Christopher Cabaldon is at the helm of an evolving city. The West Sacramento mayor said the city should be a place where families can raise children, but also a spot where young people want to be.

City leaders are taking a positive view of developing West Sacramento, he said.

“We’re not one of those cities that has a no-growth faction on the City Council and a growth faction,” Cabaldon said. “Everyone believes that there’s a lot of potential. The shape and pace of growth is always a question everywhere, and that’s true in West Sacramento as well.”

In one major example of West Sacramento’s growth, the City Council in February approved a 386-unit housing project that will be located in the city’s Bridge District at the riverfront.

The housing project is part of West Sacramento's plan to eventually bring housing and commercial development to 188 acres that make up the Bridge District. The development project could span 12 million square feet, a city staff report said.

Cabaldon, 44, is a single and openly gay leader who said he enjoys urban nightlife. As someone who is not married with children, his perspective is useful because the city and region are trying to attract creative people and young people, he said in a March 24 interview.

He credits recent Sacramento growth for paving the way in West Sacramento.

“Sacramento has changed dramatically, particularly in Midtown, and to some extent in downtown, over the last decade," Cabaldon said.

The Sacramento growth in the central city means that West Sacramento's Waterfront and West Capitol Avenue have potential, he said. "Because it's already been proven that this region can support and make successful that kind of development," he said.

Cabaldon said West Sacramento wants to make major upgrades to its downtown.

The city’s downtown is ripe for development, according to Cabaldon, because it “never really existed.”

Cabaldon said he wants the city’s future downtown to be walkable — a place where people can buy flowers and bump into people they know.

“We want to grow and create a real urban, but small-town downtown,” he said.

At the same time, the city is focusing on practical development projects, such as levee upgrades , said West Sacramento City Councilman Oscar Villegas.

The city is working on strengthening its levees to meet federal 200-year flood protection standards, Villegas said. The levee work is useful in the city’s efforts to bring in businesses, homebuilders and commerce, he said.

West Sacramento will have a competitive advantage when it can tell companies that may move to the city that the levees are secured, Villegas said.

Meanwhile, the city also wants to make subtle upgrades in its historic Bryte and Broderick neighborhoods, Cabaldon said.

“In the Bridge District, I’m trying to get ... $100 million for infrastructure,” Cabaldon said. “In Broderick, it’s just as important to find somebody to open up a cool, independent coffee house with some couches that local neighbors can sit around and gossip with each other at. There aren’t that many places like that.”

Image of developer Mark Friedman's planned 386-unit West Sacramento housing development courtesy of Friedman and the Fulcrum Property Group.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.