New Shopping Area(s) (Fresno, Sacramento: low income, transplants, loans)

[NewToCA]

Our kids came up from LA for the holidays, and wanted to shop at the Galleria.

You wouldn't believe how crowded it was. Nothing like a bad economy there. It took us 20 minutes to find a spot to park. Inside, the stores were mobbed, and folks were buying like crazy.

The new area looks very nice, but many of the stores are not yet open.

We then went across the street to the new Fountains shopping center. The "dancing waters" were very entertaining, and the "mist" effect was very nice. However, the center wasn't doing nearly the business of the Galleria.

I find the Fountains layout a little awkward, with a few large stores seeming to be a bit isolated from the main walkway. It seems to be poorly integrated, and the large area open for traffic seems to take away a bit from the atmosphere. However, we appreciated the lit log fires with chairs surrounding the pit, very cozy on a chilly day.

[ubu]

I was out there myself. I definitely think that the economic center of gravity in this region is moving out to Roseville. That area has by far the best shopping in the region. You have this amazing collection of stores that you can't find anywhere else in the region all bunched up together out in Roseville. The Galleria after this expansion is done, will be the largest mall in the region, plus the Fountains, plus that power strip with the REI across the street.

Growing up, my aunt and uncle lived in Roseville and we would drive up from Fresno to visit them. When I was little Roseville reminded me of Rancho Cordova, it was basically a railroad town with a bunch of biker bars, and the area around the railroad road tracks was a little iffy. But Roseville has really changed, even the older sketchy parts have been fixed up.

As to the Fountains themselves, I liked the area. Much more so than the K Street Mall, the Fountains is probably the closest thing in this region to the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Its a walkable street with plenty of parking that is safe and clean. The stores were upscale and nice, if the K street mall was half as nice I would be thrilled.

There was a time when people who lived in Roseville needed to drive into Sacramento to have access to better stores and shopping. Now things have reversed, people in Sacramento are driving to Roseville for access to the better shops. Its quite a change.

[zen_klown]

It amazes me how much Roseville has been transformed. I was out at the Galleria a couple of weeks ago and I was suprized at how busy that area was before Thanksgiving. I was planning on going back fairly soon both because I assumed more stores will be opened and now I have a better idea of what my Christmas list is going to be.

I also like the Fountains. The Whole Earth Foods Market in the Fountains is much bigger than the one near Arden Park. I also thought they had a pretty interesting mix of stores. They had a very upscale home and garden store and several more stores that were a lot like Crate and Barrel or Renaisance Hardware.

[NewToCA]

My objection to The Fountains is the vehicle traffic right up the center of the main shopping area. They have the central fountain set up to "dance to music" and put on quite a bit of water type shows, then route all of the vehicles right around the perimeter of the fountain. You either have to stand right next to it, or view it between passing vehicles.

Also, some of the larger stores seem a bit far off the beaten path, not a natural walkway.

[zen_klown]

Modernly the trend is put the stores closer to the stores. If you look at Pavillions, the Town and Country Village or even what they did to the Birdcage Mall when the remodelled it, what they have been doing is putting more traffic and cars into the shopping districts. One of the cities better planning ideas on Del Paso Blvd was the addtion of more parking spots in front of the stores to boost foot traffic for the shops.

At night the effect of the car lights on the fog near the fountain was kind of pretty. I wish they had put the diagonal parking spots like they did on Del Paso Blvd in front of the shops in the Fountains. I think that would have slowed the traffic down making the place more pedestrian friendly.

I also suspect that there will be further additions to the Fountains. The area will grow the way the Town and Country Mall grew when it add the brewery and expanded into the area with the Savemart. There is space in that development and adjacent to it to do so and that region still continues to grow.

What is interesting about Roseville is that the best shopping in the region continues to get further away from downtown Sacramento. You now have a significant collection of stores from Tiffany's, to Crate and Barrel, to Renaisance Hardware that are found no where else in the region. If you lived in Roseville about the only thing that you can't find in Roseville that you can find closer to downtown Sac is the Ikea in West Sac. But if you live closer to Sac, there are now a lot more reasons than the Roseville Automall to buy stuff in Roseville.

Sacramento may still be more urban. But Roseville seems to becoming more urbane.

When the best shopping in the region is in Roseville, how is the City of Sac supposed to land a Fortune 500 company in Natomas? I just don't see it. If the region attracts a new Fortune 500 company I suspect it will end up in Roseville or Rocklin.

[NewToCA]

Originally Posted by zen_klown

What is interesting about Roseville is that the best shopping in the region continues to get further away from downtown Sacramento. You now have a significant collection of stores from Tiffany's, to Crate and Barrel, to Renaisance Hardware that are found no where else in the region. If you lived in Roseville about the only thing that you can't find in Roseville that you can find closer to downtown Sac is the Ikea in West Sac. But if you live closer to Sac, there are now a lot more reasons than the Roseville Automall to buy stuff in Roseville.

Sacramento may still be more urban. But Roseville seems to becoming more urbane.

When the best shopping in the region is in Roseville, how is the City of Sac supposed to land a Fortune 500 company in Natomas? I just don't see it. If the region attracts a new Fortune 500 company I suspect it will end up in Roseville or Rocklin.

I've seen this phenomena in other cities, and can tell you that it doesn't need to be a tradeoff between downtown and a concentrated suburb. If done correctly, there is room for both.

Bethesda and Rockville, in Maryland, and Tyson's Corner in Virginia evolved much the same in the 1975-1990 timeframe as Roseville is today. Both are about 15 miles from central Washington DC. The central core city developed a series of small boutique types of shopping and dining pockets, and rebounded very well. Same thing in Philly, where Cherry Hill, in New Jersey, and King of Prussia, in Pennsylvania also developed in the 1975-1990 period in a way that is similar to Roseville's current evolution. Philly came back with an aggressive South Street and Society Hill development plan, integrating housing with shopping and dining. It is very successful.

It isn't just happening in huge cities, Indianapolis had a substantial suburban retail and restaurant development cycle in the early 1980's, in an area called Fishers. Same as what happened in Philly and DC, and the city center came back very strong based around the Circle Centre Mall, ArtsGarden and surrounding developments (retail, restaurant and residential) around Meridian.

[zen_klown]

Originally Posted by NewToCA

I've seen this phenomena in other cities, and can tell you that it doesn't need to be a tradeoff between downtown and a concentrated suburb. If done correctly, there is room for both.

That is just the thing. I am not sure that it can be done correctly in Sacramento. The City of Sacramento has a mixed income ordinance that applies to new development within city limits. I believe the County of Sacramento and most of the cities in Sacramento County have adopted something similiar as well.

The thing is that Placer County starts out much wealthier. Even if every community in the region adopted mixed incomes from here on out, it would still just lock in Placer Counties wealth advantage.

If you compare the trading radius at a 3 mile, a 5 mile and 10 mile area.The galleria or the fountains is always going to do better than the various malls in Sacramento County. The areas around the Arden Fair Mall, Sunrise, Downtown and even the forthcoming Elk Grove Mall just don't have the same demographics. With the new mixed income ordinances, it will be difficult to grow yourself into better demographics.

As long as you have to have a mixed income ordinance, I really don't see the advantage for any community in permitting new growth. Its seems like you are just getting new traffic problems and over burdening your existing infrastructure. Has the addition of Natomas made the quality of life any better for the people who live in the region? Especially now that they are pulling cops from other areas of the city to patrol in that area?

My own feeling is that if the region isn't going to build nicer suburbs and isn't going to build new freeways to help get around, why not institute a moratorium on growth now to prevent traffic from getting worse?

If new growth in the future is going to look more like Natomas than Roseville. I pretty much favor stopping additional new growth right now.

This area has enough Rancho Cordovas. Why keep building new ones?

[NewToCA]

You have a good point about the mixed income ordinances, it certainly is a factor that can limit the per capita income around Sac County developments. Perhaps there are a couple of ways to compensate for this though. One idea could be to just go with a bit higher density, offsetting the lower income with a higher volume of folks per trade area. Another would be "creative" processes for meeting mixed income ordinances. Such an idea could be to allow a developer to build a lower % of units, say 5% in their development, and as compensation pay a fixed amount per unit built into a fund to be used for allowing low interest loans to renovate existing affordable housing.

But I agree, it needs to be factored into how to constructively develop a viable downtown core.

[wburg]

The problem is, where do the 40% of the population whose income falls into the "low-income" category (or lower) live?

[zen_klown]

In the existing stock of housing.

A lot of the growth in this area are transplants from other areas. The question is do you want to attract the wealthier transplants or the poorer ones? If you build a lot of low income housing, the poor people in the bay area who are priced out of the bay area will move here. That is basically what has been happening in Vallejo and Stockton. Those areas are growing, but a lot of it is from the poor residents of the East Bay moving to those locations. That is why they have so much warehousing and trucking in those areas. Because that is the type of work available to people with that level of education. Those folks also bring a lot of social problems with them. Both Stockton and Vallejo have major problems with gangs.

As you attract this group of poor people, the quality of your workforce limits the types of employers that your region can attract. Either Intel or HP could have moved to Stockton, but they moved to this area because they could find a better workforce in Folsom and Roseville.

As Roseville has transformed itself, it has made itself into a more attractive place. Employer's that might have otherwise ignored the valley completely have been willing to relocate to Roseville. The availibility of better jobs out in Placer county reduces the brain drain that this region used to suffer as the smart left for college and never returned.

If new growth isn't going to make your region better, why do it? For air quality reasons, this region can't really build much additional freeway capacity. Public transportation captures a minimal fraction of all trips in the region. Clearly new growth is overburdening the existing infrastructure. Why permit it if it isn't going to make the region better?

As I look at Natomas, it strikes me as another Rancho Cordova in the making. I feel the same way about Elk Grove. But this region has plenty of neighborhoods like that already, West Sac, Antelope, Foothill Farms, North Highlands etc. Why keep building more of the same?