Status on K street 700 and 800 redevelopment (Los Angeles, San Francisco: apartments, theater, incomes)

[abercrombiedudelosangeles]

Does anyone know what the status is of the K street 700 and 800 redevelopment? there were some plans recently but none since early this year?

Is it due to the redevelopment funding?

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by abercrombiedudelosangeles

Does anyone know what the status is of the K street 700 and 800 redevelopment? there were some plans recently but none since early this year?

Is it due to the redevelopment funding?

Considering that it's been an issue for well over a decade I'd say it has more to do with p***-poor prior planning and lack of political will to get something accomplished rather than laying it all at the feet of redevelopment.

[wburg]

Plans for the 700 block are proceeding and work should start by the end of the year. The front two-thirds of the block will be retained and cleaned up, with one or two of the buildings getting a new facade, all with retail uses and some upstairs apartments. The alley side will be a new apartment building with about 150 units at varying price points, attached to the back of the existing buildings with basement parking accessed via the alley. Funding was secured before the deadline for redevelopment activity so things are underway.

The 800 block did not secure funding, so that project, separate from the 700 block, will not be happening unless another funding source is identified. The developer for that block has been kind of distracted because they were also the developer selected for the recent arena project--but with that project basically dead, maybe they will look for other ways to execute this project, or at least part of it.

[abercrombiedudelosangeles]

Originally Posted by wburg

Plans for the 700 block are proceeding and work should start by the end of the year. The front two-thirds of the block will be retained and cleaned up, with one or two of the buildings getting a new facade, all with retail uses and some upstairs apartments. The alley side will be a new apartment building with about 150 units at varying price points, attached to the back of the existing buildings with basement parking accessed via the alley. Funding was secured before the deadline for redevelopment activity so things are underway.

The 800 block did not secure funding, so that project, separate from the 700 block, will not be happening unless another funding source is identified. The developer for that block has been kind of distracted because they were also the developer selected for the recent arena project--but with that project basically dead, maybe they will look for other ways to execute this project, or at least part of it.

Thanks for the info. I was hoping it that it would happen so there's some urban area to go to on the weekends and hopefully it will spur some developments at downtown plaza.
I'm contemplating accepting a job offer in Sac but i'm not liking the fact that I will prob have to go to suburbia (roseville) or bay area (kinda far) to go on weekends....

so it won't start until end of 2012 eh?? man, things sure move slow...

[wburg]

Why would you have to go to suburbia on the weekends? What kind of activities are you looking for?

I live in the central city, and generally don't leave on the weekends. There is a lot to do within the central city--maybe not compared to an Angeleno's idea of things to do, but if you mention stuff you're looking for, folks here may be able to point you in the right direction.

[abercrombiedudelosangeles]

Originally Posted by wburg

Why would you have to go to suburbia on the weekends? What kind of activities are you looking for?

I live in the central city, and generally don't leave on the weekends. There is a lot to do within the central city--maybe not compared to an Angeleno's idea of things to do, but if you mention stuff you're looking for, folks here may be able to point you in the right direction.

Nothing out of the ordinary really, we're a young family so we like going to outdoor malls (or the so-called "lifestyle center") like The Grove in LA/3rd street in santa monica, watch street performers while eating/shopping, go to museums/aquariums/beach/boardwalks...
Could you point us to similar things to do in Sac? prob not beach but similar family stuff to do...
Too bad arena and K street development stalled, was reading that they were trying to make it into something like 3rd street, with urban outfitters,anthropologie, american apparel, hipster crap ..
thanks a lot

[NewToCA]

Old Town Sacramento, Pacific Rim Street Festival on Sunday, May 20th, and the Music Festival on Memorial Day weekend are a lot of fun.


Old Sacramento - Offical Site of Old Sacramento! A great place for shopping, events, historic tours, dining, & activities!

http://www.pacificrimstreetfest.com/

http://www.sacjazz.com/

[wburg]

Old Sacramento has some attractions of that sort, including a boardwalk and street performers, and there is pretty much some kind of big festival seemingly every weekend. In terms of regular street performers, there aren't very many except on Second Saturday artwalk nights (I understand there is a similar sort of event in downtown Los Angeles) and occasionally on K Street, aside from during the aforementioned assorted festivals. For museums, the big local ones are the California State Railroad Museum, the Crocker Art Museum, the California Museum, the California Auto Museum, and the Sacramento History Museum, at least in downtown Sacramento--there is also an aerospace museum at the former McClellan Air Force base if your kids might like to look at jet planes. There's a new science museum going in north of downtown in an old powerplant, and the railroad museum is expanding into a bigger railroad technology museum, but both of those are a couple years down the road. There are water recreation options on the Sacramento River, Folsom Lake and Lake Natoma.

Nothing really on the order of the 3rd Street Promenade to be found, I suppose Roseville's Galleria is the closest thing--like Santa Monica, Roseville is basically our upscale suburb about 20 miles from the downtown core (which is funny, because it was total redneck central when I was a kid) but without an ocean, and the mall is a long way from Roseville's "downtown." Old Folsom has its charms too, but is also pretty small. There are a multitude of small and easily-missed local attractions in the region: little Gold Rush era mining towns in the Sierra foothills, the misty hamlets of the Wine Country, the funky charms of the Sacramento River Delta, and even the flat expanses of the northern Sacramento Valley has stuff that's good for a day trip, like the tractor and truck museum in Woodland.

The Sacramento metro area is about one-eighth the size of the Los Angeles metro area--even if you add the Sacramento and Bay Area metros together they add up to less than the LA metro area. But maybe you're less intimidated than most northern Californians by a two-hour drive, which will take you anywhere from the coast to San Francisco to the majestic mountains to the east.


Despite all the negative stuff that people throw around about it, there are some interesting things going on in the vicinity of K Street--not necessarily the indoor mall, but recently a lot of nightlife/dining options have popped up around the 1000 block--although that's not particularly family-oriented. The Crest Theatre still shows lots of independent and underground films, with an IMAX theater a couple blocks down the street, and there's a whole lot of darn fine coffee downtown. Reports that downtown Sacramento is a howling, vacant wilderness because of the failure of the arena deal are what I like to call "total swirling bullcrap."

[Curmudgeon]

Back in the dark ages, the early-90s, when I first lived downtown, there was never any lack of things to go, see and do and it was all within easy walking distance and always interesting if not entertaining. Short drive, all within easy reach of the city core provide even more. That held true through 2009 when we left the state. It's no LA or San Francisco but for us it didn't need to be and it is decidedly not a "howling, vacant wilderness" nor is it a cowtown. If people can adjust expectations from elsewhere reasonably it can be very satisfying. Things may move a bit slowly on the development front but they really do move, eventually.

[ryuns]

Originally Posted by wburg

Plans for the 700 block are proceeding and work should start by the end of the year. The front two-thirds of the block will be retained and cleaned up, with one or two of the buildings getting a new facade, all with retail uses and some upstairs apartments. The alley side will be a new apartment building with about 150 units at varying price points, attached to the back of the existing buildings with basement parking accessed via the alley. Funding was secured before the deadline for redevelopment activity so things are underway.

The 800 block did not secure funding, so that project, separate from the 700 block, will not be happening unless another funding source is identified. The developer for that block has been kind of distracted because they were also the developer selected for the recent arena project--but with that project basically dead, maybe they will look for other ways to execute this project, or at least part of it.

Good to hear that at least part of it is moving along. It seems we'll never shake this craptastic economy (and with a lot riding on public sector incomes and tax revenue, it takes longer here than elsewhere), but there's a lot of good stuff that *should* happen, *eventually*. K St, the Railyards, transit center, Curtis Park Railyard, Township 9, Powerhouse Science Center, West Sac waterfront (if I forget that Sac won't get any tax revenue from that!), expanding light rail, lots of new bike/pedestrian friendly upgrades, and, last but not least, new breweries (particularly excited for New Helvetia on 17th and Broadway). I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

I know wburg knows this, but in case others are interested: Local photographer Michael Zwahlen does a good job covering urban (re)development work, along with some pretty pictures. LivingInUrbanSac