a newer garage that also features new development, whether it's a hotel, condos, etc. On L Street, near Lot A, there's a tiny strip of small parking garages, each one about two or three stories, made from the facades of old brick buildings. It's tiny garages like that that could be leveled and replaced. The kind of thing I'm thinking of would be like what 500 Capital Mall did, or those relatively new lofts on L Street where Buckhorn Grill is: build your garage, whether it's over or underground, and then build over it. You get your garage, but you don't really get the look of a garage.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by ThatDarnSacramentan

I'd say a building is worthless to the urban environment if it doesn't contribute something good to the whole. Take the Plaza Building on 10th Street, right there on Cesar Chavez Plaza. It's completely abandoned, partially boarded up, and, if I do say so myself, ugly to begin with. It probably wouldn't be as bad in my mind if it weren't for the fact it's a mere fifty feet from the new jewel of the city, the Citizen. Small, abandoned buildings like that could readily be torn down and replaced with new buildings, whether they're five stories or fifty stories. Right now, all a building like that does is take up space and create a sense of deadness downtown.

It's not abandoned by choice--it was vacated. How difficult would it be to reinhabit, to paint, to remodel? The Citizen Hotel, the Elks Building, the Cosmopolitan and plenty of other centers of life and activity were "abandoned" until someone saw a better use for that building other than a placeholder for something else. The idea that buildings can catch a fatal disease called "blight," curable only by the wrecking ball, is a fiction. Now, I don't think every building can or should be saved--but I don't write a building off just because it's boarded up to serve an investor's eventual purpose.

Getting rid of older buildings means getting rid of things they are very, very good for--like low-rent but high-value cultural purposes, like coffee shops and bookstores and art galleries and theaters--and farmer's markets. New buildings charge too much rent to make those practical.

As for the parking garages, I know that some need to be there. But, having spent a lot of time in parking garages around this city, I know that no single garage is ever completely full. When I said some garages are unnecessary, I meant that they could be torn down and replaced with a newer garage that also features new development, whether it's a hotel, condos, etc. On L Street, near Lot A, there's a tiny strip of small parking garages, each one about two or three stories, made from the facades of old brick buildings. It's tiny garages like that that could be leveled and replaced. The kind of thing I'm thinking of would be like what 500 Capital Mall did, or those relatively new lofts on L Street where Buckhorn Grill is: build your garage, whether it's over or underground, and then build over it. You get your garage, but you don't really get the look of a garage.

Within our imaginations, anything can be torn down and replaced by anything. We don't have to take into account budgets or other effects. It seems like many folks assume all one has to do is knock over a building and a shiny new skyscraper will sprout out of the ground, like Jack's magic beanstalk--as 3rd and Capitol has shown us, that's not really how it works.

If you want to make parking garages redundant, we need an alternative--public transit that promotes population density and reduces the need to provide 3-4 different places to park each automobile, and an urban growth boundary to increase development pressure. Until then, developers can make more money building "landscrapers" in the suburbs instead of skyscrapers downtown. Blame a lack of vision or the existence of old buildings all you want, the problem is the ease of building out rather than up.

[ThatDarnSacramentan]

Originally Posted by wburg

It's not abandoned by choice--it was vacated. How difficult would it be to reinhabit, to paint, to remodel? The Citizen Hotel, the Elks Building, the Cosmopolitan and plenty of other centers of life and activity were "abandoned" until someone saw a better use for that building other than a placeholder for something else. The idea that buildings can catch a fatal disease called "blight," curable only by the wrecking ball, is a fiction. Now, I don't think every building can or should be saved--but I don't write a building off just because it's boarded up to serve an investor's eventual purpose.

Getting rid of older buildings means getting rid of things they are very, very good for--like low-rent but high-value cultural purposes, like coffee shops and bookstores and art galleries and theaters--and farmer's markets. New buildings charge too much rent to make those practical.



Within our imaginations, anything can be torn down and replaced by anything. We don't have to take into account budgets or other effects. It seems like many folks assume all one has to do is knock over a building and a shiny new skyscraper will sprout out of the ground, like Jack's magic beanstalk--as 3rd and Capitol has shown us, that's not really how it works.

If you want to make parking garages redundant, we need an alternative--public transit that promotes population density and reduces the need to provide 3-4 different places to park each automobile, and an urban growth boundary to increase development pressure. Until then, developers can make more money building "landscrapers" in the suburbs instead of skyscrapers downtown. Blame a lack of vision or the existence of old buildings all you want, the problem is the ease of building out rather than up.

It wouldn't be difficult at all, but the fact of the matter is there's no drive, no push, no will even to take these tiny old buildings and remake them into grand new buildings with fresh coats of paint and coffee shops at the base with who knows what on the second floor. Now, in my short time in this city compared to you, I've noticed that it's actually hard for developers and investors to put money into old buildings to refurbish. There are rare exceptions, though, like the Citizen and Elks Lodge. However, there are examples where old, great architecture is just left untouched by investors, like Tower Theater. Now, of course it's still there (thankfully), but Joe's has been sitting empty and burned out for, what, three, four years now? Now, naturally there's difference of opinion, but I like your idea about low-rent, high cultural value refurbishment and development. That would be great . . . in Midtown. I've seen it happen before with those lofts on 21st where Daugherty Chevy used to be. You know, it's also funny you'd mention a farmer's market. I know for a fact that there are plans being made right now to see if the farmer's market at Downtown Plaza can be moved onto Capital Mall for a few hours in the middle of the day when it wouldn't disturb traffic too much.

See, I've never assumed that wherever something's knocked down, give it a year, and we'll have some ugly glass box in its place. When it comes to parking, I honestly don't see why we couldn't go underground. If San Francisco can build underground parking garages, surely we can as well. Then, the parking areas along the streets in downtown could be made into wider sidewalks or even bike lanes, which I know I would appreciate. If we're gonna get developers to come back downtown instead of their usual seas of cookie cutter two story offices out in the burbs, we need to show them that there's still people here, and probably shove their noses in the fact that Midtown has a lot of people walking around, especially on Second Saturday. If they started densifying Midtown, I'd imagine that would slowly spread into downtown. For that to happen (now, I'm not really sure since my knowledge of economics comes from family in New York who didn't teach me much at best), we'd have to bring the price of land down, offer tax incentives, etc. Of course, these are just my crazy ideas because I'd really like to see Sacramento at least get denser and not necessarily taller by the time I die, which is a long time from now biologically.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by ThatDarnSacramentan

It wouldn't be difficult at all, but the fact of the matter is there's no drive, no push, no will even to take these tiny old buildings and remake them into grand new buildings with fresh coats of paint and coffee shops at the base with who knows what on the second floor. Now, in my short time in this city compared to you, I've noticed that it's actually hard for developers and investors to put money into old buildings to refurbish. There are rare exceptions, though, like the Citizen and Elks Lodge. However, there are examples where old, great architecture is just left untouched by investors, like Tower Theater. Now, of course it's still there (thankfully), but Joe's has been sitting empty and burned out for, what, three, four years now? Now, naturally there's difference of opinion, but I like your idea about low-rent, high cultural value refurbishment and development. That would be great . . . in Midtown. I've seen it happen before with those lofts on 21st where Daugherty Chevy used to be. You know, it's also funny you'd mention a farmer's market. I know for a fact that there are plans being made right now to see if the farmer's market at Downtown Plaza can be moved onto Capital Mall for a few hours in the middle of the day when it wouldn't disturb traffic too much.

Joe Marty's was fixed, but Joe opted to retire and close the business rather than reopen. Tower is currently owned by a New York theater chain who don't invest much in it--but other than Joe Marty's space, I'd hardly call the Tower vacant or underutilized. The Tower Cafe is one of the best-known and best-loved restaurants in the city!

As to "no drive" to reopen old buildings downtown, you're just plain not looking. Look at Temple Coffee and the residences above it, Parlare Euro Lounge, the Cosmopolitan (which used to be a Woolworth's), the Rite-Aid on 9th and K, the Cathedral Building (Ella restaurant and apartments, in a rebuilt old building), Ma Jong's and Cafeteria 15 on 15th and L, the Firestone complex at 16th and L, the Elliot Building (Mikuni/PF Chang's/lofts), the iLofts in Old Sacramento, the 1400 block of R Street, and the many other projects in the central city where that's EXACTLY what is going on--people reusing old buildings, with other uses (including residential) on upper floors. In some cases, these are places where the building never fell out of use, they are the handful of survivors from the era when that's how cities got built.

I mention a farmer's market because one of the K Street proposals includes, among other shiny things intended to distract those of short attention span, a farmer's market called the "Bogueria." The problem is that farmer's markets are typically held in inexpensive, low-overhead structures, or out in the open like our current farmer's markets operate. They can't pay the rent that new buildings demand. Thus, this proposal would essentially require a long-term, permanent city subsidy in order for the farmer's market to remain open in this new building. But the farmer's market could open with minimal investment, which means a low rent that can match the low overhead of a farmer's market. No subsidy required.

While I like the idea of another once-a-week farmer's market on Capitol Mall, the idea of a permanent, open 7 days a week farmer's market is valuable and worthwhile--all we need is a building that won't be too expensive. Personally, my favorite for that would be the portion of the Greyhound depot where buses currently park. It was originally built as a parking garage for the Berry Hotel. It's big, airy, inexpensive, open to the street, close to transit, and will be right next to several hundred new downtown residents if one of the other K Street proposals gets built (one of the three that don't involve demolishing the Greyhound depot.) Give it a coat of paint, scrub off the motor-oil stains, and you've got a great place for an open-air, full-time farmer's market. The Greyhound depot itself would be a great place for a medium-sized market via adaptive reuse. There is a bare patch of land behind the building that could be used for a loading area for the market, but it just as easily might be a narrow residential tower, with the Greyhound depot as its entrance. Washington DC did a similar conversion to their Streamline Moderne Greyhound depot.

See, I've never assumed that wherever something's knocked down, give it a year, and we'll have some ugly glass box in its place. When it comes to parking, I honestly don't see why we couldn't go underground. If San Francisco can build underground parking garages, surely we can as well. Then, the parking areas along the streets in downtown could be made into wider sidewalks or even bike lanes, which I know I would appreciate. If we're gonna get developers to come back downtown instead of their usual seas of cookie cutter two story offices out in the burbs, we need to show them that there's still people here, and probably shove their noses in the fact that Midtown has a lot of people walking around, especially on Second Saturday. If they started densifying Midtown, I'd imagine that would slowly spread into downtown. For that to happen (now, I'm not really sure since my knowledge of economics comes from family in New York who didn't teach me much at best), we'd have to bring the price of land down, offer tax incentives, etc. Of course, these are just my crazy ideas because I'd really like to see Sacramento at least get denser and not necessarily taller by the time I die, which is a long time from now biologically.

"Densifying" isn't what happens when prices go down. Lower land prices means lower land uses--surface parking, mini storage, single-family homes, strip malls. The suburbs look like the suburbs BECAUSE land is cheap--you don't need to build much that is impressive in order to recoup your investment. New York and Chicago don't look the way they do because land around the Loop or on Manhattan Island was cheap and easy to get--they were built tall because the land was expensive and valuable.

If there is abundant land in the surrounding region, and taxpayer-subsidized means for suburban expansion, there is no real reason for developers to build tall, impressive things in the central city, or to build residential housing in the central city. Only when building out becomes impractical (either because it is no longer subsidized, it has happened to such great extent that it cannot continue to function, or the region is physically out of space to practically expand) does the pressure to build higher in the city center increase.

The other limiting factor of development is transportation. Cars require a parking space wherever they go: one at home, one at the office, one at school, one at church, one at the supermarket, one at the shopping mall. Any place without a parking spot is a place cars can't go, or can only go with increased difficulty. All these parking spots add to the expense of cities, whether in the form of street parking (limited, not very expensive) or surface lots (less limited, somewhat more expensive) or parking structures (more expensive) or underground parking (very expensive, especially in cities with high water tables on floodplains like ours.) Cars don't work very well in tall, dense cities--they tend to have horrendous traffic problems, and the only way to relieve those problems is with transit and mixed use. If there are alternatives to the car, like efficient public transit, or good bike lanes, or walkable neighborhoods, the car becomes less necessary for every aspect of life and it is possible to save some money by including less parking.

I'd like to see Sacramento denser too, and I am quite sure we can double or triple the population of the central city without having to knock over a single building. We just need to make better use of what we have, remove incentives for regional sprawl, and utilize alternatives to the car.

[ThatDarnSacramentan]

Originally Posted by wburg

Joe Marty's was fixed, but Joe opted to retire and close the business rather than reopen. Tower is currently owned by a New York theater chain who don't invest much in it--but other than Joe Marty's space, I'd hardly call the Tower vacant or underutilized. The Tower Cafe is one of the best-known and best-loved restaurants in the city!

As to "no drive" to reopen old buildings downtown, you're just plain not looking. Look at Temple Coffee and the residences above it, Parlare Euro Lounge, the Cosmopolitan (which used to be a Woolworth's), the Rite-Aid on 9th and K, the Cathedral Building (Ella restaurant and apartments, in a rebuilt old building), Ma Jong's and Cafeteria 15 on 15th and L, the Firestone complex at 16th and L, the Elliot Building (Mikuni/PF Chang's/lofts), the iLofts in Old Sacramento, the 1400 block of R Street, and the many other projects in the central city where that's EXACTLY what is going on--people reusing old buildings, with other uses (including residential) on upper floors. In some cases, these are places where the building never fell out of use, they are the handful of survivors from the era when that's how cities got built.

I mention a farmer's market because one of the K Street proposals includes, among other shiny things intended to distract those of short attention span, a farmer's market called the "Bogueria." The problem is that farmer's markets are typically held in inexpensive, low-overhead structures, or out in the open like our current farmer's markets operate. They can't pay the rent that new buildings demand. Thus, this proposal would essentially require a long-term, permanent city subsidy in order for the farmer's market to remain open in this new building. But the farmer's market could open with minimal investment, which means a low rent that can match the low overhead of a farmer's market. No subsidy required.

While I like the idea of another once-a-week farmer's market on Capitol Mall, the idea of a permanent, open 7 days a week farmer's market is valuable and worthwhile--all we need is a building that won't be too expensive. Personally, my favorite for that would be the portion of the Greyhound depot where buses currently park. It was originally built as a parking garage for the Berry Hotel. It's big, airy, inexpensive, open to the street, close to transit, and will be right next to several hundred new downtown residents if one of the other K Street proposals gets built (one of the three that don't involve demolishing the Greyhound depot.) Give it a coat of paint, scrub off the motor-oil stains, and you've got a great place for an open-air, full-time farmer's market. The Greyhound depot itself would be a great place for a medium-sized market via adaptive reuse. There is a bare patch of land behind the building that could be used for a loading area for the market, but it just as easily might be a narrow residential tower, with the Greyhound depot as its entrance. Washington DC did a similar conversion to their Streamline Moderne Greyhound depot.



"Densifying" isn't what happens when prices go down. Lower land prices means lower land uses--surface parking, mini storage, single-family homes, strip malls. The suburbs look like the suburbs BECAUSE land is cheap--you don't need to build much that is impressive in order to recoup your investment. New York and Chicago don't look the way they do because land around the Loop or on Manhattan Island was cheap and easy to get--they were built tall because the land was expensive and valuable.

If there is abundant land in the surrounding region, and taxpayer-subsidized means for suburban expansion, there is no real reason for developers to build tall, impressive things in the central city, or to build residential housing in the central city. Only when building out becomes impractical (either because it is no longer subsidized, it has happened to such great extent that it cannot continue to function, or the region is physically out of space to practically expand) does the pressure to build higher in the city center increase.

The other limiting factor of development is transportation. Cars require a parking space wherever they go: one at home, one at the office, one at school, one at church, one at the supermarket, one at the shopping mall. Any place without a parking spot is a place cars can't go, or can only go with increased difficulty. All these parking spots add to the expense of cities, whether in the form of street parking (limited, not very expensive) or surface lots (less limited, somewhat more expensive) or parking structures (more expensive) or underground parking (very expensive, especially in cities with high water tables on floodplains like ours.) Cars don't work very well in tall, dense cities--they tend to have horrendous traffic problems, and the only way to relieve those problems is with transit and mixed use. If there are alternatives to the car, like efficient public transit, or good bike lanes, or walkable neighborhoods, the car becomes less necessary for every aspect of life and it is possible to save some money by including less parking.

I'd like to see Sacramento denser too, and I am quite sure we can double or triple the population of the central city without having to knock over a single building. We just need to make better use of what we have, remove incentives for regional sprawl, and utilize alternatives to the car.

You're right, I haven't been looking enough. I don't get out as much as I'd like to. I can't really argue since I agree with most of your points here. However, when it comes to putting a farmer's market in the Greyhound terminal, I just can't see it. For starters, I've never really seen any pedestrian traffic on that portion of L Street. I'd love it if it were on Capital because then, for a few hours, instead of a boring grassy median, we'd see tents filled with life. Best part is it wouldn't really disrupt traffic because the mall is dead during the workday.

Now, I definitely see what you're saying when it comes to the suburbs, those wretched things they are. I can see that there are developers trying to bring some density to the city. There are the two lofts on L Street, that new cluster by the Co-op on Alhambra, and other little projects like that. I really like those projects, but with one exception: they're spread all over the city. If there were projects like that centered near each other, then it'd give a real sense of density. As for the population doubling without tearing anything down, I just don't see that being feasible at all. For the population to double, there would have to be more offices and more places to live in the city. It would be inevitable that some buildings would be demolished and replaced with condos for people to live in and new offices for them to work in. Hell, I've got a whole notebook filled with sketches and doodles of cool towers I'd like to see in Sacramento, but it's not gonna happen. At any rate, I look forward to the day when this city, this state, and this country in general starts to reverse the suburbanization of the last 60 years. All my friends, they live out in Folsom and Natomas and Elk Grove. They all say that it's no contest between where they live and Sacramento, that the burbs are better. I hate those cookie cutter suburbs. They're boring, bland, generally ugly, and near impossible to walk around. In the city, you really see and experience humanity, and you couldn't pay me to live in the suburbs.

[rampant_jwalker]

Originally Posted by wburg

I mention a farmer's market because one of the K Street proposals includes, among other shiny things intended to distract those of short attention span, a farmer's market called the "Bogueria." The problem is that farmer's markets are typically held in inexpensive, low-overhead structures, or out in the open like our current farmer's markets operate. They can't pay the rent that new buildings demand. Thus, this proposal would essentially require a long-term, permanent city subsidy in order for the farmer's market to remain open in this new building. But the farmer's market could open with minimal investment, which means a low rent that can match the low overhead of a farmer's market. No subsidy required.

I think the idea of the "Boqueria" in the K street proposal you mentioned is that it will be a civic amenity payed for by the rest of the development. The developers do not plan on profiting from the boqueria itself, but hope that it will create enough of a draw for people to visit K street, and help act as a catalyst for more downtown development. That is why they say it will be feasible to hold a 7-day farmers market in an expensive new building. Sponsorship from the agriculture industry which could use the space as a showcase of the Central Valley's bounty could make this a high-quality space without any need for continuous public subsidy. Personally I think it could work, although I'm not a fan of the current design.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by rampant_jwalker

I think the idea of the "Boqueria" in the K street proposal you mentioned is that it will be a civic amenity payed for by the rest of the development. The developers do not plan on profiting from the boqueria itself, but hope that it will create enough of a draw for people to visit K street, and help act as a catalyst for more downtown development. That is why they say it will be feasible to hold a 7-day farmers market in an expensive new building. Sponsorship from the agriculture industry which could use the space as a showcase of the Central Valley's bounty could make this a high-quality space without any need for continuous public subsidy. Personally I think it could work, although I'm not a fan of the current design.

In other words, they expect the other tenants to support a money-losing part of the project with their rent. The problem is that, assuming such a thing gets built, in tougher times when they're looking for ways to make the books balance, and the agriculture industry decides it is no longer able to help subsidize it, the other tenants will look over at the freeloader with blood in their eyes, and decide that a Good Guys might make a better "civic amenity" that could pay its own dang rent. Or one could rehab an existing space and have the same amenity able to pay its own way--and use contributions and subsidies to make such a project even better, rather than to subsidize it.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by ThatDarnSacramentan

You're right, I haven't been looking enough. I don't get out as much as I'd like to. I can't really argue since I agree with most of your points here. However, when it comes to putting a farmer's market in the Greyhound terminal, I just can't see it. For starters, I've never really seen any pedestrian traffic on that portion of L Street. I'd love it if it were on Capital because then, for a few hours, instead of a boring grassy median, we'd see tents filled with life. Best part is it wouldn't really disrupt traffic because the mall is dead during the workday.

Now, I definitely see what you're saying when it comes to the suburbs, those wretched things they are. I can see that there are developers trying to bring some density to the city. There are the two lofts on L Street, that new cluster by the Co-op on Alhambra, and other little projects like that. I really like those projects, but with one exception: they're spread all over the city. If there were projects like that centered near each other, then it'd give a real sense of density. As for the population doubling without tearing anything down, I just don't see that being feasible at all. For the population to double, there would have to be more offices and more places to live in the city. It would be inevitable that some buildings would be demolished and replaced with condos for people to live in and new offices for them to work in. Hell, I've got a whole notebook filled with sketches and doodles of cool towers I'd like to see in Sacramento, but it's not gonna happen. At any rate, I look forward to the day when this city, this state, and this country in general starts to reverse the suburbanization of the last 60 years. All my friends, they live out in Folsom and Natomas and Elk Grove. They all say that it's no contest between where they live and Sacramento, that the burbs are better. I hate those cookie cutter suburbs. They're boring, bland, generally ugly, and near impossible to walk around. In the city, you really see and experience humanity, and you couldn't pay me to live in the suburbs.

You don't have to look any farther than the city's 2030 General Plan to see how we can double the central city's density without demolition. All of the new growth is in areas that are not currently residential--often in places that currently have no buildings on them, or buildings that will become part of the new neighborhood. The Railyards, the Docks, Richards Blvd/River District, R Street, and high-density development downtown is the part and parcel of the plan. They add up to around 15,000 residential units, only a few hundred are called for in the existing central city. That's a number that could easily fit into vacant lots, parking areas, alley lots and other bits of room.

A farmer's market on L Street is a case in point. The new recommended plan for the redevelopment of the 700 block of K Street includes about 150 residential units in the alley across from Greyhound--which means their "front door" is right across from the new farmer's market. More residential units will be along 8th Street at the Bel-Vue and 8th and K, and once the Berry Hotel is rehabbed, even more. There is plenty of foot traffic wherever a farmer's market goes downtown (4th and K is normally pretty quiet, but on Thursday mornings it gets crowded with the farmer's market) and the whole point of creating it is to draw foot traffic, both from nearby offices (tens of thousands during the weekday) and neighborhood residences (in the long run, hopefully thousands more.)

[rampant_jwalker]

Originally Posted by wburg

In other words, they expect the other tenants to support a money-losing part of the project with their rent. The problem is that, assuming such a thing gets built, in tougher times when they're looking for ways to make the books balance, and the agriculture industry decides it is no longer able to help subsidize it, the other tenants will look over at the freeloader with blood in their eyes, and decide that a Good Guys might make a better "civic amenity" that could pay its own dang rent. Or one could rehab an existing space and have the same amenity able to pay its own way--and use contributions and subsidies to make such a project even better, rather than to subsidize it.

If the City is giving the land for free, and the ag industry pays for construction, what money is there to be lost? I'm guessing the rent that vendors pay will be used for maintenance of the facility. What will the other tenants in the development have to pay for?

[wburg]

Originally Posted by rampant_jwalker

If the City is giving the land for free, and the ag industry pays for construction, what money is there to be lost? I'm guessing the rent that vendors pay will be used for maintenance of the facility. What will the other tenants in the development have to pay for?

There is no promise or commitment from the ag industry--that was pretty much pulled out of thin air. The cost of construction for a new building adds considerable overhead--even considering the rather large (around $100 million) amount of subsidy that the Rubicon team is asking from the city.

[Ryan@CU]

Originally Posted by ThatDarnSacramentan

Hey dudes, I've been taking pictures of Sacramento (my hometown, born and raised) for over a year now, and I figured this would be a good place to put some of my shots. As I've learned from reading this forum, there are more Sacramentans online than I would've thought.

.

BEAUTIFUL shots!!

[Ryan@CU]

Sweet shot of Raley field

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/20/269...ing-night.html

[ThatDarnSacramentan]

Taken Sunday night at 9 PM. You know summer's hit Sacramento when it's 9 PM and it's 95 outside. And yes, those are the natural colors of the sky.

Ryan: I see myself in that panorama you put up! Not gonna say where, but my date and I are in there, even if we're just a few pink and black pixels surrounded by green seat pixels. Thanks for sharing that.

[Majin]

Originally Posted by ThatDarnSacramentan

Taken Sunday night at 9 PM. You know summer's hit Sacramento when it's 9 PM and it's 95 outside. And yes, those are the natural colors of the sky.

Ryan: I see myself in that panorama you put up! Not gonna say where, but my date and I are in there, even if we're just a few pink and black pixels surrounded by green seat pixels. Thanks for sharing that.

Do you have a high quality shot of this? I want to have this professionally printed large and put it on my wall.

[ThatDarnSacramentan]

Originally Posted by Majin

Do you have a high quality shot of this? I want to have this professionally printed large and put it on my wall.

I have a slightly larger version of it, but nothing high quality. I had a high quality one in CS3, but my computer crashed, and I lost it before I could save it. Sorry. I guess you could always print out the smaller version I have saved and get a nice 8x10 frame for it at University Art. Or, if you really want, I could try and retrace my steps, try and recreate it. The original files are about 4000x2000, so I think I could recreate this.

[Majin]

Originally Posted by ThatDarnSacramentan

I have a slightly larger version of it, but nothing high quality. I had a high quality one in CS3, but my computer crashed, and I lost it before I could save it. Sorry. I guess you could always print out the smaller version I have saved and get a nice 8x10 frame for it at University Art. Or, if you really want, I could try and retrace my steps, try and recreate it. The original files are about 4000x2000, so I think I could recreate this.

I'll pay you if you can get a few shots for me at 4000x2000... send me a pm.