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Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Design competition to shape Capitol Mall
by Brandon Darnell, published on May 30, 2011 at 1:12 PM
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The city of Sacramento is looking for a few good designers, urban planners, architects and artists to submit their ideas to revamp Capitol Mall, between Tower Bridge and Ninth Street. The juried competition is expected to draw international attention.
“Since the state turned Capitol Mall over to the city five years ago, there’s a growing impetus to do something with that space and get it activated,” said Chris Barkley of the American Institute of Architects Central Valley Chapter, the competition adviser to the city.
Stakeholders in the area have been meeting over the past five years and decided to put out a call for ideas to make Capitol Mall the significant street it once was, according to a brief* on the project.
According to the brief, Capitol Mall was the gateway to Sacramento from 1911 until the freeways arrived in the 1960s, and it then became crowded with office buildings that lack good access to common areas.
The purpose of the competition is to gather ideas on what can be done with the space, and participants are urged to be creative. Barkley said some lanes of traffic can be eliminated, creating either broader sidewalks for boulevarding or larger medians where public art or a memorial could be installed – or any number of other ideas.
“We’re looking for some really big ideas the community can get behind,” he said. “Funds are really tight right now, but if we have a good idea of what we want moving forward, then we can seek ways to fund it.”
The competition is expected to be approved at a City Council meeting in early July. After that, it will be announced to the international design community so it won’t be limited to locals.
One of the key factors many designers look at before entering a competition like this, according to Barkley, is who makes up the jury panel for judging it.
“We’re going to have a jury of nationally and internationally known design professionals,” he said. “We’re currently putting together a list of names. Submittees generally make their decisions about whether they will submit based on who will be reviewing the work.”
When the competition is opened for submissions, resources such as architectural drawings and restrictions – including the need to keep a visible corridor to the Capitol – will be posted online as references for people who wish to submit.
Barkley said links to the design competition will be posted to the city’s website as well as the AIA Central Valley Chapter website.
People with ideas will have about a month and a half to submit them, after which there will likely be a gala reception in September, Barkley said.
Ron Vrilakas, principal architect at Vrilakas Architects in Midtown, said it’s an interesting project that would be hard for any Sacramento architects or designers to look at without considering the possibilities.
“I do think (Capitol Mall) is ripe for some in terms of its urban design qualities,” he said. “In general terms, I think what is lacking on Capitol Mall is people. We need a reason for people to be there other than if they are just passing in a vehicle.”
Vrilakas said that will be the biggest problem to overcome, but also a key part of any successful project.
“It’s not an easy thing, but it’s probably the single biggest thing it needs. It’s not necessarily just about art objects,” he added.
Referencing the east side of the Capitol, Vrilakas mentioned an earlier attempt at a similar concept in the early 2000s from 15th Street to 17th Street.
“They had a fresh shot at how to make it a meaningful experience as part of the fabric of the city’s core,” he said. “They put art in a grassy area and failed miserably to do anything meaningful. It’s a lot harder than someone would think.”
An example of success, he said, is San Francisco’s Embarcadero in front of the Ferry Building.
Before the redesign, he said there was an elevated freeway and the Ferry Building was just a shell. Today, however, it is a destination for tourists and locals alike.
“It was thought out in a very complex manner and brought people in through a lot of different ways,” Vrilakas said. “It was not any one thing – you have a lot of reasons to go down there.”
Local businessman Chris Nestor, who owns House Kitchen & Bar at 555 Capitol Mall as well as Ink Eats & Drinks, 2730 N St., said he would love to see more foot traffic and reasons to visit Capitol Mall.
“There’s such an incredible view. It’s a shame it’s underutilized,” he said. “Once everyone leaves the buildings (for work), there’s nothing down there to draw anyone.”
He added that he would like to see more events such as parades, a New Year’s ball drop and Christmas lighting on the street, as well as making use of the central median.
“I’ve suggested some large artwork, unique benches – things like that,” he said. “I also think we need more family events – anything to get people down there to walk that corridor. It’s kind of a waste of median space out there, and more people would definitely be conducive to our business.”
*Editor’s note: Formatting irregularities in the brief linked here are due to file conversion. They are not present in the original document from officials.
Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.
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"Barkley said some lanes of traffic can be eliminated, creating either broader sidewalks for boulevarding or larger medians where public art or a memorial could be installed – or any number of other ideas."
Oh good lord. Four lanes are proper for that road. And there already *is* a large median in the center.
Any particulars above are just off-the-cuff examples.
I'm all for bringing smart people from around the globe into a competition to look at low cost solutions for activating areas of our city. We ought to do this more often.
In 1935 the Tower Bridge replaced the M Street span, but the street was still M Street--it still carried electric trains (with associated trolley wires), by then a combined system called the Sacramento Northern, down M to 8th Street, where trains turned north to K Street, which was Sacramento's real main street at the time. I think the switch to "Capitol Avenue" came in about 1939, during the big California centennial celebrations--a lot of places had name changes that year. In 1941, the passenger trains on the Sacramento Northern stopped running over the bridge, but it was still used for freight, under electric power until 1953 and diesel until about 1962.
With the coming of the Second World War, the Japanese population of Sacramento was sent to internment camps, and African Americans came to the neighborhood, renting or buying properties from the Japanese. They joined Sacramento's already existing African American community near the waterfront. They started businesses, everything from stores to hotels to mortuaries, but the best known were the many jazz clubs. Capitol Avenue also carried Highway 40 through the center of the city, and some of the old brick residential buildings on Capitol were demolished to build gas stations for the cars.
Sacramentans wanted to replace Japantown with some kind of grand gateway as early as about 1910, but didn't have the funds to do it. After World War II, new federal redevelopment acts provided two-thirds of acquisition costs to purchase land declared "blighted" by the city. Sacramento declared the entire West End "blighted" and started a massive demolition program. The office buildings along Capitol, as well as the wide, grassy street median, were a product of this era, along with projects like Capitol Towers (built on top of the old Shiloh Baptist Church) and the state office buildings along O Street (on top of the old Mexican barrio.) The entire population of the neighborhood was shifted to other parts of town--the Mexicans to Alkali Flat, the Japanese and Chinese to Southside, the African-Americans to Oak Park and Del Paso Heights. Some garden apartments were built, but the resulting neighborhood was only a quarter as dense as the old West End. Mid-century downtowns were designed to empty completely at night. The new freeways allowed the people who worked in those buildings to live far away in Sacramento's suburbs--and Interstate 5 helped demolish the little bit of the West End that escaped the wrecking ball during Capitol Mall's construction.
It's a real shame that government leaders didn't have the foresight in the 60's to realize that the placement of I-5 along the riverfront kills the publics ability to enjoy it properly.
If anything, Sacramentans and visiting tourists have a lot more access to the Sacramento River than they did prior to the construction of Interstate 5. Old Sacramento, the Miller Park marina, Matsui Park and the Riverwalk promenade on the Sacramento side, and the West Sacramento riverfront trail, provide far more recreational river access than at any other point in either city's history. Until the late 1960s, what is now Old Sacramento (plus the chunk now under I-5) was known as the "Labor Market" area, where thousands of migrant workers lived in rooming houses and hotels in between seasonal jobs at big regional farms, city canneries, or railroads. It was also the home of Sacramento's homeless shelters and other social services that have since moved north of the B Street levee.
Do you think the national strategic nature of the freeways played into their designs? Or do you think it was just shortsightedness? I know Eisenhower played a huge part in the interstate system, modeled on the Autobahn he saw in Germany in World War II. A lot (most? all?) of our defense projects are unsustainable, but I haven't really delved into the interstate system's decision process.
I would imagine that many factors were at play when the lines for where I-5 would lay were drawn. I’m would bet that many of those factors were logistical, some were probably political, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a few weren’t the result of ineptitude. I know I have a book at home that goes into this further… and of course the Sacramento Room at the Main Library has a ton of information about the construction of the highway system. But then again I’d take Mr. Burg’s word for it any day of the week.
There were several scenarios for the route of I-5: across the river in West Sacramento, directly along the waterfront through what is now Old Sacramento, and between 2nd and 3rd Street. The ending plan was a "compromise" that took into account Macy's desire for an off-ramp near their new K Street location and Eleanor McClatchy's desire to save at least part of the West End to turn into "Old Sacramento." The resulting destruction of the heart of the old Portuguese neighborhood on 3rd Street was not part of the compromise. Typically, just about every downtown highway project (and monumental redevelopment project) in American cities sits on top of an old ethnic (non-white) neighborhood--Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, the St. Louis Arch, Japantown Mall in San Francisco, and Capitol Mall in Sacramento are just a few examples.
It wasn't really I-5, though, that made Capitol Mall as the grand entrance to Sacramento redundant--it was Highway 50. That was the project that took east-west traffic off the old Highway 40 route over the Tower Bridge, subject as it was to blockage by the Tower Bridge having to raise and local freight moves on Front Street, not to mention having to drive through downtown Sacramento when driving from San Francisco to Tahoe or vice versa.
There seems to be a tilt to the table in California when every no talent design hack and greedy developer looking for a state handout ends up in Sacramento. Without the trees and old buildings Sacramento is just a swell garbage dump.
This is why so many cities have turned to this model: it often brings fresh ideas from top people that cost less than subsidizing local developers.
Since our limp city council doesn't have the fiber call out the SafeGround "movement" for the free hobo campsite scam that it is, I suggest we just give in completely to Mark Merin and John Kraintz's ever-increasing demands.
Lets go all the way and make Sacramento the hobo camp jewel of the West! And let's not hide our free-spirited campers on some grungy lot deep in North Sac, either. Instead lets place them on prime Capital ave. real estate with perfect views of the Capital and the Tower Bridge.
The side benefits are too numerous to mention, but include increased patronage at Il Fornio Ristorante (at least their bathroom facilities), more pedestrian traffic, and shorter commute times for the SafeGround'er weekly city council visit.
And most importantly, this bold city move may finally win the praise from Oprah's golden lips that our emotion-driven city council so desperately seeks.
How about we put a raised walkway that is lavishly appointed with gardens. There's a cool walkway like this in Paris. You could add small kiosks or shops below it or on it. it could be part of a really cool walkway that connects to the riverfront and bike lanes from surrounding streets.
There is actually a restriction on blocking the view. THe exact parameters of that restriction will be given to competition participants when it is launched.
Sometimes open space for its own sake is a good thing.