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Friday, February 10, 2012
Dialogue: K St. Mall
by Suzanne Hurt, published on October 1, 2009 at 9:16 PM
Storyline: K Street Mall
Locals with dismal views of K Street Mall might take heart in the optimistic views shared during a Wednesday night panel.
Sacramento may not be a hard urban center like Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston or New York. But the answer to the problems plaguing K Street, from closed streets and empty storefronts to a struggling shopping mall and safety concerns, is not to try to replicate what large cities or the suburbs offer. Emphasizing Sacramento's distinct character is critical to revitalizing K Street and downtown, they said.
"This community has a soft-shoe quality. It's very unique, very friendly, very green," said Ken Kay, an urban designer who runs KenKay Associates in San Francisco. "The authenticity of this place is really the soul of what people want."
He was among the panelists who took part in September's Design Dialogue, "K Street: A Postcard into the Future" at the Crest Theatre, 1013 K St. At least 100 city residents, design professionals, developers, government employees, retailers and others turned out for the event sponsored by the Urban Design Alliance of Sacramento and Downtown Sacramento Partnership. The nearly two-hour question-and-answer session was moderated by Bob Chase, Sacramento County's chief building official.
Opening up K Street and improving links to the riverfront, Old Sacramento and the city's distinct neighborhoods are the hands that can administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation to the heart of downtown Sacramento, according to panelists discussing the future of K Street Wednesday night.
Ideas that were discussed include eliminating or reconfiguring Westfield Downtown Plaza; allowing cars and bikes back on the currently closed section of K Street; adding colorful old trolleys, creative lighting and more public art; ensuring the central city has good schools; and offering more culture and unique activities such as interactive venues that focus on art or technology.
Downtown needs to capitalize on its two major open spaces: the riverfront and Capitol Mall, Kay said. K Street's "flow" to the river and Old Sacramento, as well as the connectivity between other streets and neighborhoods, needs to be improved. That way, people can easily travel between the heart of K Street and the river, and from downtown to Sacramento's neighborhoods, which are "some of the best traditional neighborhoods in all of Northern California," he said.
"You have a pretty established street on K Street with a huge natural amenity — the river — at the end. You should monopolize on that," he said.
Downtown Plaza interrupts that flow, especially at night when it's closed. An indoor shopping mall like that is "outdated," Kay said.
The Downtown Plaza can't be considered successful, said Midge McCauley, a retail consultant with Downtown Works of Washington, D.C., who's currently preparing a study of K Street Mall for the Downtown Sacramento Partnership and the city.
Cities across the country developed indoor shopping malls after those sprouted up in the suburbs. But now those suburban malls are trying to capture the feel of a city by going after a "faux urban" experience, McCauley said.
"Here's the good news: You've got the real thing," she said. "We just have to repopulate it with retailers. But that starts with local and regional retailers. National retailers are not pioneers. They're not going to be the first in."
However, the mix of retailers and the other businesses, activities and amenities must be unique to K Street, rather than copying the suburbs, which has been proven not to work, she added.
The city is working on returning cars — and bikes — to K Street Mall as "one tool" to help bring more potential shoppers to the mall, said John Long, a transportation engineer with DKS Associates of Sacramento.
City planners believe opening two blocks as a pilot project could be done more quickly and at lower cost than other improvements that are being considered to bring retailers back. Businesses want customers to be able to drive by to check out their stores and to be able to drop people off right in front, he said.
In addition, people who are concerned about safety issues on K Street Mall need to be able to drive there first. Allowing cars is seen as the way to get people to K Street who aren't going now — suburbanites who don't work downtown, Long said.
The panelists acknowledged downtown was successful when enough people lived there and that downtown residents are another key to restoring vibrancy. However, Sacramento is "light years" away from having enough downtown residents to "radiate success" there again, McCauley said.
"Any major city, it's still based on the retail culture, as well as the other urban amenities a downtown has to offer," she said.
Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.
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I am unimpressed by the assertion that we need chain retail stores downtown to bring people back. It was clearly acknowledged that trying to simulate suburban malls didn't work; why would trying to simulate new suburban malls (the ones that try to look like downtowns, with cars in the middle) work any better? It won't create parking lots (which make "lifestyle center" suburban shopping centers possible) and it won't make downtown closer to exoburbs and suburbs than the central city. People come from the suburbs to downtown and midtown for features that they CAN'T find in the suburbs: urban culture, entertainment, and one-of-a-kind shops. That means features like live entertainment (music, theater, comedy clubs) and unique retail establishments, primarily LOCALLY OWNED ones. That means provision for more street life in the form of street music (repeal the laws against public music performance!) and street vending (repeal the taco truck law!) and alternative transportation (repeal the K Street ban on bike riding and skateboarding!) These things already work well to draw out foot traffic on Second Saturday and Third Saturday--why not have them available all week long? You shouldn't have to look at a calendar to find something interesting downtown. Now, this sort of amenity doesn't necessarily attract every suburban dweller. But it does attract those interested in cities, both for visiting and potential residents. The ones who won't go downtown because it isn't as sanitized, homogenized and familiar as the suburbs won't be impressed no matter what we do. Let them stay in the suburbs.
One speaker pointed out that in the current market, finding department stores and other chain retailers is going to be very difficult, as they are very conservative organizations--even bribing them to come in is unlikely to work. But local businesspeople are more flexible, and perhaps more willing to take a risk. That means lots of small projects, not a giant cure-all.
Reopening short stretches of K Street to automobiles won't help because those stretches will be useless except for trolling in front of stores. There will not be places to park, nor will those stretches be connected directly to feeder streets. Because there will be only one lane of traffic in either direction with no parking, anyone dropping someone off will block traffic, making those lanes an immediate headache.
I agreed with the speaker who called for a return of streetcars to K Street. They are a more human-scale vehicle than light rail vehicles, would require NO infrastructure improvements, and could move passengers conveniently through downtown and the edge of midtown. By adding more streetcar lines into Midtown, West Sacramento and beyond, they could tie in outlying neighborhoods--connecting more people directly to downtown, without the need for cars or streets. While historic streetcars are cute, their supply is very limited, and modern streetcars (of similar size and scale to historic models) have features like low-floor entry (ADA compatible without ramps at stations) and air conditioning (nice in our climate!)
Finally, housing was de-emphasized based on the idea that you couldn't get enough people living downtown to make a difference. I don't agree with this. According to surveys conducted by the Midtown Business Association, about half of the patrons of central city businesses are central city residents. That means 50% come from the 30,000 people who live in downtown/midtown, and 50% from the other 2.5 million people in the Sacramento metropolitan area. Think about that--50% of their business comes from 1% of the region's population! This implies that people who live downtown just plain go out more!
The housing crunch has slowed things, but there is still new housing being built in the central city, and it commands (and still receives) a higher price point than suburban housing of comparable size. This implies a massive unmet demand, not just for urban amenities but urban living. And even if the population of downtown goes up greatly, we're certainly not going to wall things off and prevent suburban visitors from coming in to enjoy shopping, dining, culture and entertainment.
I missed the first hour of the presentation so maybe I missed something that made more sense, but most of what I heard just led me to conclude that they want us to get rid of the 1960s suburban mall and replace it with a 2009 suburban mall--and two-lane "browser" roads on K Street would magically attract retailers that avoid us like the plague, and thus suburban residents who avoid us like the plague. I was unconvinced.
But the developers who own this City and the Council get much better returns on commercial investment than residential. This is why we have a City Council, to direct the developers towards residential development. But they will never bite the hands that feed them. Residential development, will also spur the free market to build the commercial market.
The problem is that the Council is working frantically to remove the "less desirable" out of K Street, out of sight out of mind. They are uninterested in building residential downtown because they would have to build income restricted units. Neither the developers nor the Council want inclusionary housing downtown.
I lived in Berkeley for a time; I loved the mix of people, music and the vibrant street life on Telegraph. Most of the businesses were locally owned. While Sacramento is radically different than Berkeley, we must get rid of light rail on K Street completely, people with money do not ride light rail, and it blocks the street; close off the street, open it up to artists, random street vendors and a daily farmers/flower market. This would draw people to K Street like flies.
This will never happen; the developers and leaders of Sacramento want an "upscale" feel to downtown. Well, I'm sorry to break the news to everyone, Sacramento and K Street will never be upscale. People with real money simply do not live in Sacramento unless they have to, and the very few that do, do not shop locally. People with real money do not come to Sacramento on vacation or to shop; (Bay Area people with money NEVER discuss coming to Sacramento unless they absolutely have to) we need to accept this fact and market downtown to the right audience; those that live downtown; those that are forced to come here to do business; the random tourists that drive through to get to San Francisco or Tahoe, and lastly those that come to the area to visit friends or relatives and need something to do.
Sacramento will never be a destination city outside of the Central Valley. Once we get over trying to make it into something it will never be, we can get on to creating a downtown that will serve the natural audience, only then will it ever be successful.
Developers don't have to do low-income housing for infill projects in the central city, unless they want to get a subsidy for doing so, like tax credits etcetera. But the central city already has more affordable housing than any other neighborhood: around 17% of central city housing is considered "affordable" by county standards. Natomas, the next highest contender, approaches 15%. A citywide 15% affordable housing ordinance would result in a gradual long-term drop in affordable units as a percentage (although they would grow in number) over time.
Sacramento does draw visitors on its own, about 1.2 million a month according to the Convention & Visitors' Bureau, primarily because of our historic sites. Admittedly, very few are going to Natomas--mostly to downtown, midtown, Old Sacramento, the American River, and Cal Expo. While Sacramento used to be barely a blot on Bay Area residents' radar, and the real snobs still barely acknowledge us, I do hear a lot of Bay Area people asking questions about life here, advice about things to do when they come to visit, etcetera. Bay Area residents who can no longer afford a vacation in Europe are now looking for places to visit closer to home--and hey, it's only a 2-hour drive to Sacramento! But...you are right in that Sacramento should not ignore its residents, especially the people who already like it here, in favor of drawing "urban pioneers."
Lots of people use public transit, including working people, the middle class and relatively well off, just as they do in Berkeley (BART runs right through downtown Berkeley, and they use to have Key System trains on the surface too!)
Where you are right: Getting rid of low-income housing around K Street is foolish, because it means the residents, with no affordable alternatives, become homeless. There are only about 500-600 SRO rooms on K Street, they are only noticeable because there is so little housing for income demographics other than very low income. Among thousands of units of mid-range, luxury and workforce housing, they'd vanish in the mix--becoming just another part of the city population, not its only feature.
You're right that bringing daily artists, vendors, and an EVERY DAY farmer's market (not just at lunchtime a couple days a week) to K Street would become a regular amenity, but it probably wouldn't require any big contractors to BUILD anything on K Street, and is thus less appealing. And yes, since the building trades industry and development community is very influential on the City Council, they want to see things like high-rises and yet another resurfacing project, because that means contracts for them. Cheap, easy solutions (at least compared to skyscrapers and huge public works projects) could be highly effective but don't bring those contracts. Fixing up old buildings is cheaper than building new skyscrapers, but that has little appeal for greenfield developers like ours who prefer to work with a blank slate, even if it means knocking down our inconvenient historic fabric to do so.
You're half right about Light Rail. Reroute the Light Rail blue line onto 7th/8th (the Gold Line already is) and run streetcars (modern or historic) that are far smaller, human scaled and convenient for getting around a neighborhood (instead of for zipping out to Rancho Cordova) on K Street and through the central city. The best part is that the infrastructure (rails and overhead wire) is already there, making this a cheap project (other than a reroute of the Blue Line on North B or Richards.) That is actually how K Street worked until 1940: big interurban trains that ran from Oakland, Chico and Stockton stopped at 8th & K Street, and every streetcar line in the city either ran along K Street, crossed K Street or ran on J Street a block away.
You are right in that shooting for the "upscale" only market is foolish. Some city planners and developers are still stuck in the mentality that the central city is a part of town where nobody (or at least nobody worth mentioning) would want to live, so putting residential units there is foolish. This was the model that fed sprawl for more than a century, but the model is breaking down. People want to live in the city, of all income levels. That's why housing here is so expensive!
K Street isn't an island, but we treat it like one. The problem is interconnection with the rest of the city, which is why people who can't get away from their cars think that reintroducing cars will work. It didn't work in the 1950s or 1960s, when K Street had car traffic but the stores were in steep decline, and there is little reason that they will turn around by their return.
Absolutlely. The people who choose to live in Sacramento & who love living here are always swept under the rug in favor of some mythical new, exciting target audience. The thing that gives a city it's personality are it's people. Businesses that reflect the people help illuminate & further define what those people want & like and eventually a city personality emerges.
In the last 20 years Sacramento has thrown so many bad ideas against the wall to see if they would stick (they haven't) - all the while ignoring (or worse, being embarassed of) the very down to earth type of person that chooses to live in Sacramento. My friends from the bay area love Sacramento for the laid back qualities that they're missing in the bay area. Not for the trying-too-hard wannabe upscale crap the we've been failing at forever now.
"People with real money simply do not live in Sacramento unless they have to, and the very few that do, do not shop locally. People with real money do not come to Sacramento on vacation or to shop; (Bay Area people with money NEVER discuss coming to Sacramento unless they absolutely have to) we need to accept this fact and market downtown to the right audience; those that live downtown; those that are forced to come here to do business; the random tourists that drive through to get to San Francisco or Tahoe, and lastly those that come to the area to visit friends or relatives and need something to do."
With crime, homelessness, urban filth and parking headaches, that is not going to change. Planning should be conducted with Knapp's take in the No. 1 position. Make it better for those who already live downtown. The rest of us (and many of us are former downtown residents) aren't going near the place until it's cleaned up.
Some people will never want to live in a part of town that is economically integrated, that isn't gated and controlled and as sterile as possible. There are two wonderful places for them: the suburbs and the shopping mall. But plenty of people who live in the suburbs visit downtown Saramento, just as plenty of people who live in the suburbs of the Bay Area visit San Francisco and people who live in Chicagoland visit Chicago.
And it's not that "some people will never want to live in a part of town that is economically integrated, yada, yada..." It's that MOST people don't want to live in downtown Sacramento the way it is. It needs a power-washing and new, modern development. K Street Mall is downright filthy.
And yes, it is supply and demand--more people want to live here than there are available homes, even though nearly all of those homes are a fraction of the size of modern McMansions.
K Street gets power-washed on a regular basis: there is a whole team of red-shirted "Fight the Funk" teams who regularly power-wash the alleys. The problem is that the property owners who refuse to fix anything because they are waiting for the skyscraper fairy don't want to spend a penny to fix up properties they just want to demolish anyhow. Power washing doesn't repaint a facade, or repair damage to buildings from years of neglect. The city isn't responsible for that, although they certainly should enforce existing city codes and start slapping property owners who don't maintain their properties with some nice big fines. Maybe that would help.
dale: Exactly. They depend on consultants, like the folks on the panel at this event, to tell them what people want in an urban area, instead of asking people like us, who actually know--because we might tell them things they don't want to hear.
Get a critical mass of residents as a on hand customer base and business will be fighting to occupy any retail space... no artifices required!!
There is also an assumption that downtown Sacramento begins and ends within a block of K Street--it doesn't! The idea is to make it a part of the greater central city again, not to wall it off from the rest of the immediate neighborhood. Thousands of new residents of the Railyards, Docks and R Street developments (hopefully) can join the 30,000 or so people who already live in the central city, along with the rest of the 2.5 million residents of the region, should all have an easy way to K Street...although it will never be easy to get cars in there.