Valerie Mamone-Werder walked K Street Mall on a wet morning last week. Wrapped in a black trench coat, Downtown Sacramento Partnership's new retail recruiter didn't seem to notice the dark clouds bulging with the day's next rainstorm. She seemed too full of excitement. "I love all these old buildings," Mamone-Werder said, standing near a corner of 10th and K streets. She pointed out what's happening near that important spot: the sophisticated vibe The Cosmopolitan cabaret, café and nightclub have brought to a corner once inhabited by Woolworth's, and the work under way nearby to turn a former Hit or Miss clothing store into Dive Bar and Pizza Rock. She also discussed the potential for t

Now that city leaders have dedicated $2.7 million in funding to add cars to the K Street pedestrian mall, what exactly does the city hope to achieve from the effort?
 Mayor Kevin Johnson and city staffers have said that the move to include cars on K Street would be a boon for business and would also make the street safer.
 Johnson said at a Monday press conference that automobile traffic on K Street — banned since the late 1960s — would create numerous advantages for the city. “It increases visibility for all the retail...stimulates our activity in terms of K Street, and pedestrian malls are a thing of the past,” he said, adding that the cars would also improve public safety on the thoro

The Downtown Sacramento Partnership on Wednesday identified its primary strategy to help drive downtown's economic development for 2010 and beyond. The business group's board also voted to accept a study of the J-K-L corridor prepared by Downtown Works, a Washington, D.C. retail consultancy firm. The full and final report was presented at the partnership's annual meeting, held Wednesday morning at the Citizen Hotel. Within the next month or so, the business group will identify the "core" three to five strategies out of nearly 30 that were approved for 2010 through 2012. "Probably the most important element that has come out of the study is to restate a concept that has long been consid

If you build it, they will come. What's been said about baseball diamonds in Iowa is now being said for downtown Sacramento's future retail market, according to a retail consultancy firm that has just finished a study of the J-K-L corridor. In this case, "they" represent 72 percent of the greater Sacramento area's 1.65 million population: "urban chic" Sacramentans who own homes in the central city; young, child-free metrorenters; "in style" suburbanites who love the gritty city; long-time residents and new homeowners living just outside the core; and connoisseurs who want the best of everything, said Scott Schuler with Downtown Works of Washington, D.C. "You have got to draw people from