Westfield Exiting Downtown Plaza (Finally !!) (Sacramento, Walnut Creek: buy, tenant, movie theater)

[shelato]

Originally Posted by ryuns

Right, which is why I said it wouldn't happen with Davis right here. Fresno still would have been a better idea than Merced if they'd have used as a catalyst for redevelopment of the downtown.

I do think not putting the University of California in Fresno was a mistake. It costs a lot of money to build out a UC campus. After educating students one of the prime economic benefits of a research university is to spin off ideas for new companies. If the Campus was in Fresno, those ideas for spin offs could have been used to start companies using the existing Fresno labor force. In Merced there will probably be ideas that come up for potentially successful companies from UC Merced but don't occur because the founders of the company can't find in Merced and are unable to attract to Merced a suitable labor force to make the start up idea happen.

[Curmudgeon]

Meanwhile, Downtown Plaza, SACRAMENTO???

[shelato]

If you are JMA partners and there isn't public money available to help fund a turnaround, why would unsolicited public imput matter in terms of what direction you decided to position Downtown Plaza? I can understand why they might want to do market research so that they manage to hear view points from a representative subset of the population, but why give any more than lip service to voices of the loudest local neighbors?

[wburg]

All we're doing here is armchair urban planning--I'm quite sure nobody here is copying this stuff and sending it to JMA with a note that says "Here are the instructions from the City-Data forum on what we should do with the plaza!" Although, considering JMA has no Sacramento experience, I figure they're going to do some sort of outreach and solicitation of public input for whatever they have planned, and would probably consider the advice of local residents useful. Plenty of developers do exactly that.

I also assume they will spend a lot of time looking at who comes there now, and have to applaud Mr. Ozo's comment about the level of activity already in the mall--and I assume that JMA is looking too, in terms of dollars and cents, what they're buying, and what they might want to buy. I don't go there too often, maybe once a month, and it usually seems kind of busy to me, but of course there is no activity at night because the mall itself is closed at night!

Nightlife is a popular answer these days--part of making a neighborhood more energetic is a variety of uses, some during the day and some at night, instead of a neighborhood that sits vacant 16 hours a day. Housing is another factor in making a place a nightlife district--a lot of those 18-30 year olds may want closer proximity to the clubs, as well as to workplaces, to facilitate getting to and from nightlife destinations. Many nightlife districts also have a strong residential component--Midtown is an obvious example where there are a lot of nightclubs but also a lot of residents close by, and a lot of the nearby residents are often employees or patrons of those local businesses. So, while Downtown Plaza has a lot of busy stores, it also has a lot of vacant spots--that could be converted to dining/nightlife use pretty easily, and promote more late-night activity inside the mall (whereas it currently closes at 9 PM or so.)

Nightlife might also be the only way to drag people under Interstate 5 from Old Sac--the idea of expanding Old Sacramento eastward is interesting, but it's hard to fit a 1960s freeway and a 1970s/90s mall into an 1860s historic district! How would you connect the Gold Rush/Transcontinental Railroad theme of Old Sacramento to the far more contemporary appearance of Downtown Plaza? It would make more sense for Old Sacramento to expand north into the Railyards (where the historic Shops buildings are) or south into the Docks, utilizing the Sacramento River as the tourist draw (since the buildings there were long since demolished.)

About the college idea: I don't think a new UC/CSU is necessary, or feasible. I was thinking more along the lines of a small private university--along the lines of University of the Pacific, which has a student body of 5000, small compared to UCD or CSUS but large enough to have a relatively self-contained faculty. It is an idea I have heard tossed around more than once by local politicians, and if Downtown Plaza isn't the place for it, maybe some other project, or some other vacated building, like the Hall of Justice or Downtown Post Office. And having a small college campus (with built-in student population) means an immediate group of customers for youth-oriented nightlife districts downtown, within walking distance of their dormitories!

[ryuns]

Originally Posted by shelato

I do think not putting the University of California in Fresno was a mistake. It costs a lot of money to build out a UC campus. After educating students one of the prime economic benefits of a research university is to spin off ideas for new companies. If the Campus was in Fresno, those ideas for spin offs could have been used to start companies using the existing Fresno labor force. In Merced there will probably be ideas that come up for potentially successful companies from UC Merced but don't occur because the founders of the company can't find in Merced and are unable to attract to Merced a suitable labor force to make the start up idea happen.

Great point I'd not considered.

[ryuns]

Originally Posted by wburg

All we're doing here is armchair urban planning--I'm quite sure nobody here is copying this stuff and sending it to JMA with a note that says "Here are the instructions from the City-Data forum on what we should do with the plaza!"

Has anyone considered doing this??

[NorCal Dude]

No point. It's just going to sit there and remain a blight.

[wburg]

In that case, NorCal Dude, why do you think JMA bought it?

ryuns: I know there are some local folks talking to them, and while they aren't necessarily delivering exactly this conversation, they are trying to give them an idea of what hasn't worked on K Street, and what has.

[ryuns]

Originally Posted by wburg

In that case, NorCal Dude, why do you think JMA bought it?

ryuns: I know there are some local folks talking to them, and while they aren't necessarily delivering exactly this conversation, they are trying to give them an idea of what hasn't worked on K Street, and what has.

Very good. I was having a bit of a joke, but there is a chance that they're the type of company who would be interested in an honest assessment from people who care about the future of the area. A rising tide raises all ships (or however that saying goes), so I'm sure everyone involved wants JMA to do something that will bring in more people and more people's money to the area.

[bluevelo]

Originally Posted by NinaN

San Antonio managed to take an ugly little grey river (creek) and turn into The Riverwalk lined with shops and restaurants/bars that attracts millions of visitors each year. SA certainly isn't bigger or nicer than Sac, so the possibility is here for us, but the city leaders or developers need a vision of something bigger than a mall. It can be done, but that doesn't make it easy.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...GMHviQKp1IHgBg

The Riverwalk is overrated. Been to San Antonio, and you get more than two blocks away from the Riverwalk and its even more blighted than a lot of K Street is. Its *bad*.

Downtowns are failing in most of America, and continuing to pour money into failure is stupid.