Development

Water main work to back up 12th

2009-07-25T02:17:58Z

People commuting into the city from Highway 160 can expect to experience traffic delays on 12th Street starting next month as another phase of the city's aging water main replacement gets underway.

People using 13th and 6th streets will face delays starting in two to three months when similar work begins there.

The city is replacing nearly century-old pipes to prevent the kind of water main explosion that created a big sinkhole and surface flooding on Q Street in the mid-1990s, said Dan Sherry, the city's supervising engineer who manages the water design and planning section.

Replacing pipes that currently run beneath 12th Street from H to Q is expected to cost $2.6 million, he said.

One-block sections of three-lane 12th Street will be restricted to just one lane while water transmission pipes installed in 1915 are replaced from H to L streets. That section of the project is expected to take two months, but the city is providing incentives to encourage the contractor to work as quickly as possible, said Bill Zehnder, a senior engineer for the city's water design and planning section.

Following the initial phase on 12th Street, new pipe will be laid down L Street to 13th, and then down 13th from L to Q streets. That work is expected to take about 10 months.

The city will take the 1915 water main offline by ripping out the section from H to L and filling the section from L to Q streets -- which mostly runs underneath Capitol Park -- with sand.

The city's water system consists of grids made up of a handful of water mains, or 20-inch to 24-inch steel pipes, and 12-inch or smaller distribution pipes that are used to feed water to homes and businesses. Some of the water pipes are up to 110 years old. The city has been slowly replacing the water mains since the 1995 incident. Some pipes already have holes in them that could rupture.

Some of the first water pipes -- wooden pipes held together with metal stays, similar to wooden barrels -- still lay beneath the city's surface. Those have not been used in years.

"Complete Streets" workshop Friday

2009-07-09T02:41:36Z

Planners will gather in Sacramento Friday for a workshop that focuses on creating safer, more accessible streets in the central city and beyond.

The Local Government Commission and the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District are hosting a "Complete Streets" workshop to educate people about the need to transform more vehicle-dominated roadways into streets that are healthy, safe and easy to use for people on foot, bicycles and wheelchairs.

"'Complete street' is a term that's emerged in the last four to five years to really address the need to have policies that result in streets that accomodate all users, not just people in a car," said Paul Zykofsky, director of the Local Government Commission's land use and transportation programs. The commission, which began as the SolarCAL Commission in the 1970s, is made up of local government officials concerned primarily with creating livable communities.

More diverse use of streets also can bolster air quality and lessen impacts on land and water.

"It means taking a more holistic approach to the way we design, build and operate our streets," he said.

The California Department of Transportation, Sacramento Area Council of Governments and WalkSacramento also are sponsoring the workshop, which will be held Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Sheraton Grand Hotel, 1230 J St. Most of those attending are expected to be private and public planners, including local elected officials and government agency staff.

The event will introduce the concept and report the current status of the region's urban and suburban streets. Speakers also will address laws and possible financial support for complete streets projects.

The central city is well ahead of its outlying areas and suburbs in terms of accessible streets. That's mainly because walking has always been a common form of transportation in the grid. Also, the city has worked to make more streets safe and accessible to various users for at least six years, said one of the workshop's moderators, Anne Geraghty, who serves as executive director for WalkSacramento. The nonprofit, which promotes walkable communities, is leading an informal coalition of individuals and agencies interested in complete streets in the Sacramento area.

Pedestrians simply weren't considered by planners and designers when many suburbs were created, so problems with streets are "more profound" there, she said.

"For over 50 years, our communities have kind of taken walking for granted," she said. "The central city is one of the better places in our region, but it has problems as well."

Streets that are examples of complete or incomplete streets are easy to find in the central city. Two of the most recently "completed" streets are 19th and 21st. The city transformed both from one-way, three-lane streets to one-way, two-lane streets, then added bicycle lanes on both sides of the streets and a lot more well-marked crosswalks, she said.

Two of the more problematic streets are sections of I and 12th, where the lack of bike lanes results in bicyclists riding on sidewalks. Bicyclists may be safer there, but pedestrians may feel they're not, she added.

Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates has been lobbying to get the three-lane section of I Street, starting at 21st Street, changed from three lanes to two and possibly back to two-way traffic, in addition to getting bike lanes.

"We would like to see all the streets in the region be complete so you can walk easily, especially to nearby destinations," Geraghty said.

Foreclosures staying off the Grid

2009-06-30T01:48:19Z

Walk through some of the region's newest neighborhoods and you'll discover hundreds upon hundreds of houses lying empty. Their owners, victims of foreclosure, have long since moved on.

While only some of those are currently on the market, you'll find it next to impossible to come upon a foreclosed home for sale in Sacramento's central city. That's because there's currently only one.

The desirability of living in the grid and of its housing stock have kept prices fairly stable and made the area nearly immune to the foreclosure crisis, unlike outlying areas of the city and fast-growing suburbs like Natomas and Elk Grove, according to local real estate agents.

"Downtown has held its value, because what we have downtown, you can't replicate in new construction areas," said David Kirrene, a real estate broker with Windermere Dunnigan Realtors.

"You've got the character of the old homes -- every house is different. You've got the tree-lined streets. And look at just how long these homes have lasted; the quality of the homes," he said. "I think with new construction areas -- you can get that in 'Any City, USA' ."

In addition, homeowners in the grid -- the area bounded by the Sacramento River on the west, the Union Pacific railroad tracks/B Street on the north, Alhambra Boulevard on the east and Broadway to the south -- are mostly more experienced, established buyers who bought their homes before this decade's new housing boom and who got fixed-rate mortgages, said Elizabeth Weintraub, an agent in Lyon Real Estate's Midtown office and a home-buying columnist for About.com.

Right now, only one foreclosed home -- a house on 25th Street in Midtown -- is currently on the market in the grid, according to Weintraub and Tabetha Holyfield, a real estate agent for Century 21 All Professional near Arden Fair Mall. That's out of 74 homes currently for sale in Midtown in the 95816 zip code and downtown in 95814 and 95811.

It's another story in the fastest-growing nearby towns. Natomas has 145 bank-owned homes for sale and Elk Grove has 139, said Weintraub. In the city, Del Paso has 44 on the market, Oak Park has 41, South Sacramento has 16 and Rosemont has seven, according to MetroList Services numbers provided by Weintraub and Holyfield.

Those numbers don't tell the whole tale. The actual number of foreclosed homes -- not just foreclosed homes on the market -- in the city and in particular, the grid, isn't kept by any government agency or a one-stop service accessible to real estate pros or consumers.

However, numbers are kept for the entire county. After a dip in foreclosures in recent months, Sacramento County is seeing a resurgence in the number of trustee's deeds filed when banks foreclose on homes. June already has 1,067, while May had 869, April had 897 and March had 919, according to figures from the Sacramento County Assessor's Office.

Before that, the monthly numbers of houses slipping out of owner's hands hadn't fallen below 1,071 (the figure for January 2009) since December 2007.

Two other problems with ferreting out the actual number of foreclosures are the "short sales" homes that are on the market to technically avoid foreclosure and all the foreclosed homes the banks are now holding back from the market, real estate agents said.

A short sale is an agreement between the homeowner and bank that allows the homeowner to avoid foreclosure. Short sales involve homeowners who need to sell either because they're undergoing hardship and can't afford the mortgage payments, or because the house is upside down and the owners owe more than the house is worth.

Banks can be negotiated with to allow owners to sell houses -- sometimes at half the price the owners paid -- if the bank gets all the money from the sale. The bank will then release the loan. These short-sale homes aren't listed as foreclosures, said Weintraub, who may be the city's top short-sales agent. She currently has 20 short-sale homes listed.

Currently, 58.6 percent in of the homes listed in Sacramento County are short sales, she said, adding, "Short sales are replacing foreclosures as the hot commodity."

In addition, banks are selling foreclosed houses in bulk at 50 cents on the dollar to investors, who turn around and list those properties at twice what they paid; yet those houses aren't advertised as foreclosures when they go back on the market.

Also, housing prices have gotten so low due to the glut of foreclosed homes that banks are not putting them on the market, real estate agents said.

"They're really controlling the market. So it's giving us a false sense of what's really going on," said Holyfield.

At the start of 2009, the number of bank-owned homes that were active real estate listings in Sacramento County and parts of nearby Yolo and Placer counties totaled 2,500. As of June 15, the number was only 909, she said.

"They're hoarding them. It's what's known as shadow inventory," Weintraub said. "Yet we all know the number of foreclosures are continually going up."

Most people who've lost their homes to foreclosure in other areas were first-time owners who bought between 2002 and 2006 in a time when home loans were too easy to get, and so the number of buyers skyrocketed. The demand inflated housing prices for both tract houses in brand-new subdivisions and lower-end houses in established neighborhoods and fueled a construction boom that created new neighborhoods.

At the same time, these people purchased with "100 percent financing," so they didn't put down any -- or at least not significant -- down payments. They also got adjustable-rate mortgages, which greatly increased their payments after the first few years.

"There were so many first-time home buyers. It didn't matter who you were. They were giving away homes like lollipops," said Holyfield.

Weintraub agreed, saying, "A lot of the people in trouble out in the suburbs are really people who never should have qualified to buy."

After the bottom fell out of the housing market, house prices plummeted and many people owed more than their houses were worth.

In the central city where there's no room for new home construction, seasoned owners have held onto their homes for a long time. The housing market has remained far more stable and prices have stayed relatively flat in comparison.

"We don't have the roller-coaster prices like we have in other areas," said Holyfield. "We didn't have those big explosions coming into Midtown, buying those properties and now selling those properties. You have established people living in the inner city, instead of having a whole neighborhood of people who just moved there in the last 10 years."

House prices never went up as high in the grid as they did in new areas, and now they've gone down only about 25 percent, contrasted with a 50- to 60-percent decrease in other areas, said Kirrene.

"I've always heard these are the first to go up in value and the last to go down in value," he said. The median sales prices of a 1600-square-foot, three-bedroom, single-family home is currently $308,000 in the grid, he said.

In 2008, 27 percent (13 out of 49) of the single-family homes sold in the 95816 zip code and 37 percent in 95814 and 95811 were foreclosures, while 70 to 80 percent of those sold in other regions were foreclosures, said Craig Dunnigan, who owns Prudential Dunnigan Real Estate.

From Dec., 27, 2008, a total of 670 foreclosed homes have sold in Elk Grove and 733 in Natomas, said Weintraub. Fifteen sold downtown and in 95816, which may include East Sacramento in this figure.

Real estate agents cited many reasons why people want to live in the central city and buy the houses that are here. Most of the homes were built before 1940. A sizable number were built before 1900. In the last six months, 20 of the active, pending and sold houses were built before 1900 and two before 1880, Kirrene said.

These homes were built better, with charm and quality craftsmanship that makes them higher-end properties. People also love being close to vibrant Midtown and downtown, with all the restaurants, shops, clubs, open park space and access to both the Sacramento and American rivers. People who work there don't want to commute, and they enjoy easy access to freeways, real estate agents said.

"People gravitate toward homes with character, and this is where people are going to find them," said Weintraub. "It's a desirable place to live."

Participants sought for flood management plan

2009-06-11T04:01:23Z

Central Valley flood protection is entering a new era as work on an updated, comprehensive management plan gets underway.

This month, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) officially launched a process to coordinate improving the valley's flood control efforts under the Central Valley Flood Management Planning (CVFMP) Program. The process began for the Sacramento area Wednesday, when DWR held a regional forum in West Sacramento as part of the effort to strengthen levees in the state-federal flood management system.

The forum's goals were to increase understanding of the area's flood risk, raise awareness of the CVFMP Program and recruit people into the planning process.

"We're trying to decrease the chance of disruptive floods," said Ken Kirby of Kirby Consulting Group. "As long as we continue to live and work and play in the flood plain, there will always be a danger of flooding."

The forum, held in West Sacramento's City Hall Galleria, brought together agencies, organizations and individuals concerned about flooding by the lower Sacramento River. Those taking part included staff from the Central Valley Flood Protection Board, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the city of Galt, Solano County, the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, the Sacramento Area Council of Goverments and several reclamation districts.

Under California Senate Bill 5, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law in 2007, the Central Valley Flood Protection Plan (CVFPP) must be adopted by the Central Valley Flood Protection Board by 2012, and by 2015, progress must be made toward 200-year flood protection in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys to enable governments to approve flood plain development. Both CVFMP and CVFPP are part of a larger, statewide flood management called FloodSAFE California.

The CVFMP Program is being developed to reduce the chance of flooding and to lessen the consequences of any floods. The program will assess the current condition of levees and other aspects of the flood protection system, build people's understanding of local flood risk and integrate flood-management efforts.

State propositions 1E and 84 provided $4.9 billion to be used from 2007 to 2017 to help DWR improve flood management in California.

The CVFMP Program is required to document everything that makes up the Central Valley's current flood control system. The program must also develop a flood control system status report that analyzes how the system's working, assesses the risk of levee failure and recommends solutions to fix the system.

The program will focus on areas protected by levees in the state-federal system. However, communities protected by other levees will be included in the study area.

On Wednesday, DWR began recruiting people for CVFMP work groups. Some at the forum expressed doubt over being able to take part after hearing that 40 hours of work per month would be involved.

DWR staff believes there will still be more than enough participants who can provide a broad perspective for the process, said DWR spokesperson Elizabeth Scott.

Work groups get underway within weeks.

City nabs $56m for redevelopment

2009-07-01T04:18:36Z

The city of Sacramento has won $55.8 million in Proposition 1C funds for infill redevelopment, the city announced late Tuesday.

On Monday, the California Department of Housing and Community Development approved money to help fund infrastructure for four projects: the Railyards, Township 9, Curtis Park Village and Capitol Lofts. Proposition 1C was approved by voters in November 2006.

The $6 billion Railyards project will get about $30 million, said city spokesperson Wendy Klock-Johnson.

The new funding brings the project's total public bond funding to at least $115 million.

“This is a step in the right direction for our city in terms of economic development and creation of employment opportunities in Sacramento,” Mayor Kevin Johnson said. “This is a proactive step towards Sacramento becoming a world-class city.”

Georgia developer Thomas Enterprises broke ground last winter on the infrastructure phase of its effort to transform the historic Union Pacific railyards into a mixed-use district abutting downtown's Sacramento Valley Rail Station.

Railyards shops cleanup to start

2009-07-02T03:28:08Z

Cleanup of historic Southern Pacific railroad shops is expected to begin late this month as the next phase of the Sacramento Railyards project kicks into gear.

Hazardous materials including lead paint, asbestos, metals and other industrial toxins need to be removed from the shops, which were built starting in 1868. Georgia developer Thomas Enterprises has put the abatement project out to bid and expects to award the contract in the next few weeks, said Richard Rich, development director for the Railyards project.

In its heyday, Southern Pacific practically owned the town. The railyards drove Sacramento's economy, and nearly a third of all the city's residents worked there. The shops lay at the center of the railyards.

The Railyards project, the country's largest infill project, will not only double the size of downtown, but the mixed-use district is being designed to recapture the importance of the former railroad site. The Central Shops being redeveloped near the Sacramento Valley Rail Station depot are the key to that, Rich said.

"Right now, the depot is kind of in a forgotten corner of downtown," he said. ""That'll put enough urban fabric around the depot that it becomes the center of the city again."

On Monday, the city won $55.8 million in Proposition 1C infill redevelopment funds from the California Department of Housing and Community Development. About $30 million will go to the $6 billion Railyards project. The new funding brings the project's state public bond funding to $115-$120 million, although none of that has been received, said Thomas Enterprises Vice President Suheil Totah.

The Railyards project also won $20 million in federal stimulus money this year and another $8 million in federal funds for a freeway connection project. The city and developer are pursuing another $100 million in federal stimulus money to help fund the city's future intermodal transportation facility. Developments are expected soon on the city's bid to get National Enviromental Policy Act approval for the facility.

The city has committed funding to the project and promised to build a city parking garage there as well. Thomas Enterprises has invested $200 million in the project so far. Private investment is expected to total about $5 billion, Totah said.

Central Pacific originally established the railyards during the steam locomotive era. The company later became Southern Pacific. The 244-acre site grew to contain at least 243 buildings.

The shops and other buildings began falling into disrepair in the 1930s when the Depression brought reduced rail traffic.

About the same time, diesel locomotives began to gain favor over steam locomotives. The Sacramento Railyards had been set up to produce and repair steam locomotives. Some diesels were worked on there, but retooling the railyards for diesel proved too difficult.

In addition, Southern Pacific moved most of its maintenance work to rural areas like Roseville as Sacramento grew. The railyard shops officially closed in 1999, four years after Union Pacific bought Southern Pacific.

Seven brick shop buildings were all that remained when Thomas Enterprises bought the site for an undisclosed amount in December 2006. All seven will be preserved and rehabbed for adaptive reuse. The massive Boiler Shop and Erecting Shop will be used for the state's Railroad Technology Museum.

Thomas will rehab the other five shops. The 56,000 former Paint Shop will contain a public market selling Central Valley products including produce, cheese, wine, meat and fish — similar to San Francisco's Ferry Building — near an extended Fifth Street. Other former railyard shops will house restaurants, nightclubs and retail stores. In the center, a football field-sized plaza will be built to hold large city events, a farmers' market or small performances.

"These buildings, which will surround the public open space, will form the nucleus of the cultural district," Rich said.

Hazardous materials abatement work is the first step to rehabbing the shops. About 80 percent of the work will be to remove lead-based paint from interior brick. Ten percent will be to remove sheetrock, floor tiles and pipe insulation containing asbestos. The rest involves other contaminants including heavy metals and polychlorinated biphenyl or PCB, he said.

The "significant" cost of abatement won't be known until crews get into the work. Thomas Enterprises tested methods to remove the paint without damaging the hard, fired surface of the brick. Nothing worked, said Rich.

"That put us in a difficult position of how to do it without damaging the brick," he said.

Standards set by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior dictate that the interiors of historic buildings that were originally covered with paint must likewise be covered with paint during rehab. Workers will gently scrape as much lead paint off the walls as possible and the brick will be encapsulated with lead-free paint, he said.

Thomas Enterprises broke ground on the infrastructure phase last winter. Initial grading of Railyards Boulevard and northern portions of Fifth and Sixth streets has been done. Extending Fifth and Sixth streets into the site will help connect the railyards with downtown, said Totah, adding that more infrastructure work will start once the developer gets the state funding it's been awarded.

Building construction is expected to start next year on 5th, 7th and Camille streets. Construction may include housing, mixed-use and office.

Crocker expansion to boost businesses

2009-06-06T00:57:26Z

Art connoisseurs are already reveling in the expanded offerings that will deck out Crocker Art Museum's new wing.

But art lovers won't be the only ones to benefit. The capital's economic vitality is expected to get a big boost when the 125,000-square-foot expansion triples the museum's size upon opening next year.

"I think it's going to really elevate Sacramento's visibility as a cultural destination," said Michelle Alexander, executive director of the Arts & Business Council of Sacramento. "Cultural tourism is a big, key factor in economic health."

In the next few weeks, construction crews will begin building the connection from the contemporary new wing to the future education studio in the main Art Gallery Building, a Victorian Italianate structure built in the 1870s.

The expansion will quadruple the museum's exhibition space and add room for flood-protected storage and collection maintenance on the second floor. The wing also will include a 7,000-square-foot courtyard, café, 300-seat auditorium and dramatic, two-story atrium that can be used for events of 400 to 1,200 people (with the use of the courtyard). Construction will include systems to control temperature, humidity and security.

The added space will permit museum curators to sort through Crocker's growing collection and allow much more of that collection — 20 percent as opposed to less than 4 percent — to be exhibited. Crocker has had "unprecedented" collection growth thanks to the expansion, said LeAnne Ruzzamenti, Crocker's director of marketing communications.

The structure with an aluminum and zinc exterior was designed by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects of New York and is being built by Rudolph and Sletten of Redwood City. The design maintains the gallery building as the architectural focal point for the complex at Second and O streets.

As the oldest art museum west of the Mississippi River, the Crocker is one of the capital's primary tourist attractions. Art museums like this are a big magnet for travelers and the money they spend in town, said Leslie Fritzsche, downtown division manager for the city's Economic Development Department.

"With the increase in tourism, that impacts the use of hotels and restaurants," she said. "So there's a great spin-off effect."

National media attention showcasing Sacramento as a cultural and travel destination can boost real estate, construction industries and property value, Alexander said.

Each year, Sacramento sees an average 17 million leisure and business visitors who spend a total $2.4 billion, said Mike Testa, vice president of communications for the Sacramento Convention & Visitors Bureau.

About 95,000 people visit the Crocker each year. The expanded museum should draw people from the San Francisco Bay Area and other parts of the state, he said.

The art museum and four others within about a mile of each other are creating a "string of pearls" in terms of the city's cultural offerings, said Beth Tincher, a senior project manager with the Economic Development Department. That, in turn, will impact other economic growth, such as the development of the Docks Area just across the freeway, she added.

"We always think of this critical mass of attractions," Testa said. "Really, the more museums we have, the more people we're going to attract because of the diversity."

The city's cultural attractions contribute to residents' quality of life, and that, in turn, is factored into companies' decisions on where to be located, said Fritzsche and Alexander.

"As Sacramento improves its branding as an arts destination, we increase our ability to attract high-level talent and corporate headquarters from other large metropolitan cites," said Alexander. "We become a city and culture worth investing in."

Crews building Riverfront Promenade

2009-06-03T20:13:25Z

Standing on Front Street, Beth Tincher was more than satisfied to survey riverfront construction this week.

The project manager of the city's Docks Area Project and Riverfront Promenade watched construction workers set the promenade's concrete retaining wall and a circular seating wall that'll soon surround a water feature centerpiece playing off the city's historic waterfront.

"I'm excited, because it's been a long time in the making," said Tincher, standing south of Tower Bridge. "It's pretty amazing to come out to the site and see what this could be -- the potential of this highly under-utilized old brownfield site."

Sacramentans will get more than simply a mile of bike-and pedestrian-friendly riverside parkway when the promenade is finished by year's end. The $23 million, 14-acre promenade is seen as the next big piece of the plan to stimulate redevelopment of an old industrial area and to connect the Sacramento River to downtown Sacramento.

City officials have talked about redeveloping the Docks Area site for more than 13 years. Embassy Suites Sacramento and two blocks of promenade were built about 10 years ago near Tower Bridge.

As part of the 2003 Sacramento Riverfront Master Plan, the promenade will one day form the entrance to the Docks Area, a 30-acre mixed-use area expected to hold housing, shops, restaurants, office towers and possibly a hotel. The combined 44-acre site is one of the city's only redevelopment opportunities along the river, said Tincher, a senior project manager with the City of Sacramento Economic Development Department.

The area has a strong link to the Sacramento River's prominent past. The site was once the unloading point for commercial cargo being shipped from San Francisco to the city, gold mines and beyond.

The city put the Docks project out to bid and have given a San Francisco partnership formed by Kenwood Investments and Wilson Meany Sullivan an exclusive right to negotiate (ERN) to redevelop the mostly-abandoned former industrial area. The partners have worked together on other complex projects and are currently managing the 400-acre redevelopment of Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay.

Staff from the city's Department of Utilities and the Redevelopment Agency are currently studying the feasibility of moving Pioneer Reservoir, which holds excess storm drainage and sewage from downtown before pumping it back into the regional water system. The study's results are expected to be presented to the city council in July, said Tincher.

After that has been completed, the city is required to adopt a Docks-specific plan and certify the final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) as part of the ERN agreement with the developers. The city is preparing the final EIR and will start the public hearing process for the EIR and the Docks-specific plan in August or September.

The city can then begin negotiating with the developer on the Disposition and Development Agreement to determine which party will fund what parts of the project, she said. The developer would then work on the design and tentative map approval.

The promenade will stretch from O Street south to Miller Park. The parkway's gem will be one-third-acre Pioneer Landing Park, which will contain a public plaza holding a "cloud vessel," a misting water feature art piece designed to resemble a boat's hull in honor of the riverfront's past. Other, smaller art pieces will be scattered throughout the parkway.

The promenade and especially the large water feature are being designed to enhance the city's image. The feature will be lit at night and viewable from the adjacent freeway and the California State Railroad Museum excursion train based in Old Sacramento.

The final design of the Docks Area has yet to be worked out and is being impacted by the housing and commercial real estate markets, Tincher said.

However, concepts being considered include 1,000 to 1,155 housing units; 45,000 square feet of commercial space for shops, restaurants and other businesses that can draw people to the waterfront; 500,000 square feet of high-rise office tower space; and a possible hotel. The office space is expected to be built in 20 to 30 years as demand arises, she added.

Following the current timeline, an estimated $14 million in infrastructure construction in the Docks Area would begin between mid-2011 to the start of 2012.

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. She can be reached at suzanne@sacramentopress.com or 804-2856.