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Friday, February 10, 2012
Street Interview
by Suzanne Hurt, published on July 15, 2009 at 8:24 PM
Storyline: Street Interviews
The Sacramento Press is about providing an outlet for everyone in the community. We hit the street recently to get people's opinions about downtown's K Street Mall, which was created in 1969 when vehicles were banned from 7th to 13th streets.
This week's question: Should vehicles be allowed back on K Street Mall?
Satapana Buthken, 23
California Air Resources Board Student Assistant
Graduate of California State University, Sacramento,
North Highlands
"I frequent K Street Mall a lot. I don't think it should be opened to vehicle traffic. That section with light rail and pedestrians only -- it feels nice. Just to be able to walk around with no car traffic. It feels like a little sanctuary."
Lanette Gardner, 29
Heald College Student
Sacramento
"They should. It'll make it easier for cars and tourists coming from outside Sacramento to find a parking space. They'd want to come down here. It just looks like a mess with all the construction. It looks like they just partly did it and left it there. I used to come down here when I was younger. But I just stopped. It doesn't look like downtown. I saw a picture of it from the late 1800s or early 1900s. It looked wonderful -- like Seattle. Now it just looks like they let it go."
Charlene Syravong, 44
State Worker
Sacramento County
"I don't think that's a good idea. It's not safe. Driving traffic might not be such a good idea for safety concerns for the general public -- everyone that uses the area. Before someone decides to open it, please do a study. By opening it to driving traffic, I'm not sure if it will bring in more business or drive business out. If you make it more attractive, that will bring in more foot traffic. I don't want to discourage anything. Just do it carefully."
Andre Algazi, 45
California Department of Toxic Substances Control
Tahoe Park
"I think it's a good idea. It's basically a wasteland between 7th, 8th and 9th. I've always thought Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica was successful and could be a model for our K Street Mall. Partly, it's just a different town with different demographics, but partly, the city (of Sacramento) doesn't let music performers play at random. On Third Street Promenade, the Red Elvises would play; it's this cool, Russian rockabilly band. There's just people doing entertaining things. Really, there needs to be a critical mass of people and activity (on K Street). Just opening it to traffic isn't going to be enough. It'll just be vehicles on a deserted street. People are going to have to invest."
Leticia Beltran, 45
Social Services Worker
North Sacramento Suburb
"I think whoever's planning the idea should try riding the light rail and walking around downtown -- in the daytime, so they can get a feel for the foot traffic and light rail. If you work down here and you're trying to get to the light rail, it's already busy."
Peter Cooper, 43
Green Job Researcher for Trade Unions
West Sacramento
"The city needs to take significant steps to make it pedestrian-friendly and bring foot traffic back. Obviously, the pedestrian zone hasn't worked. So opening up two blocks is a good first step in figuring out how to make downtown more livable. I hope they fix things because it's been an eyesore for so long."
We welcome your suggestions for future "Street Interview" questions. Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. She can be reached at suzanne@sacramentopress.com or 916-804-2856.
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(Edit: That 40,000 figure is JUST THE CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT, not Midtown or other nearby residential neighborhoods within the central city. There are another 10-20,000 in the rest of the city--far fewer than just downtown, because parking structures are a far more efficient use of space than on-street parking.)
The pedestrian plaza works whenever there are people on it--during the weekday, and any time the city holds a special event there. Mr. Algazi makes a GREAT point: legalize busking and street entertainment, either through a simple and cheap licensing program or just letting it happen, and you'll get an immediate bump in interest for K Street.
The pedestrian plaza isn't what made K Street an eyesore: it was building owners who have allowed their properties to decay with the eventual hope that someone would come along and knock over their historic buildings to build a skyscraper. As the city of Sacramento has become a property owner on K Street, they seem to follow this pattern precisely: of the city-owned blocks on K Street, one is totally vacant with no plans whatsoever, the other is scheduled for demolition--once they give it away, for free, to the same property owner they just paid $16 million to give them the land!
That, and the draconian treatment of anybody who does anything close to a "street performance" on that strip.
City needs to lighten up and start promoting open air booths and street markets in the area until the building owners come around. That, and quit arresting violinists and harmonica players for practicing in public.
You and I are on the same page here, once again. The K street pedestrian plaza project, either through willful abdication or oversight, has never been given a fighting chance.
During the weekday, this is a vital footpath for downtown workers. Yes, there is a different story to be told on the weekends. But, this is due in large part to many of the issues that you mentioned.
The continued failure to renovate or rebuild several of the dilapidated buildings on K street leaves tourists, suburbanites and local families with a sense of discomfort and concerns regarding safety. Why have no plans been developed to restore, rebuild or repurpose these buildings?
Certainly, there are many local businesses that would jump on the opportunity to play a part in revitalizing K street if lease terms provided lucrative incentives in this economic downturn.
Finally, I absolutely agree with you regarding the legalization of street entertainment. The presence of entertainers and street vendors is what give cities like Berkeley and San Francisco such a unique and colorful flavor. Their absence is notable on the K street strip and the result is a weekend wasteland.
The potential for Second Saturday weekend functions alone is a compelling reason to change the regulations that prevent vendors and entertainers.
There have been several plans to rebuild and rehabilitate stretches of K Street, specifically the 700/800 block, but they have been sabotaged by the interference of property owners who want anything BUT rebuilt and rehabilitated buildings. They figure that the more run-down and abandoned K Street is, the easier it is to knock down the buildings and build big towers. A lively, energetic K Street would be disaster in their eyes because it's hard to justify demolishing buildings full of active businesses. By deliberately letting buildings fall apart, they can chase out good tenants and create the case for "blight" by letting their properties decay. The city has rules regarding code enforcement, but they are never enforced, and even those code enforcement cases that do result in fines are either never collected on or the property owner can get them waived with a vague promise to follow through on repairs--even if those repairs are never performed. The city government is culpable in all this through its own inaction, unwillingness to insist on repairs and over-eagerness to forgive fines instead of insisting that landlords maintain their properties.
Because the city has laid off most of its code enforcement staff, they can't even keep up with their current workload, so dilapidated buildings will be allowed to deteriorate further...UNLESS K Street becomes more interesting and popular due to the actions of people OTHER than the city government or even the landlords of those buildings.
Fear not, with the new developments planned, K Street should soon be on the rise, with smaller projects following the larger projects and the density they will bring.
Since almost ALL of Sacramento's patio dining is directly on the street/sidewalk, exposed to traffic, noise and exhaust, a "K Street Promenade" would provide a new type of asset. Walking in Midtown and Downtown, tourists frequently stop me and ask where there is patio dining. They don't mean sitting on the sidewalk next to gutters and idling cars..
It would be a mistake for Sacramento to squander the opportunity to create such an attraction. Opening the street to cars or having generic businesses and a too-slick feel, would be to recreate what ANY city could do. That would wreck the historic ambiance and unique charm that the mall could develop into an attractive and uncommon destination.
It would appeal to locals and visitors. Folks visiting Old Sac could walk through the tunnel, through the Downtown Plaza, up the K Street Promenade, visit the Capitol and enjoy the whole day on foot or using the shuttle.
The SN&R "Third Saturdays" may help bring some vitality and visibility back to K St., the way the Thursday Night Market did, before it was shut down for being too successful.
Sacramentans need to let City leaders know that we value the historic character and charm of Midtown and Downtown. We value the old buildings that can be renovated for their intrinsic and aesthetic value. Rehab and reeuse of old buildings meets the City's goals of livability and sustainability. The K Street area is full of these old gems.
Given the history of K Street, if we're going back over old ground (literally), I suggest bringing back the maze of cement fountains and waterfalls and have the Mermaids swim in there.
Are we going to bring people to K St. so they can stare at a bunch of empty buildings? When I first moved here I had a strange experience on the K St. mall. When approaching on foot from far away the area looked impressive, but then when I walked up to the interesting buildings I found that they were vacant. Not just one or two, but it seemed like more than half of them were empty. It was like, oh neat what's that over there could be a sweet coffee shop or art gallery. Nope just another deserted building. People that visit from out of town and even a few comedians I've seen at the Punch Line have commented on and been turned off by the strangeness of all the empty buildings on K St.
And now the building that are filled are filled with crap. I mean aside from The Crest, Marilyn's, I guess Imax, The Blade, and now The Cosmopolitan, and I guess Esquire Grill, everything else is pure junk. I don't see how such an expensive proposal is justified to bring people to six places. Places they can reach easier the way it is now.
I have mix feelings about the benefits of returning cars to K Street but I am sure that it again will not be the magic bullet. It's time to start looking beyond K Street and focus on making the whole downtown area, including J and L streets and the streets between, more pedestrian and car friendly. Or give up and stop wasting millions on foolish solutions. The area just might rejuvenate itself like midtown without the misguided help of the city fathers.
Seriously, though, we really can't afford to ignore K Street, because it really still is the heart of town, just one that isn't pumping much lately. The problem for the past 50 years (it actually goes back a bit farther, to the demolition of the nearby residential neighborhoods in the 1950s--I-5 was late sixties/early seventies) has been the assumption that we can just demolish our way to prosperity: if we just knock down one more block, that will solve the problem. But it doesn't work. We need to stop demolishing and start looking at solutions that don't require buildings at all--social solutions like allowing vending and cycling and music, like requiring that landlords take better care of the buildings that are there, ensuring that they are maintained and tenanted.