Some scenes from Midtown's Modern Art Festival:   For article about the art festival, CLICK HERE>>>

A myriad of local artists and hundreds of community members gathered in the street Saturday to celebrate art in multiple forms for the first Midtown Modern Arts Festival. The free, family-friendly street festival was held on 20th Street between J and K streets and featured six hours of music, dance, comedy, visual and performing arts and creative, hands-on activities for kids. The festival was run largely in part to the multitude of volunteers willing to give their time to put the event together, and neither the attendees nor vendors were charged to attend. “This is one way for use to give back to the community — bringing art organizations, artists and businesses together,” said Heather

Andy Ekstrom's Facebook profile includes his favorite quote: "If everyone likes you, you aren't doing your job. However, if no one likes you, you can't do your job." Sounds good, even wise. But in fact, nearly everyone seemed to like Andy. So as the news of his death at the age of 35 circulated Tuesday afternoon and evening, the outpouring of emotion through Facebook, texts and Twitters soon became a flood. Ekstrom, who worked as a project manager for Heller Pacific, was instrumental in launching and filling developer Mike Heller, Jr.'s game-changing MARRS building on 20th Street between J and K, and his two-building Retro Lodge complex downtown at 11th and H. Ekstrom was a constant pre

The death of Sacramento art dealer Paul Thiebaud has stirred efforts to get started on construction of the Tribute Building as soon as possible, Heller Pacific officials said Thursday. Thiebaud died Saturday of colon cancer at age 49. He had been partnering with developer Mike Heller Jr. on a project to build a modern, mixed-use office building featuring a tile mosaic of the Sacramento River by his father, artist Wayne Thiebaud. The two friends had planned to build the $12 million, four-story structure to honor their fathers — contractor Mike Heller Sr., who died in 2007, and the elder Thiebaud — and their collaboration on Sacramento Municipal Utility Department headquarters more than 50

The owners of the office complex called Retro Lodge are continuing bank negotiations in an effort to prevent the property's sale. The $2.5 million loan balance is now several months past due, which led Bank of America to schedule trustee sales at least twice this month. But developer Heller Pacific and partners haven't given up on trying to get a loan extension after converting a former downtown Travelodge into one of the city's most creative adaptive-reuse projects, a block away from Sacramento City Hall. The bank agreed to postpone a sale scheduled for Thursday while the partners are deep in talks with them. The project, which received no public subsidies, began taking tenants in 2008

Rob Kerth has been getting plenty of Zamboni action the last few nights. Midtown Business Association's executive director has been staying up late and going out in the early-morning dark to use the ice groomer to help create an ice-skating rink that opens at 10 a.m. Friday in Midtown. "It's a tremendous amount of work to put up one of these portable rinks," Kerth said Wednesday. "I've been there until 4 in the morning at least five out of the last 10 days." While most business association leaders might not even know how to spell "Zamboni," Kerth not only knows how to drive one, he owns one. And he has the license to drive it. That's because until last year, Kerth owned Ice Unlimited,

Midtown's MARRS Building has a full house again with three new tenants coming on board this month. Two spaces have been vacant for several months after business owners left without a word and without paying all their bills — which really hurts after the effort the company made to help them be successful, said building owner Michael Heller of Heller Pacific. "We help these tenants. We help them get their permits, we help with their construction, we market them," he said. "So when they don't honor their obligations, it's hurtful to us." New tenants in the block-long building, whose renovation was completed in 2007, include a shop that sells jeans, a sandwich shop and a comedy club. All th

The recent closing of his DV8 Boutique in Midtown was rough. But Michael Afshar doesn't have time to dwell on that. He's too busy DJ'ing his way through Europe right now. Considered by some to be a pioneer of San Francisco's underground house scene, Afshar — who entertains under the name DJ Skittles — is in St. Petersburg, Russia, after gigs in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Soon, he'll be spinning tech and electro house music in Moscow and Ukraine. "I have been playing in different countries every week now," he e-mailed in between gigs. "I had played in many venues in the world in the past. This is me going back to one of the things I love the most: music and flying in airplanes." The former