A concept to develop a restaurant row that spills out onto a Midtown Sacramento alley has frozen in its tracks.

Not someone who gives up easily, developer Aaron Zeff took a step toward the alley's future use by launching a new Saturday morning event, the Midtown Bazaar, last weekend.

Zeff has been talking with city officials and prospective restaurant owners about creating an upscale culinary corridor on a Midtown alley near Memorial Auditorium. But that plan — one of three pilot alley projects announced last August — is not moving forward because financing and tenants are not yet available, Zeff said.

"Restaurant row is on a holding pattern, like most other retail businesses," he said.

Zeff owns several properties on the block containing the alley, which sits across from Memorial Auditorium. The alley is located between I and J streets from 16th to 17th streets. He wants to turn two big, old buildings he owns into mixed-use retail and office developments with alley-facing restaurants operating sidewalk cafes, similar to Belden Place in San Francisco's Financial District.

Restaurant owners in the Bay Area and Sacramento have been intrigued by Zeff's plan. But they are not able to get financing right now, and Zeff, as the landlord, has had trouble arranging loans for the level of tenant improvements they would like to get.

"Tenants in San Francisco's Belden Place have all indicated interest, but they're having a difficult go themselves," Zeff said. "So the last thing they're going to do is expand to a secondary market."

Last summer, Zeff applied for a permit to close or temporarily encroach on the alley for sidewalk cafe use. City officials denied the request. But in the meantime, they asked Zeff to organize one or two special events to get a better idea of the kind of impact alley closure would have in the area.

With help from orgainzer Sabrina Berhane, he decided to start a new weekly Saturday morning public market on his parking lot at 16th and J streets and one of his two buildings across the alley.

"We're doing interim use. It's a much smaller, less capital-intensive aspect of the big picture," he said. "But it's still activating an underutilized asset in the central city."

Last Saturday, an estimated 1,000 people and 75 vendors turned out for the first Midtown Bazaar, said Berhane, who has a background in marketing and special events for Enotria Cafe and Wine Bar and a local union.

Bistro tables will be set out on the alley for the public market this Saturday from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. after Zeff got a one-time special event permit to close the alley, he said. That could not be confirmed with the city. Vendors have been lined up to sell hot dogs, carnitas and salsa, organic coffee and cotton candy.

The Sacramento City Council has to approve permanent alley closures. In addition, the city code does not currently have a provision allowing alley closure for private use or anything other than the prevention of crime or a public nuisance.

While council members said publicly they supported the restaurant row idea, they were not willing to approve an ongoing alley closure or consider revising city statutes to allow such a closure without information about tenants and potential impacts on traffic circulation, neighboring businesses and residents, city Senior Planner Stacia Cosgrove said.

"Either way, we agreed there needed to be public discussion in a public forum," she said.

Photo of Midtown Bazaar by Steven Michael Millington. Other photos by Suzanne Hurt, a staff reporter covering business and development for The Sacramento Press.