OK, now I'm really excited.

After the decision by the Sacramento City Council to choose the D&S Development and David Taylor Interests’ Promenade on K project for the 700 and 800 blocks of K Street, I feel good. Finally, there seems to be a plan in place for projects that will bring more life to K Street.

But I also want to celebrate the fact that there is already lots of life on K Street - and not just of the undesirable kind.

I live near K Street, and most nights, I can ride my bike down the street and see people walking from all manner of venues within the four blocks between Ninth and 13th streets: Marilyn's on K, the Crest, Cosmopolitan Cafe and Cabaret, Social, Ella, Cabana, the Esquire Imax and the Community Center Theatre all draw crowds. Throw in Parlare Euro Lounge and The Citizen Hotel and Grange restaurant, and you've got a number of folks out on the town.

Suburbanites with city fear may feel uncomfortable at times, but despite its name, the K Street Mall is not a mall. It's an urban street. And no matter how many establishments are on it, some won't feel safe. That's not the city's problem, really. The suburbs exist for a reason. The city's not for everyone.

But it is definitely for George Karpaty. The Bay area club developer's Dive Bar/Pizza Rock/District 30 trifecta on K between 10th and 11th is more than two-thirds done and will open this October. And it is going to be spectacular.

I use the word "spectacular" advisedly. Karpaty was up here Thursday to check out his crew's progress, and was generous enough to give Sacramento Press reporter Suzanne Hurt and me an hour-long tour of the construction. Suzanne goes into great detail elsewhere in today's Sacramento Press.

I'll let Suzanne give you the details, which are amazing, and instead focus on my overall impression.

Wow.

This project has been trash-talked since it was first announced. It's been denounced by naysayers and some competitors as corrupt (there was public money involved), and by others as the wrong development in the wrong place. And I have to admit that I had my doubts. Development in Sacramento, as everywhere, can be shady, and when city funds are involved, some people assume the worst.

One friend has even complained that it will bring the wrong kind of people - "bridge and tunnel" types - as though only those deemed "cool" are entitled to enjoy Sacramento. Early media reports made it sound cheesy and over-the-top, and the original name Frisky Rhythm for the over-30 bar got lots of mocking commentary. And like many, I'm not one to think that Sacramento (or anywhere else) needs another theme bar or pizza parlor.

But having seen it with my own eyes, and having spent an hour with Karpaty, my opinion has changed. Spectacularly.

This is going to be something else. If you don't like bars or pizza parlors, if you like things low-key and modest, if you like K Street the way it is, this is not going to appeal. But one hour's tour gave me ample evidence that Karpaty is doing it right. He speaks with great passion and much sophistication about design, lighting, materials, sound, different types of crowds, economics and urban design. He's a substantial guy.

And the retrofitting of these old buildings - to accommodate a 7,500-gallon saltwater aquarium and so much electricity that an entire SMUD mini-substation is being built under the street in front - is nothing short of dazzling. Karpaty aims to serve a wide audience, and when it is all done - wait until you see the building facade, let alone inside - people are going to come from many miles around to check it out.

As I said, spectacular. As in, a spectacle.

But more deeply, what I came away feeling after this hour with Karpaty is a deep sense of inspiration and possibility. If Karpaty, who owns six clubs in the Bay area and knows his business, is going to invest so much in our town - a town not his own - why can't we?

We as individuals don't have to invest huge amounts of money, but what we DO need to do, IMHO, is get behind the people who are doing the work, taking the risks and spending their time on making K Street even more worth visiting. It's important to be critical and look at the details, and to be skeptical as well. But we also need to embrace change and take chances - yes, even with public money - and we need to have some faith that businessmen who are trying to make things happen, who are spending their lives creating jobs and bring life to areas that have been neglected, are not, as Karpaty says, "the bad guys."

Karpaty is about to open a group of venues that are going to take us a couple of big steps closer to creating a place where people will come from many miles around to walk, drink, eat, talk and celebrate the urban life. And I just don't see, as a citizen, as a tax payer and as a neighbor, how that is going to be anything but a good thing. And even if I find out that I am dead wrong, I am happy to take that chance.

So, I invite everyone to join me as I sit back and savor this moment: Not only can it happen here, it is happening here. Just wait till you see it.