Railyards

Railyard shops cleanup, preservation underway

2009-11-11T06:25:04Z

Piles are growing at the city's old railyard.

Inside the long-abandoned Southern Pacific railroad shops, there are piles of metal, wood, debris and contaminated junk. Up on roofs, white-suited, specially trained abatement workers are pulling up roofing material and roofing adhesive containing asbestos. Outside one of the shops lies a makeshift salvage yard.

Georgia developer Thomas Enterprises and a contractor, Allied Environmental of Placerville, are three months into a $5 million cleanup of the historic "Central Shops," which will form the centerpiece of a 244-acre mixed-used district dubbed the Railyards.

The developers envision the shops as the cultural heart of a district that will include the future a regional transportation center and retail, office and residential use. The centerpiece will be an open-air market and adjacent plaza. There also has been talk of a $500 million arena/entertainment center, a performing arts center and even a new $500 million county courthouse.

During a tour of the shops Tuesday, Railyards Development Director Richard Rich said workers are setting aside everything connected to Sacramento's railroad history to be recycled and used in the district.

"We want to save every single piece of this," Rich said as he pointed to old metal lockers and train parts inside the former Paint Shop. "Part of our job is to retell the story of the railyards as we rebuild this and bring it back."

Very little remains from the 1930s or earlier, when the shops were the center of the locomotive industry on the West Coast and that industry drove the city, he said. For more railyard photos, go here.

The railroad company took most items of value long ago. Then, squatters and vandals carried off everything they could.

Still, workers have already dug up tons of gnarled, rusted iron during soil remediation. Rich said he would like to hire an artist to create a large sculpture from the salvaged iron. The sculpture would go in the future Market Plaza.

"That's a dream at this point," Rich said. "I don't know where we'd find the money."

Hundreds of heavy locomotive drive wheels and axles were found on the site, which lies next to the Sacramento Valley Station train depot. California State Parks gathered up most of them, and two drive wheels left with the developers may become sculptures. Thomas Enterprises is talking with the parks department about placing drive wheel sculptures at intersections throughout the district.

"I would like every single intersection that we do to have some calling card of rail history there," Rich said.

Central Pacific established the Sacramento railyard during the steam locomotive era. The company, which later became Southern Pacific, built the first shop in 1868 — before Sacramento gained fame as the western start of the first transcontinental railroad with the driving of the last spike on May 10, 1869.

In the 1930s, Southern Pacific slowly began abandoning the railyards. Rail traffic was down because of the Depression.

The company set up maintenance shops for newer diesel locomotives in more rural areas as Sacramento grew, and the shops began falling into disrepair. The shops officially closed in 1999, four years after Union Pacific bought Southern Pacific.

Now, eight Central Shops — seven brick and one metal — are all that remain of what was once at least 243 buildings. The developers are giving the metal Boiler Shop and the Erecting Shop, the largest and grandest, to state parks for its future Railroad Technology Museum. State parks will handle abatement of those.

The buildings' exteriors will be preserved following the Secretary of the Interior's guidelines for rehabbing historic buildings. Abatement work, Phase 1 of shop restoration, is expected to be completed by March.

On Tuesday, 50 workers worked on various abatement projects including removing the badly peeling lead-based interior paint, junk contaminated with heavy metals and polychlorinated biphenyl or PCB, and asbestos sheetrock, floor tiles and pipe insulation. They're also removing extensive graffiti.

"Our job now is to clean these buildings so we can start to do the major work on the renovation," Rich said.

British Environmental Resources Management is providing construction management. The company initially was hired by Southern Pacific and has done all cleanup at the site for 20 years.

"Our primary challenge was to make sure we could abide by California environmental laws to take toxics out but not damage these historic buildings," Rich said. "It's something we have to watch very carefully."

Workers can't remove all the lead-based paint without damaging historic interior bricks. So remaining paint will be encapsulated in new paint, in a process created by the city's environmental office, he said.

The Railyards are the country's largest infill project. Most of the six shops are expected to be filled by restaurants, clubs, retail shops and small museums. Organizations have expressed interest in setting up museums for model railroads, carousels and blacksmithing in the 3,800-square-foot Blacksmith Shop.

The 56,000-square-foot Paint Shop will house an open-air market with Central Valley products including produce, cheese, wine, meat and fish -- similar to San Francisco's Ferry Building. It will be near the extended 5th Street.

An open space next to it, once a turntable that moved locomotives and train cars to the Paint Shop, will be turned into Market Plaza. Plans call for landscaping, water features, public art and a small outdoor performance area.

"That plaza is going to be the cultural living room of this region," Rich said.

On the other side of the plaza, clubs, restaurants and shops are expected to open in the Planing Mill, Car Shop and Machine Shop, where locomotives, passenger cars and flat cars once were built. The first building constructed on the site was a machine shop in 1868. Upper floors could contain art lofts and archive space.

Small shops and restaurants could go into the "Tower of Jewels," a three-story brick craphouse built in 1878. The plaster facade is peeling off the brick building, so the mortar on that and the rest of the brick buildings will be repointed.

The shops are expected to be ready for tenants in two or three years. The city has committed to building a 2,000-space parking garage east of the market. The garage will serve the regional transportation center and the Central Shops, said Suheil Totah, Thomas Enterprises vice president.

The county is considering the site for a new courthouse, said Totah, adding that Thomas Enterprises likes the idea of the city building an arena there as well.

Rich said he expects all electrical cables at the site will be underground. He said he hopes to use a line of old above-ground electrical poles to hold a 30-foot-high, 300-foot-long lighted landmark "Sacramento Railyards" sign.

That's just one of the efforts to preserve as much as possible. Restoring the historic buildings that once played such a large role in Sacramento is the key, Totah and Rich said.

"It would actually be cheaper to knock them down and rebuild them. But there's an ambiance you can't get with a new building," Rich said. "So they're priceless in that way."

Photos by Eric Whalen. Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

New depot gets environmental OK

2009-09-16T02:49:20Z

Sacramento's future regional transportation center has gotten a green light to move on to its final design phase after clearing a federal environmental hurdle, months later than expected.

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) on Friday confirmed the city's proposed "intermodal facility" has made it through the federal environmental review process required due to federal funding for the project. Approval was delayed due to the complicated review process and concerns about the impact on historic Southern Pacific railroad shops and other historic properties.

Federal transportation officials, along with other federal and state agency staff, have determined the new depot will not have significant impact on the environment as long as proposed mitigation measures are followed.

The FHWA signed off on the project's environmental assessment by issuing a "finding of no significant impact," or FONSI, for the first two phases of the transportation center, an expansion of the historic Sacramento Valley Station into the 244-acre Railyards development site. The FHWA actually signed off on the FONSI Aug. 31 and then notified the city of Sacramento, the lead agency on the project.

This environmental approval allows the city to submit construction authorizations for phases 1 and 2 to the California Department of Transportation by Dec. 1. Meeting that deadline ensures the project will still get $20 million in stimulus funding for the $56 million track relocation.

"It's a very important milestone for our project," said Hinda Chandler, project manager and a senior architect with the city's Department of Transportation.

Construction of Railyards infrastructure is expected to start within a month after the California Department of Housing and Community Development agreed to begin doling out $47 million in Prop. 1C money awarded in June 2008 to Railyards developer Thomas Enterprises. Following a six-week hiatus, the company will begin building the bridge at Fifth and H streets to extend Fifth Street into the Railyards.

The environmental approval allows the city to get easements and permits for utility relocation and to initiate final design work, in order to show by Dec. 1 that the city is ready to begin construction. The city had expected to get FHWA's approval on the environmental review process months ago, according to Chandler and Linda Tucker, spokesperson for the city's transportation department.

While construction had initially been anticipated for this fall, the delay put off construction for Phase 1 — track relocation — until March 2010, due to the lengthy bidding process that must now be held. Construction of Phase 2 — $30 million in expansions and improvements to the existing depot at Fifth and I streets — is expected to begin once track relocation is complete.

The expansion is expected to equip Sacramento to meet regional transportation needs for freight trains, service operators and passengers until at least 2025.

Sacramento Valley Station sits on a major national trade route called the Central Corridor, whose western junction is the high-volume Port of Oakland. The volume of imports and exports handled by the port via Sacramento has outgrown the 1925 station's current track setup, where freight and passenger trains share three tracks.

This has created a bottleneck for freight trains. As freight rail tonnage is expected to double by 2025, the situation would only get worse, and the Port of Oakland would be unable to handle growing trade.

Building tracks devoted to freight is expected to eliminate the bottleneck and enable a higher volume of freight trains to move more quickly through Sacramento, Tucker said.

In addition, Sacramento's station has not been able to keep up with the increasing number of train passengers. The station is already California's second-busiest train depot and the seventh busiest in the country, with 1.5 million train users each year and a roughly estimated 200,000 others using light rail, taxis, and local and Amtrak buses.

Cities are finding that downtown train stations are easier to access than airports outside cities. Train travel is becoming more popular after a decline that lasted 50 years, Chandler said.

Ridership is especially growing between Sacramento and the Bay Area. Expanding the transportation center to include a bigger, modern terminal and more space for trains, buses and other transportation is expected to draw up to 7.5 million users by 2025, and as many as 15 million if high-speed rail is added, Chandler said.

The station has eight Amtrak bus bays. The new regional center is expected to include 24 local bus bays and 11 for Amtrak and Greyhound buses, plus room for high-speed rail if needed.

In June, the Sacramento City Council voted against its 2007 decision to move the existing station 300 feet north, next to relocated train tracks. Councilmembers changed their minds after discovering an unnecessary station relocation would make the city ineligible to get federal funding for up to 80 percent of the project.

A California Environmental Quality Act review was conducted previously. Under the National Environmental Protection Act, an environmental review must be conducted by the lead federal agency when a project is getting federal funding. The new transportation center will get money from federal highway, transit and railroad programs through the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The FHWA and other agencies have been carefully reviewing the city’s proposal for more than a year. The other agencies include the California Department of Transportation, the state Office of Historic Preservation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the Federal Transit Administration and their state equivalents.

"It's a pretty good-sized project," said FHWA spokesperson Doug Hecox. "It's something we (took) great pains to be careful about."

The agencies worked quickly to make sure the project wouldn't lose the stimulus funding in what FRA spokesperson Warren Flatau described as "choreographed bureaucratic collaboration."

"Everyone (was) committed to doing this in record time," he said.

To expedite the project, the agencies conducted concurrent reviews — a relatively new practice. Until two or three years ago, federal environmental reviews took an average of three to five years, and sometimes up to eight, while each agency took its turn reviewing the environmental assessment document, according to the FHWA.

An environmental review for Phase 3, estimated to cost $252 million, must be done at a later date because the design for that phase is still only conceptual, Chandler said.

That phase could involve major renovation of the historic station building. Phase 3 isn't funded and may not happen for many years, said Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Stephen Mikesell, who has been heavily involved in the environmental review on behalf of the California Office of Historic Preservation.

A combination of federal, state and local funding is being used to finance the entire project. Last year, the project was awarded another $20 million in trade corridor funds under state Proposition 1B to fund track construction that will eliminate the bottleneck.

The city expects the state to issue bonds and award that funding within six months. If the state is no longer able to provide that funding, the city is confident the funds can be found elsehwere, Tucker said.

The city applied for $6 million more for Phase 1 in August, and on Tuesday, expects to submit an application for $30 million more, mostly for Phase 2.

An engineering consultant is designing the relocation of freight and passenger tracks, which will be moved north by 300 feet at the closest point and 500 feet at the farthest. The tracks will be straightened to allow long platforms and thus, longer trains.

Tracks will no longer be shared upon completion of this project. Four passenger tracks, two passenger platforms and at least two freight tracks will be built. The new configuration should increase passenger safety while no longer requiring freight trains to slow down as much. The tracks and new, longer platforms will allow more and longer trains, Tucker said.

Relocation of the tracks should take about a year. Tracks and signals will then be tested for three to four months. The new tracks are expected to be operating by mid-2011, Chandler said.

The historic rail station became a government facility in 2006, when the city bought that and nine acres of land from Thomas Enterprises. Amtrak leased the station from Union Pacific prior to the developer's purchase of the site.

The city is in arbitration with Thomas Enterprises as the two sides try to agree on the value and price for another 24 acres that the city has an option to buy, Chandler said. Negotiations aren't holding up track relocation.

The existing station will continue to be used as the depot during construction of the first two phases. Improvements to the historic station will include restoring an entrance at Fourth and I streets, which will highlight the station's architecture and allow passengers to enter from the front.

Once the larger facility is built to the north across the tracks, the historic depot will be used as a gateway to the new depot and as one location for baggage and ticketing.

"We feel it'll be a seamless blend of old and new," Chandler said.

However, the long-term use of the existing depot hasn't been settled. That could continue to be used as part of the depot or for an unrelated purpose, Mikesell said.

Photos by Eric Whalen. Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Railyards arbitration begins

2010-03-17T02:48:15Z

A dispute over the value of a key parcel of railyards land is getting closer to a resolution. An arbitration hearing began Monday over land likely to become the home of a future arena and a regional transit center.

On Monday, two weeks of witness testimony began to help determine how much the city of Sacramento should pay developer Thomas Enterprises for nearly 33 acres of prime land adjacent to downtown. The land also holds historic value as the western start of the first transcontinental railroad.

The city already paid $55 million for the parcel in 2006 after Thomas Enterprises bought the 244-acre former railyards site.

But the city and the developer have never agreed on the parcel's value. A city appraiser later valued the land at $8 million, while an appraiser hired by Thomas Enterprises set the value at more than $87 million.

The land stretches from the Sacramento Valley Station train depot downtown to the historic Southern Pacific railroad shops currently undergoing redevelopment by Thomas Enterprises.

The 32.68-acre parcel includes more than 17 acres of railroad easement. After factoring out the depot and land being used for public transit, about eight acres of vacant land remain, said Senior Deputy City Attorney Sheryl Patterson.

Thomas Enterprises representatives won't disclose what the company paid Union Pacific for the land or any other information relevant to the arbitration, according to company spokeswoman Leslie Valpey.

Last week, a sports and entertainment arena task force formed by Mayor Kevin Johnson recommended that the Sacramento City Council support a proposal to build a new arena on the city's railyards parcel in connection with a new regional transit center the city already plans to build there.

Court arbitrator William Bettinelli, a retired Sonoma judge, is presiding over the hearing after the city won a coin toss held by Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Robert Hight. Hight helped the two sides winnow their lists of arbitrators down until Bettinelli was chosen. Bettinelli has experience trying, arbitrating and mediating complex, multi-party construction and real estate cases, among others.

Bettinelli must determine the land's value after weighing all the information presented in the hearing. A decision is expected by April 26.

Photo by Eric Whalen.

Agencies plan RR track mitigation

2009-09-17T01:07:56Z

Concerns about historic Southern Pacific railroad shops and other archaeological resources delayed the environmental review process for the future regional transportation center proposed for the Railyards.

A complicated review process also caused delays as federal, state and city planners worked out plans to mitigate environmental and other impacts expected from the future depot, which will connect with the historic Sacramento Valley Station.

Under the National Environmental Protection Act, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) conducted a review of the city's proposal to prevent or offset impacts to wildlife, air and water quality, historic buildings, building occupants and train passengers during construction and operation of the new depot and relocated train tracks. The environmental assessment was approved Aug. 31.

Federal agencies conducted concurrent reviews of the environmental assessment, so the process took less time than it would have in the past, according to the FHWA. The process took more than a year, compared to the average three to five years a linear review usually takes.

Still, the number of agencies involved, the lack of experience some agencies have with environmental reviews and the fact that conducting concurrent environmental reviews is a new procedure postponed a decision the city expected months ago, said Ellie Buford, the city's principal planner for the environmental review of Sacramento's intermodal facility.

"Last-minute" concerns arose over potential impacts to the built environment's historic properties, archaeological resources which are listed or eligible to be listed with the National Register of Historic Places, she said.

Those properties are the Central Shops Historic District, which dates back as far as 1868; the Sixth Street levee, built from 1852 to 1880; the Sacramento Southern Pacific Railroad Station District, built in 1925; and the Southern Pacific Railroad Depot, a national landmark now known as Sacramento Valley Station, built in 1925.

The train tracks will be moved closer to the Central Shops. The future depot will be located between the Central Shops and the Sacramento Valley Station.

The agencies involved want to make sure the four historic properties are protected, according to the FHWA. In the last stage of the review process, a document was added that spells out additional ways these resources will be protected.

According to the new document, known as the Intermodal Built Environment Treatment Plan, the city must assess the current condition of historic properties and monitor the foundation of the historic central railroad shops during construction and operation of the train tracks and depot for vibration and stability. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) must determine the protective measures required for each phase of the intermodal project.

A detection of harmful vibrations could lead to a stop in construction and the need to use alternative construction methods, as well as reinforce the buildings, Buford said.

The worst-scenario is that vibrational impacts from driving pilings into the ground and other construction could cause the shops to fall down, said Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Stephen Mikesell, who has been heavily involved in the environmental review on behalf of the California Office of Historic Preservation.

While that is "highly unlikely," the possibility has led to the need for monitoring, he said.

Geotechnical studies indicated that no structural damage would occur from the construction or operation of the tracks, Buford said.

The state Office of Historic Preservation signed off on the environmental assessment with full confidence, Mikesell said.

"I feel pretty good that the resources are pretty well-protected," he said. "We're confident the city is prepared to do the right thing."

The document spells out the city's right to enter the Central Shops, which are privately owned by Railyards developer Thomas Enterprises, to conduct the monitoring. That agreement had to be worked out in recognition of the public-private partnership which is simultaneously developing the Railyards and adjacent depot, which is integral to design plans for the Railyards.

In addition, the document requires the city to hire a qualified consultant to prepare historic structure reports for each of the properties, in accordance with Historic American Building Survey/Historic American Engineering Record standards.

If the finding must be registered with the Library of Congress, the FHWA must ensure the Caltrans contacts the National Park Service (NPS) to determine the documentation needed for each resource, according to the document. Then, Caltrans must get NPS approval of at least documentary photographs before any construction can begin that would impact a historic property.

Otherwise, appropriate documentation must be determined by the California State Parks Office of Historic Preservation and Caltrans. The document also requires the city to prepare archival copies of the documentation for federal or state repositories.

The Sixth Street levee is important because it represents three distinct episodes in levee construction, which document residents' struggle with decades of flooding by the American and Sacramento rivers. The levee preserves the technological responses used at the time and may contain artifacts. Settlers built the levee, one of the city's first, using anything they had. Specialists will have to go through a section of it to see if pottery or any other archaeologically valuable items were used, Buford said.

The Native American Heritage Commission told the city its Sacred Lands File contains no record of native American cultural resources in the project area. Four native Americans and a group representing native Americans didn't respond to the city's requests for information about whether the site was believed to contain artifacts or significance.

In the document, standard mitigation measures were outlined to protect the endangered Swainson’s hawk and Valley Elderberry Longhorn beetle, as well as bats and purple martins identified as species of concern, or their habitat.

Elderberry bushes provide critical habitat for the beetle. Three elderberry bushes within 20 feet of existing tracks must be moved to a nature preserve or mitigation bank to prevent disturbance from heavy construction equipment. The other bush, which is more than 20 feet from the site of the future tracks, can be fenced.

A survey will be conducted to determine if Swainson's hawks are nesting in trees during their February to September breeding season. If so, heavy construction equipment won't be used within 2,000 yards, according to Buford.

Purple martins have been nesting under a ramp from the I Street bridge. Biologists have recommended planting pine trees to offset the loss of disturbed nesting space under the ramp, erecting permanent perching wires to offset other utility wires that are coming down and other measures that would protect nesting materials and flight. Biologists also may build bird houses for the species, she said.

Biologists must update information about bats, which include the pallid and Pacific Western big-eared bats. Intermittent roosting but no nesting was observed under I-5 and the I Street ramp. Mitigation measures will be determined based on what a new study finds, she said.

Photos by David Watts Barton. Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Pile-driving tests begin at Railyards

2009-11-04T04:55:06Z

Test pile-driving began Tuesday at Sacramento's historic railyard as the site's developers prepare for bridge construction.

The sights and sounds were a sample of what's to come in about four months when foundation work starts for bridges on Fifth and Sixth streets.

At that time, the developers at Thomas Enterprises realize some neighbors may be annoyed by the booms of about 400 piles being driven into the earth. But the noise won't be the same to all ears, they said.

"To us, it's the sound of progress," said Leslie Valpey, the project's development coordinator. "And activity at a time when there's not a lot of activity."

That sound also represents the historic Southern Pacific railyards coming to life again after decades of disuse and decay.

Other infrastructure work has already been done elsewhere on the site, where a $6-billion mixed-use district containing a new regional transportation center is expected to be built over the next 20 years.

Infrastructure work includes the initial grading of Railyards Boulevard and northern portions of Fifth and Sixth streets. Abatement inside the historic Central Shops and building up the elevated 10-acre Vista Park with soil has also begun.

The bridges will be built in the section of the 244-acre site that lies closest to downtown. The two bridges will provide a way for extensions of the two streets to travel over new, relocated tracks and into the heart of the Railyards.

Work crews are using a 120-foot crane to drive six test piles there this week. The piles create the bridges' foundations.

"The most important thing is really these (piles), because that's what's holding the bridge when it goes up," said Elias Rashmawi, director of land redevelopment for the project. "It's the foundation work."

Two types of piles — an H pile and a pipe pile — are being driven into the ground at three locations. Crews drive a 60-foot pile into the ground, weld a second of the same length on to that, and drive the entire pile down 115 to 118 feet, he said.

The piles go through sand, then gravel, then a layer of sand and gravel and silty sand, as well as water, because an aquifer starts 20 feet below the ground, he said.

Readings are taken on resistance, load and stress, to show how much capacity the piles can handle. The tests help the designers and installers determine which type of pile to use and at what depths and where. Pile driving for the bridge is expected to take one to two months.

The bridges will be built over the tracks, and two pedestrian tunnels will be built under the tracks. One tunnel will start at the historic Sacramento Valley Station and the other at Old Sacramento. Bridge construction is expected to be finished by next fall.

Track relocation work, which will be overseen by the city of Sacramento, will be done at the same time, according to Thomas Enterprises Vice President Suheil Totah. New tracks will be laid and trains will begin using those before the old tracks are dismantled.

Fifth and Sixth streets are expected to be completed after that.

Thomas Enterprises is handling all the bridge and road work as part of a partnership with the city. The city won a grant to fund construction of the Sixth Street bridge and the developer was awarded Proposition 1C funding for the Fifth Street bridge, Totah said.

Photos by Kati Garner. Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Arbitration close for Railyards land

2009-10-29T02:27:04Z

The city of Sacramento and Railyards developer Thomas Enterprises expect to move forward Monday on attempts to put a price tag on key land needed for a future regional transportation center.

The city exercised its right to request an independent arbitrator after both sides failed to agree on the price of 33 acres needed to build the transportation center, an expansion of the historic Sacramento Valley Station into the 244-acre Railyards development.

A public hearing has been set for 9 a.m. Monday at Sacramento County Superior Court to help narrow down the list of potential arbitrators qualified to set a value and price for the land, which will also contain relocated railroad tracks and other infrastructure needed for the transit center and the Railyards development, said Sheryl Patterson, senior deputy city attorney.

Each side will submit five names to a judge. The judge will winnow that to a list of the five most qualified.

Both sides will then strike names from the list, after the judge tosses a coin to decide who goes first. Arbitrators will be crossed off if not available. The arbitrator is expected to be selected and the dates of arbitration hearings set by the end of next week, Patterson said.

Photo by Eric Whalen. Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

State turns over $31 million for RR tracks

2009-12-12T07:05:45Z

Helping to save $20 million in local federal stimulus money, the state of California on Thursday ponied up $31 million in Prop. 1B funding for projects connected to Sacramento's future regional transportation center.

The Sacramento Area Council of Governments and the city of Sacramento told the California Transportation Commission this week that the city would lose the federal stimulus funds unless the agency paid out the Prop. 1B money as promised, said Erik Johnson, SACOG spokesman.

The bulk of the $31 million will be used for a $60 million railroad track relocation, the first phase of the train station and public transit center being built in the 244-acre historic railyards adjacent to the Sacramento Valley Station downtown.

"In order to receive the $20 million, we had to have all of our funds to move forward," Johnson said. "Congress wanted to have the stimulus funding move quickly. They (the state) understood that need."

Darrell Steinberg, state Senate president pro tem, represents Sacramento and helped win state funding for the project. U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui helped land the federal stimulus money, according to SACOG.

The state allocated $25 million in trade corridor improvement funds to the city to help move the tracks and for tunnel work under the new tracks.

The state also allocated nearly $6 million in highway railroad crossing safety funds. The money will go toward the $12 million Sixth Street overpass to be built by Railyards developer Thomas Enterprises, Johnson said. The money was paid to Thomas on behalf of the city, which requested the money in August.

All the funds had been awarded but not turned over, he said.

Reconfiguring and relocating the tracks has been a SACOG priority for years, Johnson said.

The Sacramento Valley Station sits on a major national trade route, the Central Corridor, whose western junction is the high-volume Port of Oakland. Freight and passenger trains share three tracks, a configuration set up about the time the Sacramento station was built in 1925.

Track relocation work will include building tracks devoted to freight, allowing a higher volume of freight trains to move more quickly through Sacramento. Freight and passenger tracks will be moved at least 300 feet north and straightened to allow for longer trains.

SACOG helped the city apply for the Prop. 1B funding. SACOG also is responsible for the regional distribution of about $109 million in federal stimulus funds. The organization earmarked $20 million for the railroad tracks project, the largest single project receiving those funds, Johnson said.

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson said he was happy the California Transportation Commission has allocated the funding for the transportation center and the Railyards.

"This project is important to revitalizing our downtown and will be a tremendous regional asset as new residents, visitors and workers come in and out of this area," he said in a prepared statement.

Photos by Suzanne Hurt, a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Railyards lawsuits defeated

2009-11-17T04:56:56Z

Westfield Downtown Plaza and a citizens' group lost legal challenges against the Railyards development, developer Thomas Enterprises and the city announced Monday.

The lawsuits against the city of Sacramento, the city's Redevelopment Agency and developer Thomas Enterprises argued that the poject's two environmental impact reports (EIRs) were inadequate and did not comply with the California Environmental Quality Act known as CEQA. Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Lloyd Connelly ruled in favor of the city and developer on all points raised by the Downtown Plaza and three people represented by attorney Bill Kopper.

Those individuals — Robert Castro Jr., Linda Powers and Chris Rich — filed one lawsuit as the group Sacramento Citizens Concerned About the Railyards, whose acronym is SCCARY. Two are members of labor unions, Kopper said.

"This is good news," Mayor Kevin Johnson said in a statement issued by the city and developer. "We can now focus on the task of creating jobs and developing an area that will play a vital role in making Sacramento a world-class city."

The plaintiffs are not satisfied with the ruling because 10 to 15 issues they raised were not addressed, Kopper said.

"There were many important issues in the case that we feel got short shrift by the court," he said. "I think it was a very cavalier attitude as to what the adverse impacts of the project will be because there is such a desire to advance the success of the Railyards."

For example, questions raised by the California Office of Historic Preservation and the State Water Resources Control Board in draft EIRs weren't answered in the final EIRs, he said. With an EIR stating that 192,000 vehicle trips eventually will be generated by the Railyards daily, the California Department of Transportation requested that the project's impact on the freeways circling the central city be considered, but that was "brushed aside," Kopper said.

The judge also ruled the city does not need to analyze downtown intersections one by one to determine if there should be widening or other improvements to prevent the gridlock predicted by a traffic study, he said.

The city approved the Railyards Specific Plan in December 2007 for the 244-acre site north of downtown between the Sacramento River and the Alkali Flat neighborhood.

The $6-billion project is expected to add more than 12,000 residential units, 2.3 million square feet of office space, 1.4 million square feet of retail, nearly 500,000 square feet of mixed-use space and 46 acres of parks and other open space, all centered around the city's future regional transportation center and a cultural hub in the historic Southern Pacific railroad shops.

Suheil Totah, vice president for Thomas Enterprises, called the decision "another important milestone" for the project.

"We're very pleased the judge found that everything was done in accordance with the law," Totah said by phone. "He found both EIRs did what they were supposed to do."

The Westfield Group could not be reached for comment.

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Prop. 1B money sought for tracks

2009-12-06T05:11:55Z

The city of Sacramento is about to ask the state of California to make good on its promise to award at least $20 million for railroad track relocation so work can start by May.

Unable to sell as many bonds as expected, the state has not disbursed $20 million in trade corridor funds that was awarded last year under state Proposition 1B. Next week, the city will ask the California Transportation Commission to borrow $25 million against the bond money, said Linda Tucker, spokesperson for the city's Department of Transportation.

"We've got to get this going," she said Friday, when the city announced it had met a Dec. 1 deadline for another $20 million in federal stimulus funding.

The city already has gathered $15 million from federal, state and local sources. The state money is needed to fully fund the $60 million track relocation, which is the first phase of building the regional transportation center next to the Sacramento Valley Station downtown.

The city met the deadline by submitting construction authorizations for the final design of phase 1 of the transportation center, and by submitting easements and permits for utility relocation to the California Department of Transportation.

“Last March, we learned the biggest chunk of stimulus money in Sacramento would be going to the Railyards if the project could be ready for construction in 9 months," Mayor Kevin Johnson said in a statement.

"With that looming deadline, city staff have been scrambling to work with multiple federal, state and local agencies, rail operators and utility companies to gain federal environmental clearance and secure project approvals and have everything turned in by Tuesday, Dec. 1," he said. "I am pleased to say, yes, we made it!”

Despite that, construction has been delayed again. The work was targeted to start this fall, then delayed to March. Now, construction has been pushed back to May.

The city delayed the start because of the project's complexity. The extra time will give contractors longer to submit a bid and allow the city more time to award the work, Tucker said.

"It has to meet a lot of criteria to be eligible for funds coming from a myriad of sources," she said.

The city applied for $6 million more for Phase 1 in August but did not win it, Tucker said.

The new tracks are now expected to begin operating in mid-2012.