The city celebrated an important reconnection to the Sacramento River Wednesday with the grand opening of the Docks Riverfront Promenade. More than 100 people — from cyclists and dog walkers to the city staff and contractors who made it happen — converged on the sunny, tree-lined promenade overlooking the green river to mark the completion of the parkway's $5.4 million first phase. Many rode a California State Railroad Museum train along its relocated track from Old Sacramento to the new Pioneer Landing Park, where the celebration began. The promenade and park, with its landscaped public plaza and giant water sculpture, were built to stimulate redevelopment of an old industrial brownfiel

Prospective developers for a new sports and entertainment complex were questioned by Mayor Kevin Johnson’s volunteer task force Wednesday night. The 12-member task force, which includes real estate, finance and communications executives, asked numerous follow-up questions after listening to presentations by Matt Haines, Doug Tatara and Ali Mackani. Haines, who owns Bistro 33 in Midtown, told the task force about his proposal to build the complex in downtown’s Docks Area. “This would be a direct front-door” to Old Sacramento, he said. Old Sacramento is north of the proposed area. Task force project coordinator Matt Massari wrote earlier that Haines’ Docks Area project would be “adjacent

The Sacramento City Council took action Tuesday that will help ready the riverfront Docks Area for development. The council's vote came at the final stage of a Docks Area planning process that began at least four years ago. The plan is to transform the under-used industrial area into a vibrant riverfront neighborhood that could add jobs and housing between the Sacramento River and I-5, said Beth Tincher, project manager of the city's Docks Area project and Riverfront Promenade. The city's plan is to create an "architecturally designed community" of high-density mixed use including 1,000 residential units, 43,300 square feet of retail space and 200,000 square feet of office space, with th

A quick ride along Front Street south of the Tower Bridge reveals that all three of the projects in that area are proceeding apace, giving even the casual visitor a sense of what our riverfront development is going to look like in the very near future. With the death yesterday of Charles Gwathmey, the architect behind the new Crocker addition, we wanted to share these photos, taken, unbeknownst to us, on what would be the day of his passing. First is the new Crocker addition, which will triple the size of the museum, and more importantly, create a modern new presence that is visible from I-5 as well as from the riverfront area. Last week, crews started adding the metal facing that will

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 pedestria