Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "k street"

Midtown's musicians featured in new art exhibit

2012-02-09T01:37:59Z

Art pays homage to art in a new gallery exhibit called “Musicians of Midtown” at Gallery 2110 as artist Brooke Walker-Knoblich exhibits 10 paintings of local musicians playing in Midtown venues.

“I’ve always been intrigued by musicians in particular – not just music, but the performance of music,” Walker-Knoblich said.

The paintings – all done in oil – evoke the emotions she felt in hearing the music, she said, adding that she watched the musicians perform, drawing sketches of them in as little as 30 seconds, then painting the larger works using the sketches as foundations.

Some of the works have shorter brush strokes to fit with the quicker pace of the music, while others are longer, and light and darkness are used to show emotion as well.

Musicians such as Musical Charis, The Nibblers and Clemon Charles are featured in the paintings, and the venues in which they are performing include The Urban Hive and Bows & Arrows, though the musicians are the prominent parts of the paintings.

For the exhibit, 20 sketches and 10 paintings are on display, and Walker-Knoblich said she spent the past year working on the body of work, which could extend into the future if other galleries are interested in the style.

Originally from Nevada City, the 29-year-old Walker-Knoblich moved to Midtown about three years ago. The current show is a departure from her normal style of work, which is Renaissance Realism.

“It was very liberating, and very challenging, too,” she said. “It was very different. I could kind of do whatever I wanted.”

She sketched more than 450 musicians over the past year, but for the show in Midtown, she chose 10 locals to turn into paintings.

“When I moved down to Midtown, I started checking out the scene, going to venues, and I was totally shocked at how great the scene was and how personable the artists were,” Walker-Knoblich said.

Walker-Knoblich said she has been an artist from an early age, but a year spent in Paris when she was 21 was the year when she determined art would be her career.

Clare Bailey, owner of the gallery, said that she would like to see Walker-Knoblich’s work tour to other cities, allowing Walker-Knoblich to add new paintings as some are sold and keep the exhibit evolving and financially successful.

“There are some artists, whose sketches she did, (who) have traveled from across the country to get here, and those haven’t turned into paintings yet, but they could, and this could be an exhibit that travels,” Bailey said.

“I think one of the elements that I love the most is we’re paying tribute to music in a fine art gallery – and it’s all related,” Bailey said.

All works are for sale, and the exhibit will run through March 2, Bailey said.

For more information on Gallery 2110, click here.

The exhibit is currently on display, but a reception will be held Thursday, with Walker-Knoblich available from 6 - 8 p.m. Guitarist Sean Paul Mee will be playing music during the reception as well.

Viewing the show on Saturday will be possible anytime between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m., as the gallery extends its hours for the Second Saturday Art Walk. Walker-Knoblich Will be in the gallery from 5 - 9 p.m. Saturday as well.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

Blackbird to open by end of February

2012-01-28T01:37:16Z

Replacement of a gas line is postponing the opening of the downtown seafood restaurant Blackbird Kitchen & Bar from Valentine’s Day to Feb. 21, but the restaurateurs are still able to work inside, and the iconic graphic on the front is complete.

“The buildout is being done right now, and the menu will be available in a couple of weeks,” said General Manager Shayne “7evin” Iles.

“We’re going to open when PG&E finishes the work, so hopefully it’s sooner, or at least on time,” he said.

Officials from Pacific Gas and Electric did not return messages left on Friday.

Blackbird Kitchen & Bar is located at 1013-1015 Ninth St.

Mediterranean food coming to K Street

2012-01-27T01:07:29Z

Influences from the Andalusia region of Spain such as Moorish arches and water features will be the architectural highlights of a Mediterranean/American restaurant coming to 925 K St.

The restaurant does not yet have a name and won’t be open until at least June, but Gene Hopkins, the superintendent in charge of the buildout, said it will be a combination buffet and full-service restaurant that will feature Mediterranean cuisine as well as some American dishes.

Formerly Farley’s Soup and Salad, the building has been vacant for about six years, and work began on the new business at the end of last year, Hopkins said.

Customers entering the 4,200-square-foot ground floor will be greeted by a waterfall on the right side, recalling the Moorish architecture prevalent throughout Spain. Two more waterfalls are planned to divide the buffet area with the seating area, and Moorish arches will serve as accents.

“It’s definitely going to be classy,” Hopkins said. “It’s going to fit in with some of the other businesses that are here or going in around here. We’ve got the restaurant and bars down the street (Dive Bar, District 30 and Pizza Rock), and we have Sharif Jewelers coming in across from us.”

While it will likely come after the restaurant opens, a facelift of the façade is planned. At the least, it will be repainted, but if plans are approved, one option is to carry the arch theme to the front of the restaurant and add pillars to accent the doorway.

The menu is still in the early stages, but Hopkins said it will include traditional Mediterranean fare such as hummus and pita sandwiches. No pork will be served, and it’s not yet determined whether alcohol will be served.

The owner, Sam Abukhdair, is from Palestine, Hopkins said, adding that he is bringing the inspiration for the cuisine.

The building itself is historic, and Hopkins said he sees it as a blend of 1820s and 1970s design.

As part of the city that was originally at a lower level, what is currently the basement used to be at street level.

“The entrance to the shop was set back, and if you go down there, you can see where the doorways and windows used to be,” Hopkins said. “They’re concreted over now, but the hinges are still there.”

At one point, the building served as a bank, and a heavy vault door Hopkins estimated to weigh at least a ton will be the new entryway to the walk-in refrigerator.

“There’s no way we can move that out of here,” he said with a laugh.

Despite the historic elements, the interior design will be more modern.

“The wall behind the buffet is going to glow,” Hopkins said, adding that LEDs will be placed behind frosted Plexiglas. The bathrooms are walled and floored in marble tile, and granite countertops will be installed.

A removable stage might be incorporated into the back end of the restaurant to allow for live music, and exterior seating along K Street will be built if plans are approved, Hopkins said.

The second floor of the building is being renovated as well, and it might be used to house events, while the third floor is being built out as offices.

The business, when it opens, will be another in a recent wave of businesses opening along the once-dreary K Street.

“It’s been a huge change here over the past six months, even,” Hopkins said, noting that new businesses and other changes to K Street have brought increased foot traffic to the area. “This is totally turning around.”

Esther Son, who opened Estelle’s Patisserie at the other end of the 900 block about a month ago, said she is happy to be on K Street, and added that she thinks another business will only add to the success she is seeing.

“It’s definitely an aid,” she said. “It’s synergy. I want neighbors. That will bring more people down here, and we’re building a community.”

Son said she wants to see more retail stores open as well as restaurants, but she has gotten support from local workers and customers that she said she is happy for.

“I enjoy being there,” she said. “I’m doing really well, and we get pretty busy during lunchtime. People come in, and they say they’re happy to have more businesses, and they want us to succeed. It’s been really good, and I think more (businesses) need to open up.”

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

Sharif Jewelers to open new location on K Street

2012-01-24T00:45:38Z

Sharif Jewelers is the next locally owned business to take a chance on K Street, with a new store expected to open in the former Breuner’s Department Store at 1001 K St. in June or July.

Like the company’s Howe Avenue and Folsom locations, the downtown location will be a full-service jewelry store, with new and pre-owned jewelry, watches, repair and service, said co-owner Mahmud Sharif.

“We have been looking into going downtown for the last three or four years,” Sharif said Monday. “We had the chance to invest in that corner, which we believe is the best corner in downtown.”

He added that he believes people who work downtown and near the Capitol will provide a strong customer base to the store because it is more convenient to the area than the Howe Avenue location, which hosted its grand opening in November after moving to a larger space.

Erica Clark, sales manager, said customers at the Howe Avenue location have given positive feedback, which encourages the company that the downtown store will be a success despite the economy.

“I would consider the space the heart of downtown, and that’s a part of the metropolis,” she said. “We feel very confident it will be a thriving business.”

She added that the development on K Street over the past year reaffirmed the decision to open a store in the area.

“The reopening of K Street to cars solidified us,” she said.

The business will occupy the 5,000-square-foot ground floor of the building, which has, in years past, been home to historic holiday window displays.

Sales of new jewelry will likely be the “driving force” of the store, she added, though repair, modification and custom jewelry will be important as well.

As with the other stores, Turkish coffee and baklava will be offered to customers, Clark said.

Sharif Jewelers has been in Sacramento for more than 30 years, and Sharif’s son, Omar Sharif, said he plans to continue with the business that started with his great-grandfather in Palestine.

“With the jewelry market and industry itself, most families shop at the same jewelry store for generations, so it’s nice to have a jewelry store run by the same family and the same people and always be there,” he said. “People tend to like it, and we get to know our customers that way.”

He added that he grew up in and around the store and is currently studying business administration at Sacramento State.

“Downtown is going to grow, and we hope to grow with downtown,” he said. “I think, personally, that everything is starting to move away from Midtown and back into downtown, and K Street is the heart of that area.”

Store hours have not yet been set, but it will likely open around 10 a.m. and close between 5 and 6 p.m., Clark said.

“We are very excited,” Mahmud Sharif said. “Truly we are blessed, blessed to have that location and be downtown.”

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

Arena headlines State of Downtown discussion

2012-01-17T22:43:22Z

San Francisco Giants President and CEO Larry Baer compared Sacramento’s efforts to build a new arena to the campaign to build Pac Bell Park in San Francisco, telling a collection of businesspeople and government officials that there is “tremendous opportunity” for Sacramento going forward.

Baer’s remarks were part of the 2012 State of Downtown address at Memorial Auditorium Tuesday morning, in which Mayor Kevin Johnson, State Senate President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg and other officials stressed the “why” of building a downtown entertainment and sports complex.

Baer said efforts to build the downtown ballpark in San Francisco were under way as early as the 1960s, with four attempts at using public funds defeated by voters. When ground broke on the project in 1997, it was for a privately funded stadium.

If Sacramento uses the resources of private enterprises such as the Sacramento Kings and other corporations along with some public funds that do not impact the city’s general fund, Baer said, it can get support.

The March 1 deadline to have a workable arena plan to present to the National Basketball Association is less than two months away, and Johnson said he is confident.

“We’re going to figure out a way to pull it off,” he said. “I think we’re closer than we’ve ever been.”

Key to any plan that will have both political will and the will of the people, he added, is making a plan that protects taxpayers, the city’s general fund – which has recently been plagued by shortfalls, necessitating layoffs for the past several years – and ensuring job growth.

“If we want to accept and live up to the identity of Sacramento, you’ve gotta have a strong downtown core,” he said.

Baer noted that the area around Pac Bell Park was markedly different just eight years after the ballpark opened.

The area around the park previously held disused land, warehouses and some residential neighborhoods. Today, he said, it is a hive of mixed-use activity including more residential, ground-floor retail and corporate offices.

Some of the notable corporate offices within 10 blocks of the park include the headquarters of Twitter and Zynga as well as the San Francisco offices of Google.

Another aspect of the arena that has worked well in San Francisco and can work in Sacramento, Baer said, is making use of the planned intermodal transit hub that is slated for the downtown railyards, next to the proposed arena site.

Half of the visitors to Pac Bell Park drive, but the other half take public transit, walk, bicycle or come by boat, he said.

Sacramento City Councilman Kevin McCarty spoke to The Sacramento Press after the event, saying that while the two projects have some parallels, there is still much to consider.

“It really has transformed that area of San Francisco, so if we can get that kind of energy here, of course the devil is in the details, but it certainly shows that a venue like that can make a major difference as far as being a catalyst,” McCarty said.

He pointed out that the San Francisco ballpark was privately financed, whereas the Sacramento plan relies on an expected 50/50 public/private partnership.

“We are still trying to figure that out as far as if it is a good decision for the city of Sacramento,” McCarty said.

One of the major decisions for the City Council will be whether it should lease control of the city’s parking for the next 50 years.

The event was hosted by the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, and Executive Director Michael Ault commented on a variety of successes in the downtown core over the past year.

Long-term projects such as bringing cars back to K Street and beginning redeveloping the 700 block of K Street happened in 2011. Additionally, 40 new businesses opened downtown, and the ice rink at St. Rose of Lima Park drew an all-time record of more than 30,000 skaters.

Another example of success in the downtown core was the recipient of the annual Visionary Innovators in Building Excellence (VIBE) award: California Musical Theatre Executive Producer and CEO Richard Lewis.

Ault said in a press release that Lewis and CMT are instrumental in attracting hundreds of thousands of people downtown each year, which provides economic activity.

During his acceptance speech, Lewis pointed out that 2012 will be another strong year, with “Wicked” almost sold-out already – only 5,000 tickets remain to be sold of the 75,000 originally available, and he said they will sell quickly.

Photos by Ron Nabity.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

Editorial Note: A correction was made to this story after it was published.

Sacramento Music's Numbers Game

2012-01-17T03:51:30Z

Music promoters in Sacramento gathered Sunday evening to discuss the need to create more local venues and how this would help the local music culture thrive. Time Tested Books hosted the Living Library discussion, called, “The State of Live Music in Sacramento.” Many panelists said that creating more venues in Sacramento is vital and find the city’s regulations to be a huge obstacle.

No chairs were empty, and a crowd stood for the whole two hours of the event. When the moderator, local writer/music fan Dennis Yudt, asked if anyone present was a musician, more than half of the attendants raised their hands.

Yudt spent the first hour and a half prompting the five panelists with questions – music promoters Jerry Perry (who once ran a popular venue called The Cattle Club), Brian McKenna (promoter of many local bands, including Hella), Mindy Giles (who was once vice president of Alligator Records and was marketing director for Tower Records) and Rick Ele (who hosts the “Art for Spastics” show on KDVS). Also with them was Olivia Coelho, co-founder of the music venue and vintage shop Bows and Arrows.

When Yudt asked the panelists what Sacramento has that other cities don’t, Perry had great things to say about the local artists. When looking for Sacramento’s new great band each year, he said he finds 10 or 20 that are up to par.

The conversation quickly switched to what Sacramento lacks, and for all the panelists, it’s a key way of presenting these artists to bigger audiences.

“There’s a 1,500-seat venue that’s the missing link,” McKenna said.

McKenna outlined this missing link as a transition for bands to go from smaller venues to big shows – not necessarily a “huge building to fill every night,” but a new venue open to all genres and all audiences.

Everyone on the panel agreed that supporting the city’s culture and opening more music venues could help revitalize K Street and would be a step toward turning Sacramento into a world-class city.

Ele said that he could easily brainstorm 80 venues in Portland, but not even two dozen in Sacramento, which he finds extremely problematic.

“If (Portland) can rise from the joke of a scene that they were,” Ele said, “there’s no reason Sacramento can’t, too.”

Perry expressed a lot of frustration with the city’s regulations on entertainment. He said that many restaurants would be selling food and alcohol without any trouble, but once live entertainment was involved, suddenly people would worry about minors drinking alcohol.

“What makes you think we’ll let them drink?” Perry said. “They treat us like children…. I wish the city would open their eyes and support us.”

McKenna agreed with Perry’s point, and he said that it is important for the missing link to be all-ages and still provide alcohol.

“Adults don’t want to come out if they can’t get alcohol,” McKenna said, “but it’s the kids that really bring new enthusiasm for music.”

Coelho said she knows this venue struggle firsthand. She explained how tough it was for her to present live music at her store, Bows and Arrows, legally. The process consumed a lot of time and money, sometimes leading to paying bands out of pocket.

“It’s incredibly expensive to make sure bathrooms are up to date and to have sprinklers,” Coelho said. “(It costs) tens of thousands of dollars just to have amplified music in your place.”

Coelho spoke of one victory she had for Bows and Arrows, where she was able to save money by asking the city to allow her one security guard instead of the required two.

When she pointed out that her venue is small and that two guards for so much as two attendants was unreasonable, they listened to her plight and agreed with her.

“Sometimes (the city) will be more responsive than we think they will,” Coelho said.

Despite this victory, the “one-size-fits-all” entertainment permit has to be renewed every two years, even if nothing has changed with the establishment. The application fee is supposed to cover the cost of time the government gives to investigate a venue, she said, and the renewal is $1,400.

“I would be so sad to not be able to bring live music to people,” Coelho said.

Once Yudt finished his questions, the panel turned to the audience. Many hands filled the air to offer ideas and brainstorm new strategies for helping Sacramento’s music culture. One audience member suggested that they file petitions against certain regulations, while another said that the panel could easily be the founders of a special interest group.

One audience member, Michael “LP Sessions” LaPlante, pointed out that theaters in San Jose have several months of off time, and that they supplement income with live music performances. LaPlante said that The Sacramento Theatre Company, Wells Fargo Pavilion, and B Street Theatre could easily do the same.

“We have lots of diverse music in this town,” LaPlante said. “Venues and presenters and bands need to get together and organize.”

Yudt closed by thanking everyone for coming to the event. He asked that they take action to help Sacramento’s music culture, even if it’s something as small as bringing a new friend to a live performance.

“Everyone can have a say to institute change,” Yudt said. “Young, old, regardless of genre… tonight, we’re all in the same genre.”

The next Living Library will be held Febuary 19th, and will have beer historian Ed Carroll, author of “Sacramento's Breweries,” discuss Sacramento’s brewing heritage.

Year in review: Business comings and goings

2011-12-29T02:18:58Z

The past year saw quite a bit of businesses come, go and expand in the central city area, and The Sacramento Press covered many of those happenings. Below are some of the major expansions and changes as well as some of the most-viewed stories on businesses closing.

A favorite Sacramento lunch spot changed hands this year as Chef Daniel Pont handed over ownership of La Bonne Soupe Café in late April. The 72-year-old chef said he still enjoys cooking, but running the one-man shop by himself was too much. He has since opened another restaurant, this time in Folsom, where he has a staff to help run it.

New owners Ed Stoddard and Leah Brown reopened the restaurant in the same location in May.

The popular Bows & Arrows vintage clothing store closed its spot at 17th and L streets in April and moved across from Safeway on 19th Street. As part of the move, owners Olivia Coelho and Trisha Rhomberg partnered with Davis-based Fat Face Cafe to add food and drinks to the new spot as well as art shows and musical performances.

Curtis Park’s Pangaea Two Brews Cafe expanded its business from being a taphouse and cafe to include a bottle shop. Owner Rob Archie said he wanted to offer locals the chance to grab individual bottles of less-common brews at to-go prices.

The Downtown 24 Hour Fitness club completed an extensive remodel in October, a $10 million project that added 31,000 square feet to bring the total to 50,000, which now includes a basketball court, a racquetball court and new cardio machines.

A couple who started a donut business called Doughbot Donuts from home in May 2010 added a Southside Park storefront in September. Owners Bryan Widener and Dannah O’Donnell said they sold 700 donuts on the first day and 1,000 the next.

Temple Coffee was a fixture in an old bookstore on 10th Street between J and K streets since 2005, but it moved a block east in September, reopening in a larger location. Owner Sean Kohmescher said the new, more open space allows for more conversation and personal engagement.

The owners of Tuli Bistro opted for a downtown location, opening Restaurant Thirteen on the ground floor of the Sterling Hotel at 1300 H St. in March. The new restaurant is intended to have an atmosphere similar to a fine-dining establishment, but without the stigma, said Chef Adam Pechal.

Shoki Ramen House also opened a second location in May, this time bringing the Japanese noodles to R Street. The ramen is all made from scratch in-house.

Despite many restaurants doing well in 2011, there were some that closed – with closures due to retirements, a bad economy or any number of other reasons.

Newsbeat, a newsstand that stocked a wide range of hard-to-find magazines, closed its doors in the MARRS Building in Midtown in November. Co-owner Terrence Lott attributed the closure to high rents and the decreasing demand for print media as digital media continue to grow in popularity.

Perhaps the biggest flop in central city business in 2011 was Garlic Shack, which was much-anticipated and kept delaying its opening date. When it did open in July, it was to mixed reviews, and by mid-October, it was gone, with no word from the owners.

The unique Hangar 17, a restaurant in a Quonset hut in Midtown, shut down in March. Owner Joey Madrid said the economy cost the business its viability, and workers left with a bitter taste in their mouths, saying their final checks bounced.

Next-door Midtown businesses Aura and Red Lotus also closed in 2011, and Aura was replaced by BarWest Burgers & Wings, while Red Lotus will be replaced by another restaurant, Red Rabbit, in 2012. Aura closed in March, and Red Lotus closed in September.

Despite the popularity of bicycles in Midtown, the bicycle-themed Spin Burger Bar at 16th and K streets wasn’t able to make it, closing in July. The closure, however, opened the space for a new Indian restaurant, which was up and running in December.

The 52-year-old Capitol Aquarium also closed in 2011, calling it quits in July as the owners were unable to find a buyer for the business.

Another veteran business, Brew it Up!, wasn’t able to make it at the corner of 14th and H streets, shutting down in late July. Owner Mike Costello said debt piled up and not enough customers came in to pay the bills, so he had to call it quits.

Not all restaurant closures were due to the economy, with Celestin’s Island Eats & Cajun Cuisine being one example. The 28-year-old business closed when owners Patrick and Phoebe Celestin decided to retire. They said they didn’t want to sell it, and the space reopened in December as The Porch, a Southern-themed restaurant run by the owners of nearby Capitol Garage.

Do you have a favorite business that expanded or closed in 2011? Let us know in the conversation below.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

Year in review: Changes to K Street

2011-12-28T01:30:41Z

K Street was a fixture in local news this year, with the most noteworthy event being its reopening to vehicular traffic for the first time since the 1960s – a major part of the city’s plan to revitalize the area. Other revitalization efforts included redevelopment and the moving of the Greyhound station.

The section of K Street between Seventh and 12th streets known as the K Street Mall has long been blighted, and city officials argued that much of that blight was the result of the failed pedestrian mall concept for the area.

That led to a long process of returning it to vehicular traffic, which was well under way by the middle of the year.

By mid-September, there were noticeable changes to the streetscape as crews dug up old paving and prepared the street to handle light rail and cars.

K Street officially reopened to cars on Nov. 12, to much fanfare.

Though it is now legal to drive down the street, Sacramentans have been slow to start using it. In early December, about a month after the street reopened to vehicles, The Sacramento Press asked businesspeople on the street if they had noticed a change. While most said they had not, the general feeling was that it is too soon to tell, and some were hopeful for a revitalized K Street in the near future.

One large-scale redevelopment project is under way on the south side of the 700 block. D&S Development, Inc., which worked to redevelop the historic Maydestone Building at 15th and J streets, partnered with CFY Development, Inc., on the 700 block of K Street.

The $47.7 million project is seen by city officials as a catalyst to turn the street into something the city can be proud of.

The City Council approved the project in July, and in late August, The Sacramento Press took a tour of the buildings that are scheduled to be redeveloped starting in 2012.

Another move in changing the face of K Street was the moving of the Greyhound station from nearby L Street to Richards Boulevard. After the move, police reported seeing approximately 60 percent fewer calls in the area around the station, including K Street, and D&S Development, Inc., representatives concurred.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

Downtown Sacramento Christmas Lights Photos

2011-12-23T20:57:51Z

It’s that special time of year on Capitol Mall and Old Sacramento, Christmas lights are up inviting people to walk a few blocks and the Capitol Christmas Trees decked out in all its splendor. Over the last several years, it appears as if more lights have gone up to enrich the overall experience as an inviting destination to visit and enjoy. The Wells Fargo Center has done a fantastic job with a beautiful tree in the lobby and twinkling lights inside and out.

Merry Christmas!

Disclosure: Read more at: http://livinginurbansac.blogspot.com/ or http://zwahlenimages.com/blog/

Indian restaurant opens on K Street in Midtown

2011-12-15T02:30:48Z

Indian cuisine arrived at the corner of 16th and K streets last week when Monsoon Indian Bar & Grill opened Dec. 8, and the response has been positive, co-owner Paul Singh said.

“I go to Yelp, and we’re getting reallygood reviews,” Singh said. “I think it’s a good barometer, and it also gives you feedback. People take the time to go and write, and I take them seriously, even though it’s only about 10 or so so far.”

Some of the most popular dishes so far, Singh said, are thechicken tikka masala, lamb Vindaloo and the samosa pakora appetizers – vegetarian-friendly pastry wraps of peas and rice.

“People are coming back for additional visits, and that gives me confidence,” Singh said.

Many of the nearby buildings house state offices, and some of those employees were in the restaurant for lunch on Wednesday.

“This is my first time trying Indian food,” said Nadine Jordan, a 50-year-old state employee from Sacramento. “It was an awesome experience. I’ve never tried it in my life, and it was absolutely good.”

Farzana Buksh, a 27-year-old state worker from Sacramento, is from an Indian background and said she thinks the food is authentic, though not necessarily what her mother would make at home.

“The food was really delicious,” she said. “I had the chicken tikka masala, and it was good.”

Erik Sweeting, a 28-year-old state worker from Rocklin, said he tried the mango prawns and enjoyed them as well as the naan.

“The service was very friendly,” he added. “I’ll definitely come back.”

Those unfamiliar with Indian cuisine are given samples of the food, Singh said. A new dish is in the works that will provide three samples of three different foods during lunchtime.

“We currently have a lunch deal that is very popular,” Singh said. “We call it the two for 20, and you get an appetizer, two meals of your choice, rice and naan bread for $20.”

Though the soft opening was last week, Singh said the grand opening will likely be the first week in January.

“We wanted to wait until after the holidays since everyone is so busy,” he said.

The interior décor, which Singh said he originally envisioned as being more traditional, is more modern – a result of the restaurant’s large window space.

Stockton-based interior designer Kathleen Jennison worked with Singh and his business partners.

“They wanted it to be Indian but also contemporary,” she said. “They were looking for a nightclub feel, but also a family-friendly atmosphere.”

Jennison said she wanted to evoke a sense of rain, given the restaurant’s name, and the gray and blue walls are accented by crystal light fixtures to give a feel of cloudiness with lightning. The concrete floors were polished to give a sense of shiny water.

One wall is red, which Jennison said is an homage to the colors of Indian spices.

Monsoon is open from 11 a.m. - 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. - 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

The Sacramento Press on 'Insight'

2011-12-07T02:02:03Z

City Council election drama, a potential swap of high school campuses, new businesses and two Sacramento Press contests were all topics I discussed with Jeffrey Callison Tuesday morning on Capital Public Radio’s “Insight” program.

Elections are quite a ways away, but the District 2 City Council race is already heating up as some accuse candidate Kim Mack of using an email list from her time working on the Obama campaign to push for a Strong Mayor initiative for Mayor Kevin Johnson. Mack denies sharing the email list with the Strong Mayor backers. Read more by clicking here.

Another contentious issue in the city right now has to do with education – more specifically education facilities. The Sacramento City Unified School District board floated the idea of swapping Sacramento Charter High School and West Campus – two high schools that sit about two miles apart. Proponents say moving the public West Campus school to the old Sacramento High School facility – which now houses the charter school – would provide a pedestrian-friendly comprehensive school for the area. Opponents say there is no reason to swap them, and moving schools will only put a different set of students in an inadequate facility.

As the ongoing Occupy Sacramento movement stays in the news, one Sacramento Press reader asked Sacramento Police Officer Michelle Lazark in her weekly column about the difference between camping in Cesar Chavez Plaza and in front of stores for deals. Lazark replied that police enforce the no-camping ordinance on public property, but typically don’t do so on private property unless business owners ask them to or there are “No Loitering” signs posted.

A pair of coffee roasters with about a decade of experience each are opening Insight Coffee Roasters, a new coffee bar and roasting house in Southside Park. The duo plans to focus on sustainable coffee, working directly with growers in Latin America and selling only organic milk and sugar in their drinks.

The old Fog Mountain Cafe business in the City Hall Garage will soon be replaced by a barbecue eatery: Big Joe’s BBQ. Fog Mountain closed in April, and the city forgave some of the lease in order to bring Big Joe’s on as soon as possible.

Bringing as much comedy as drama, Sacra-Melo – a musical theater parody group – opened on the Delta King in Old Sacramento in late September. Actors don’t stay strictly to the script, but interact with the audience and work with piano accompaniment to give a show the owners say is unique in the area.

Finally, a pair of contests on The Sacramento Press gives readers the chance to be more interactive with the site and earn some prizes at the same time. “To Catch an Error” is in its second month and gives readers the chance to help us improve the quality of content on the site. For more information on how you can take part – and win a meal at Zócalo – click here. The second contest is the third annual Journalism Open, which runs for the month of January. Is there something you think should be in the news? You have the chance to put it there and win prizes – with the first place winner taking home $600. For more details and rules, click here.

Man on the Street: business after cars on K

2011-12-07T01:50:25Z

It’s been almost one month since cars returned to K Street between Eighth and 12th streets, and The Sacramento Press asked business owners and managers on the former pedestrian mall if they have observed any differences as a result.

To read about the reopening of the K Street Mall to vehicular traffic, click here.

Larry Bethune, 25-year-old shift leader at Quiznos, 902 K St.

“I think it allows a lot more people to know about the different restaurants on K Street,” Bethune said. “It hasn’t increased business yet because there’s nowhere to park. There’s a lot about a block from here with purple fence around it. If they turned that into a parking lot, then having cars on the street would turn into a really great idea.”

Veni Sharma, 63-year-old co-owner of DeRow & Sharma Clothier & Tailors, 916 K St.

“It’s too early to tell, but it’s improved a little bit,” Sharma said. “People are still learning they can drive down here. It’s a positive thing.”

Chuck Karajeh, 51-year-old owner of Midtown Market, 1026 K St.

“There’s been no change so far,” Karajeh said. “I don’t think it’s going to change anything. To me, well, I’ve been here a long time. I don’t think people are going to stop, and there’s no parking. If they had street parking, it would help.”

Chris Dooley, 32-year-old bar manager at Ella Dining Room & Bar, 1131 K St.

“We’re still doing the same, but we have always had a street with cars on it, since we’re on the corner (of 12th and K streets),” Dooley said. “For some, I’m sure bringing cars back has increased business. It definitely makes the street more approachable to pedestrians and families, so it’s more accessible now.”

Jesse Lua, 29-year-old manager of Blimpie Subs & Salads, 1023 K St.

“There’s been no change,” Lua said. “It really hasn’t gotten any traffic at all. I don’t think it’ll do anything without parking. The only traffic I’ve seen is maybe some cabs, but there hasn’t been an accident yet.”

Sid Garcia-Heberger, 46-year-old general manager of the Crest Theatre, 1013 K St.

“I’m seeing increased activity on the street,” Garcia-Heberger said. “Most of the increased activity is on the weekends and at night. I think people are still getting used to it. Once more people know about it, I think it will really help.”

What is your perception of the changes to K Street over the past month, since cars were allowed. Have you driven down the former pedestrian mall? Let us know in the conversation below.

Monsoon to bring Indian cuisine to 16th and K

2011-11-28T05:41:56Z

Monsoon Indian Bar & Grill is scheduled to open the first week of December in the building at 16th and K streets that formerly housed Spin Burger Bar and Bistro 33.

“It’s going to be fresh food, prepared daily,” said co-owner Chan Singh. “This is Indian food where we use spices to enhance the flavors of the food, not overkill it.”

Singh, originally from Delhi, India, came to North America in the 1990s, getting into the restaurant business in Toronto, Canada, opening his original Monsoon location.

Singh said his business in Toronto is well-run by his managers, allowing him to come to Sacramento and focus on the new venture.

In India, the monsoon season typically lasts from June to September, and it’s a special time, according to Singh.

“It’s considered to be kind of a romantic time in India,” he said. “You have five to six months of 100-plus temperatures, and then the monsoon comes, and it really brings everything to life and cools down. People love to go out and have fun and eat.”

The restaurant, which will be open seven days per week, will serve lunch and dinner and have a full bar. A limited late-night menu will be available after about 10 p.m., and Indian-themed cocktails will be available as well, Singh said.

The food will be traditional Indian, served to Singh’s specifications.

“It’s going to be the kind of food I like to eat,” he said. “If I wouldn’t want to eat it, why would I serve it?”

Chicken Vindaloo, a spicy dish from the Goa region; Kerala fish, a fish topped with coconut sauce, peppercorns and curry leaves; chicken tikka masala, roasted chicken in a curry sauce; and numerous other dishes including shrimp and salmon will be available.

In addition, there will be a variety of what Singh said are more modern dishes in India, including a dish with chicken atop a coconut chickpea sauce and lamp chops in a creamy curry sauce.

A range of vegetarian items will be available as well.

Full menu details are still being worked out, as is the cocktail selection. Prices for food will range from around $10 for vegetarian items to $12 - $15 for non-vegetarian items. The lunch menu will be less-expensive, with food running from about $8 - $10.

The 2,800-square-foot restaurant will seat about 95 people inside, and the existing patio will be retained.

Most recently, the space held Spin Burger Bar, which evolved from Bistro 33.

“We originally wanted to decorate it in a traditional Indian way, but when we saw the building, it’s very modern, so we will have a more modern influence,” Singh said.

Some of the décor will be paintings imported from India.

While Singh is not a Sacramentan, he said he will be living here for the foreseeable future as the restaurant gets started, and he has two local partners.

“We were looking in Roseville, but when we saw that this space was available, we knew we had to come here. I don’t think there is anything else like this around here.”

Jennifer Young, a 41-year-old state worker from Sacramento who works in the area, said the restaurant will be a nice complement to the area.

“I like curry,” she said Wednesday afternoon. “I’ll definitely try it out.”

Young said that, with numerous state office buildings in the area, affordable food will likely be key to staying in business.

Another nearby state worker, 27-year-old Abby Eddy of Sacramento, said she thinks the corner location is the perfect spot for a restaurant, and it will be successful if it provides a good late-night option for diners and those looking for drinks.

“I’ll definitely give it a shot,” she said.

Monsoon Indian Bar & Grill, 1020 16th St., is scheduled to be open from 11 a.m. - 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. - 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. - 10 p.m. Sunday.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

Newsbeat shuts doors on 20th Street

2011-11-15T04:13:53Z

Editorial Note: This story has been updated since it was published.

Newsbeat, a business that some called Sacramento’s last newsstand, closed over the weekend, leaving an empty space in the popular MARRS Building.

“It’s a tragedy for our building. A tragedy,” said Pete Haynes, owner of the next-door Denim Spot. “They were a pillar of the Midtown and Sacramento community. We’ve definitely lost a piece of our culture.”

The independently owned Newsbeat, 1050 20th St., sold hard-to-find magazines and candies, greeting cards and a mix of other goods.

Terrence Lott, co-owner of the store, said that in comparison to his other Newsbeat location in Davis – which remains open – some of the “bread and butter” business never materialized, including sales of candy, cigarettes and cigars.

“The building is trafficked significantly, but we never had that kind of neighborhood destination,” he said.

He added that opening in the space took a big capital investment, and the building is one of the higher-rent places in Sacramento, and revenues didn’t recoup the costs.

Newsbeat was open in the MARRS building for four almost four years, and before that, it was at 10th and L streets for 16 years.

Lott didn’t rule out the possibility of opening another space sometime in the future, but said there are currently no plans.

“We’re just ind of taking a step back,” he said. “There’s a lot to figure out about the idea of selling print media.”

On the closing days, Lott said the community support was touching, with longtime customers stopping by, some bringing cookies and other baked goods.

“That was rewarding and reinforcing,” Lott said. “That makes you just believe in community.”

Mike Heller, property developer overseeing the MARRS Building, said in an email Monday that the business plan was not viable, and the general economy “contributed greatly” to the business’ closure.

He said he will now look to bring in another tenant for the building.

Haynes said business has slowed considerably on the block in the past year – and high rents with a much smaller Second Saturday Art Walk crowd have hurt all the businesses.

Valeri Simons, a 51-year-old who works at the nearby Headhunters bar and lounge, 1930 K St., echoed Haynes’ statements.

“It’s been pretty slow lately,” she said. “That’s terrible that they’re gone. I think it’s definitely a loss to the area.”

Simons added that she used to purchase cards at the store, since it was close and had a better selection than many of the larger chain stores.

Haynes said the business stocked items that simply weren’t available elsewhere.

“They were so unique, people came from all over because they knew they could find or quickly get access to magazines maybe you could only get in Europe,” he said.

Brian Crall, owner of the Sacramento Comedy Spot in the same building, said Newsbeat will be missed.

“It’s a great ma and pa store, but the economy is really tough,” he said.

Nicholas Avey, a 27-year-old freelance graphic designer from Midtown, said he went into Newsbeat a few times to buy postcards and magazines.

“It’s sad,” he said, adding that he doesn’t plan to make the drive to the Davis store.

Crall said that it was disconcerting to see the moving truck packing up the last of the store fixtures Monday night.

“It’s really upsetting to see when somebody goes out of business,” he said. “I’m an independent business owner myself. We do the best we can every single day, and it’s sad when you see somebody who has put so much of their life into it have to close down.”

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

Hundreds gather to celebrate cars returning to K Street

2011-11-14T06:54:21Z

On Saturday afternoon, hundreds of people came to support and honor the decision for cars to return to K Street after 42 years. People rallied behind the development and celebrated the change at the Cars on K opening event. Guests seemed to be in consensus that cars returning to K Street was cause for celebration.

“K Street is the spine of downtown,” Mayor Kevin Johnson said. “By opening it up, we start to get connected again.”

It was all smiles as the first inaugural drive down K Street took place.Over 40 old and new cars paraded down the street while bystanders clapped and cheered as red, white and blue confetti rained down from the tops of surrounding buildings.

“I can remember when cars were on K when I was a little girl. I am happy that they are back,” said Virginia Steele. “After the cars weren’t allowed on K Street, less and less people came and visited. I am glad that we are moving forward again.”

James Brown’s “I Feel Good” blasted through the streets while old and new Chevrolet trucks, Mustangs, Lamborghinis, Camaros and other show cars revved their engines and drove down K Street for the first time.

Johnson rode passenger in a red Ferrari resembling the one from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Families strolled down the street as music and applause filled the surrounding blocks with celebratory noise.

“The vision is to reconnect K Street to the rest of the grid,” said Lisa Martinez, Downtown Sacramento Partnership marketing and outreach director. “This is forward momentum and is a positive step in the right direction for both businesses and the city.”

Families, business owners, politicians and visitors of all ages surrounded the stage at 12th and K streets while Johnson and other local dignitaries spoke about the importance of cars returning to K Street.

With throwback prices, restaurant specials and retail deals at nearly every business on K Street, people flowed in and out of the buildings as if discovering them again for the first time.

“Ideally, I hope that the whole block can be a vibrant walk for someone that wants to experience Sacramento,” said Ernesto Delgado de Tequila, owner of Tequila Museo Mayahuel at 1200 K St. “It connects Old Sacramento to the Convention Center to the Capitol, and we are working to bring some positive energy to this section of town.”

Street performances by a mariachi group, the Sizzling Sirens Burlesque Experience dance troupe, DJ 7evin and many others kept the energy high and the excitement flowing throughout the evening.

“By reopening K Street to cars, there will be a surge of energy in regards to safety and economic growth,” said Maurice Chaney, Economic Development Department’s media and communications specialist.

Performers walked on stilts along K Street as cars continued to circulate. A skate park between Capitol and K streets attracted crowds as skaters of all ages took turns showing off their tricks.

Many guests walked with smart phones in-hand as they participated in a K Street scavenger hunt with prizes that included $100 gift card to Chops, tickets to events like Marilyn’s on K New Year’s Eve Party and a hotel night at the Residence Inn at Capitol Park, Citizen Hotel and the Hyatt Regency .

The Cars on K event was a celebration that honored and marked cars returning to K Street as an important day in the history of Sacramento. K Street is now open to vehicles. Enjoy the ride.

Editorial Note: A spelling correction has been made to this story after it was published.

French pastry shop coming to K Street downtown

2011-11-11T01:20:54Z

French desserts will once again be available at the corner of Ninth and K streets downtown as the owner of a popular East Sacramento cupcake shop plans to open Estelle’s Patisserie on Dec. 1 in the building that formerly housed Danielle’s Creperie.

“This has been my lifelong passion,” said owner Esther Son. “I’ve always dreamed of owning a bakery, ever since I was a little girl.”

Though not traditionally trained as a baker, Son said she considers herself self-taught, and she has extensive experience in coming up with recipes and tweaking them until they’re perfect.

Her cupcake shop, Esther’s Cupcakes, has been in business at 2600 Fair Oaks Blvd. for two years.

“We were always coming downtown because we had a lot of clients at the Capitol,” she said. “The politicians and the lobbyists would bring in our cupcakes for gifts at fundraisers, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger used to order from us.”

The pastry shop, however, will have a much broader set of goods. Some of the menu items include French macarons, croissants, green tea madeleines, fresh strawberry cakes, puff pastries, French baguettes and even sandwiches such as ham and cheese on a croissant.

Fruit tarts and quiches loaded with vegetables will also be available, and coffee from Temple Coffee will be sold.

Most desserts will be in the $3-$4 range, and Son said customers will be able to get lunch and a drink for about $8.

Though Son is Korean-American, she said she chose to focus on French desserts, starting at the roots, and then modifying them with Asian and American influences.

“The root of all dessert and pastry making is French,” Son said. “Not that American, Asian or Italian styles aren’t as good, but I wanted to go back to the roots and then improvise.”

The name Estelle, she said, is the French version of Esther, so it was a natural choice.

A self-described perfectionist, Son said she and her staff – the patisserie will employ about 10 workers – spent six months perfecting the croissant.

“We boast of our butter croissants,” she said. “We don’t buy pre-mixed or frozen croissants. It’s 100 percent homemade, and there are not many of those in town. It’s really flaky and buttery.”

With a husband who is a physician, Son said that even though her business has a variety of desserts, being health-conscious is still important.

“We need to educate people on what good dessert is,” she said. “Some people are used to Twinkies, and they are so unnaturally sweet and oily, but a dessert doesn’t have to be overwhelming.”

To get away from processed foods and make even a buttery croissant more healthy than the alternative, Son said she focuses on using high-quality ingredients bought from local sources whenever possible.

“We avoid shortening and corn syrup,” she said. “It’s hard to say dessert is healthy, but you can work on it by reducing those kinds of ingredients.”

Also available will be diabetic-friendly and vegan items. There will also be “almost-gluten-free” items, and Son explained that to legally call something gluten-free, it must be produced on separate equipment, which is something she isn’t set up to do.

One of the clients of her other business, Esther’s Cupcakes, is the J. Crew store in Arden Fair Mall.

“We use Esther for her cupcakes for special events for our store clients,” said Manager Sophie Pena. “Her cupcakes are a special, unique treat. They look amazing; they taste amazing. You just look at them, and you can tell they’re hers.”

Pena said she is looking forward to going down to the patisserie and trying Son’s other baked goods once it opens.

The building, at 901 K St., was formerly Danielle’s Creperie. At 3,000 square feet, it has a seating area of about 1,000 square feet that can hold 25-30 people. A few more tables will be put on the fenced-in patio that fronts K Street.

K Street will open to vehicular traffic for the first time since the 1960s on Saturday, and Son said that was one of the reasons she chose to open a downtown location.

“I’m really excited to see the city and urban life turn around, and I want to be a part of this,” she said. “If I can make a little change to the downtown lifestyle, I’ll be so honored.”

That sentiment, according to Downtown Sacramento Partnership Business Recruitment Director Valerie Mamone-Werder, is key to turning around the blighted K Street area that has seen improvement over the past year with the opening of numerous new businesses, including Tequila Museo Myahuel and the nightlife trio of Pizza Rock, District 30 and Dive Bar.

“I think that getting these tenants, these merchants and retailers that really get downtown is refreshing,” she said. “We have a lot of naysayers, but we have people who see downtown for what it is and can be, and she sees what we do have, and what’s coming.”

Having lived in Sacramento for the past 10 years, Son, 34, said she plans to raise her two children, ages 5 and 6, in the area.

Also scheduled for late winter and early spring openings are another cupcake shop in the Westfield Galleria at Roseville Mall and another Estelle’s Patisserie in the Arden area.

“I’m not here to come in and then go out of business in five years,” Son said. “I plan on being here for the long haul.”

Estelle’s Patisserie, 901 K St., will initially be open from 6 a.m. - 7 p.m. on weekdays. If business warrants, Son said, she will stay open on weekends.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

Downtown Ice Rink Opens

2011-11-05T05:14:24Z

Kids were lined up and ready to skate on opening day of the downtown outdoor ice rink. A chill was in the air, adding to the feel of the upcoming holidays.

"There's nothing that says 'holidays' better than ice skating," Michael Ault, Executive Director of the Downtown Partnership said right before the rink opened.

And this is its 20th season. Skating was free today until 10 p.m.

Located at 7th & K Streets in downtown Sacramento it is open annually seven days a week from early November to mid-January.

The 7,000 sq. ft rink, across from the Westfield Plaza, is produced by the Downtown Partnership with numerous sponsors.

Here's photos from opening day;

Generally, hours are 2 to 8 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays; 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sundays.

Open daily November 4, 2011 – January 16, 2012
Monday – Thursday: 2 pm – 8 pm
Friday – Saturday: 10 am – 10 pm
Sunday – 10 am – 8 pm

For more info, CLICK HERE>>>>

Gourmet seafood restaurant coming to downtown Sacramento

2011-11-05T02:01:20Z

Two historical downtown buildings are being refurbished, and they will soon house Blackbird Kitchen & Bar, a seafood restaurant that owner Carina Lampkin said will serve “gourmet food at hipster prices” and is expected to open in December.

The approximately 3,500-square-foot building was formerly two separate buildings, 1013 and 1015 Ninth St., and both date back to the 1930s.

“Blackbird is a compilation of all of my experience so far,” said the 30-year-old Lampkin. “I grew up on the East Coast and spent every summer in Maine. In 2003, I moved to San Francisco and went to culinary school.”

After spending almost a decade cooking at restaurants in San Francisco, Lampkin made the move to Sacramento and partnered with Rachel Kelley, a 27-year-old pastry chef who spent the past four years working at Ella, and Shayne “7evin” Iles, a graphic designer, marketer and DJ who will be the general manager.

While Lampkin isn’t sharing too many details of what the menu will hold, she said the restaurant will feature a variety of fish, including salmon, cod, halibut and mahi-mahi. She said she also loves working with dungeness crab and lobster.

Both Lampkin and Kelley will work in the kitchen, along with other local talent they have recruited.

Oysters – both raw and cooked – will also be on the menu, and non-seafood items such as steak, chicken and pork will be available.

“Our kitchen is basically the same size as our dining room,” Lampkin said. “We have a lot of space to make a lot of different types of food.”

Before Blackbird, the space housed a Thai restaurant.

When it comes to dessert creations, Kelley said she will be using fresh, seasonal ingredients, and her double-chocolate ice cream is one of her favorite dishes.

Prices have not been set, but Lampkin said she wants to provide excellent, affordable food.

“None of us is looking to get rich off of this,” she said. “We know times are hard, and if we break even on our high-cost items like fish, I’ll be happy.”

The owners said they are happy to be in historical buildings.

“The building on the left was Skagg’s Cash Store, the predecessor to Safeway,” 7evin said. “The other one, at 1015 (Ninth St.), was built by the Dean brothers in 1933, the same people who built Memorial Auditorium.”

Setting up in historical buildings at first seemed challenging, as the restaurateurs realized there were restrictions on what they could and could not demolish inside, but in the end, it turned out for the better, Lampkin said.

“When we’re done with the interior, it’s going to be amazing,” she said. “And we’re not three kids coming from the Bay Area with money – we’re doing a lot of the work ourselves. I never expected to be scraping paint, but that’s what we’ve been doing.”

Work on the interior is still under way, and the three partners said they are enjoying designing it but look forward to its completion.

“The great thing about (Lampkin, Kelley and 7evin) is that they have a vision, and yet even with their vision and artistic abilities, they are still willing to listen to the preservation department, and they have truly partnered to make that space pop,” said Valerie Mamone-Werder, business recruitment manager for the Downtown Sacramento Partnership.

She added that that section of the city is an important area for economic development, with nearby K Street readying to open to vehicular traffic.

“I think we’ve seen a lot of success from 12th (Street) to 10th Street, and this feels like a natural progression down the street and around the corner, and that’s very exciting,” she said.

For those looking for a preview of the food to come at Blackbird, the restaurant will be participating in a celebration for bringing cars back to K Street scheduled for 4 p.m. Nov. 12 at 12th and K streets.

“We’ll be out there with our fish tacos and a few other things,” Lampkin said.

Looking to do more with the space than simply serve food, Lampkin said a large cocktail selection will be available as well, and art will feature prominently in the space.

“I feel like Sacramento is a true artists’ community,” Lampkin said. “In San Francisco, rent is too expensive to really foster that community, but Sacramento’s arts community is amazing.”

7evin, who works in graphic design and marketing but is also a DJ, said the restaurant will not have any dance space, but DJs will be brought in to perform for the diners.

“It’s not going to just be people with two turntables and a mixer,” he said. “It’s people who are really performers, who are mixing live and really creating art.”

The most noticeable artwork displayed by the restaurant won’t actually be inside. The exterior space will feature a wall painting of 7evin’s graphic rendition of Lampkin’s idea to showcase a flock of blackbirds taking flight from a tree.

Lampkin said that when she woke up after being in a car accident in 2005, she heard the Beatles’ song “Blackbird,” and it stuck with her. Sadly, her close friend did not survive the collision, and Lampkin said she has since learned that many cultures believe the dead communicate with the living through blackbirds.

“I didn’t even know that until after I named the restaurant, but it’s really fitting,” she said.

Initially, the restaurant will be able to seat 50 people, and Lampkin said that after six months of being open, she plans to add another 25 seats.

Sean Kohmescher, owner of Temple Coffee, which has a location across the street, said he is happy to see Blackbird opening.

“I’ve met them quite a few times, and they seem like great people,” he said. “I’ve had their food, and the food was amazing. There’s been so many changes going on downtown, mostly in the last few years with places closing, it’s good to see places opening up.”

Blackbird Kitchen & Bar is located at 1015 Ninth St.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

Sacramento International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival

2011-10-20T16:50:22Z

This past weekend marked the 20th anniversary of the Sacramento International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival (SIGLFF) at the Crest Theatre. The festival ran selected film series each evening from Thursday to Saturday.

Founder Alan Cole started the project in 1992 as a student-run film festival that received support from Sacramento State University, Gay and Lesbian Alliance students with grant funding from Associated Students Inc. , which is a official governing body which operates the sponsorship of programs and services to CSUS students.

A bevy of sponsors and volunteers support the board of directors, programming and gala committees to prepare and organize the annual festival that takes place in October to celebrate National Coming Out Day. The festival showcases handpicked films by the committee that are created by filmmakers of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. The festival serves as a vehicle for LBGT talent such as actors, writers, producers and directors from around the world to showcase their abilities.

Thursday evening kicked off the festival with two works: one 18-minute film called "The Rescue" by director Phillippe Gosselin and an 88-minute film called "Morgan," directed by Michael Akers.

Board of directors president J. Todd Lohse explained that each night centered around a theme. Thursday evening was films directed toward men , Friday evening was ladies night with films based around lesbians, and Saturday was a series of short films that touched on subjects such as sexual identity, race and struggling relationships.

The large crowd at Friday’s screening was mixed with people of all ages from all walks of life, but it was apparent that the female population dominated the night’s attendance.

Well before the films started, members of the public, LGBT community, volunteers and workers were busily flurrying around the Crest Theatre concessions stands for popcorn, drinks and snacks, grabbing a cocktail and mingling with other filmgoers. Even after the lights flickered to warn everyone the film was starting soon, people were still falling behind with cocktails finishing a great conversation or in line for last-minute snacks.

Cole and Lohse introduced the films, speaking of their love and commitment to the organization. They thanked their sponsors, such as Fred Palmer from Outword Magazine, who has been a sponsor for the last 14 years.

The first film was "Lesbian Cliche Song" by director Bob Koherr. At five minutes long, the film served almost as a satirical music video of all the typical lesbian cliches perceived by society, which the audience seemed to agree with as they responded with laughter.

The second was a feature film, "Jamie and Jessie Are Not Together" directed by Wendy Jo Carlton. The dramedy musical focuses on two best friends who blur the line of friendship and romance.

Afterward, one of the film’s stars, Fawzia Mirza, took the stage to answer questions from the audience.

"Are you single?" was the very first question asked. (The answer was yes.)

After her Q&A, she encouraged everyone to carry the party over to Headhunters nightclub for the after-party.

"We are loving the idea that gays and lesbians are receiving recognition not only for their filmmaking but that stories about the private struggles of being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender are being artistically told,” said one woman who wished to remain anonymous, standing hand-in-hand with her partner outside the theater.

Visit siglff.org for updates, volunteer information and details for 2012's festival.

See you next year!

Local businessman starts effort to 'bring back K Street'

2011-10-17T01:38:35Z

A downtown K Street businessman is turning to other nearby businesses and the community in an effort to jump-start the long-blighted area’s revitalization with the rallying cry: “It's your turn. It's my turn. It's OUR Sacramento.”

Señor Ernesto Delgado de Tequila, owner of Tequila Museo Mayahuel at 1200 K St., wants to start a grassroots campaign encouraging people to come downtown to eat, shop and explore.

“I want to put a call out to people to come here, take a walk and experience downtown,” Delgado said Wednesday. “There is so much here, and people should be part of it.”

Delgado opened his restaurant six months ago on what is arguably the most vibrant section of K Street at the moment.

“We have the IMAX Theatre and The Broiler and Ella on this corner (of K Street),” Delgado said, “and just down the block we have District 30 and Pizza Rock and others. There’s a lot right here.”

According to Lisa Martinez, director of marketing and outreach for the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, 20 new businesses have opened in downtown and Old Sacramento since Jan. 1. Five more are expected to open by the end of the year.

But a handful of restaurants isn’t enough to revitalize what years ago was a popular section of downtown, Delgado said.

“We need people to be active on K Street,” Delgado said. “We need foot traffic as much as car traffic.”

The city is opening K Street to cars in November, and large-scale redevelopment projects are in the works on the 700 and 800 blocks of K Street.

Larry Lords, owner of The Broiler, a restaurant across K Street from Tequila Museo Mayahuel, said Wednesday that he “applauds (Delgado’s) effort” to do something positive for the area.

Lords said he is also skeptical about the idea’s success.

“I’m sure he’s getting as anxious as the rest of us are, because this economy is really hurting everyone,” Lords said, “but it might be something better-suited for the Downtown Sacramento Partnership to take the lead on. They do plenty of things like this.”

MIchael Ault, executive director of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, said Friday that he is “excited to hear about what (Delgado) wants to do” for the K Street area.

“We’re supportive of working with the businesses down there,” Ault said, “not just from a business recruitment standpoint, but from an economic standpoint as well.”

Ault said more people coming to K Street is important to the local economy, and he and the DSP are interested in seeing how Delgado and others work together in the effort.

Delgado said his mission to get the community involved in revitalizing a district is not a new idea – but the effort is new to him, so he’s turned for help to neighboring businesses, associations and others who have started similar efforts.

“This is bigger than just one person,” Delgado said. “It’s going to take all of us if anything is going to change for the better.”

Teresa Rocha, executive director for the Greater Broadway Partnership, said Friday that Delgado is “headed in the right direction” with his initiative and she hopes he will keep the idea going.

“The more people like Ernesto who are willing to put time and energy into building up the community, the better,” Rocha said.

The Greater Broadway Partnership was instrumental in the recent revamping of the business corridor along Broadway in Sacramento.

Rocha said she spoke with Delgado last week about his idea for inspiring change on K Street. She gave him some advice based on her experience with the changes on Broadway, including street and sidewalk cleanup efforts, encouraging new businesses to locate there and establishing a property business improvement district.

“I told him to nail down the three main goals that he wants to achieve,” Rocha said, “and then do something that has immediate results.”

Rocha said it will be important to have small successes right away that the effort can build on – longer-term strategies that will help the district in the long run will come easier after that.

“(Delgado) is a new business owner, and he brings a fresh perspective to K Street,” Martinez said.

“There are pockets of activity and pockets of inactivity (on K Street),” Martinez said. “Over the past eight months, we’ve seen a number of new players on the block.”

Martinez said it would be good to see K Street become a dynamic urban center, with more pedestrian activity to spur “the kind of energy you expect on a busy city street.”

Delgado and Martinez both said the movement is in the very early stages, but the concept could go in a number of different directions.

“There are still things to figure out on the concept and deciding who to approach and how to go about making it happen,” Martinez said, “but it’s good to have the passion and energy that Delgado brings.”

Melissa Corker is a Staff Reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @MelissaCorker.

New restaurant to embrace Southern fare

2011-10-06T00:55:22Z

The owners of Midtown’s Capitol Garage are bringing Southern-style cooking to the spot recently vacated by Celestin’s Island Eats and Cajun Cuisine, with a projected opening in mid- to late November.

The Porch, located at 1815 K St., will feature items such as fried green tomatoes, catfish and corn hushpuppies, a soft shell crab po’ boy and other Southern favorites, said Chef and co-owner Jon Clemons.

He added that he wants to keep entrées priced below $20.

“We’ve been trying to do a second place for about a year and a half,” said co-owner John Lopez, adding that The Porch will be a dedicated restaurant, unlike Capitol Garage, which mixes a bar, restaurant and entertainment venue.

After looking at a variety of locations around Sacramento, Lopez said, he, Clemons and co-owner Jerry Mitchell began working with the owners of Celestin’s at the end of June to figure out a leasing agreement.

“It was really attractive because it was a turnkey operation,” Lopez said. “The only real changes we need to make are cosmetic.”

The two businesses will be about three blocks apart, with Capitol Garage located at 1500 K St.

The interior décor of The Porch will give customers the feeling of a home, and the exterior will be changed to embody the restaurant’s name, with the back patio opened up for seating, augmenting existing front patio seating.

The idea for the restaurant came on a trip to Portland, where the owners dined at a Southern restaurant, Lopez said.

“We thought that type of cuisine is really missing from Sacramento, and we wanted to bring that here,” he said.

Next up was a trip to Charleston, S.C., to get more ideas and inspiration for the menu.

“Charleston is such a great city for food,” Clemons said. “We’re going to focus on the coastal Southern food, with a lot of seafood. We’re also going to branch out into Creole and Cajun food.”

But for those wondering if some of the menu items from Celestin’s will return to the new restaurant, it’s unlikely.

“We might do a gumbo (soup) or something,” Clemons said, “but it would be our own recipe.”

The food will not be a copy of the fare at Capitol Garage, but some of the future menu items from The Porch are currently being offered on the specials menu at Capitol Garage.

“It’s kind of a way people can come in and preview the menu,” Clemons said.

The Porch will have a full liquor license, with wine pairings for some of the meals as well as bourbon drinks and cocktails that the owners are working with a bartender from Charleston to create.

They are also working to stock some beers common in the South but hard to find on the West Coast, such as Yuengling.

Open for lunch and dinner, Lopez said he wants to add Saturday and Sunday brunch around the beginning of the year.

Lopez said the prospect of a deeper recession is worrisome, but he thinks the proximity of the Convention Center and the foot traffic in the area will let the new restaurant thrive.

About 25 people will staff the restaurant, and Lopez said about half of the Celestin’s staff will be retained, with several already working shifts at Capitol Garage.

Celestin’s owners Patrick and Phoebe Celestin previously told The Sacramento Press that the new owners’ agreeing to interview the existing staff was a good gesture as they took over the location, which the Celestins had built in 2001.

The building has yet to be altered, but Lopez said passers-by should see changes starting in the next week or two as construction gets under way.

“Just keep driving by,” he said. “You’ll be surprised at the difference.”

The Porch’s website is under construction and will be reachable via the Capitol Garage website.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

K Street work well under way

2011-09-15T07:40:23Z

Crews made progress on preparation work for the 900 block of K Street Wednesday in advance of scheduled resurfacing starting Thursday night. The city is working to bring cars back to what has been a pedestrian mall for about 40 years.

A tentative completion date has been set for the end of October, with a grand opening planned for Nov. 5, according to an email from Linda Tucker, spokeswoman for the city Department of Transportation.

The move to return vehicular traffic to the blighted area that was formerly a thriving business district was approved by the City Council earlier this year.

The older brick paving stones were laid down atop sand, and over time, they tend to shift, making them unsuited for vehicular traffic, Tucker said.

The pavers will be replaced with stamped concrete, which will be poured over Thursday, Friday and into next week.

The 900 block is the only one to receive the full concrete pouring, with the work spanning the 800 block to the 1200 block consisting mostly of sidewalk improvements at street corners for compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Light rail service continues despite the work.

Workers coated the bare metal tracks with a rust-preventing solution that will protect them from degradation after the new concrete is poured around them. The rust prevention treatment was needed after the tracks were sandblasted.

While the work is being done, pedestrians can still traverse most portions of the street, though some crosswalks will be closed, and fencing will keep pedestrians out of some areas.

Vehicular traffic will not extend through the 700 block of K Street, where a massive redevelopment project is under way opposite Saint Rose of Lima Park. Instead, the section will remain as it has, with St. Rose of Lima Park on one side and multiple upcoming businesses facing it on the south.

Owners of Celestin's reflect on 28 years in business

2011-09-09T01:11:23Z

When it opened at 25th and J streets on a December morning almost 28 years ago, Celestin’s Island Eats & Cajun Cuisine was an instant success in the area, long before it was widely known as Midtown.

The restaurant, now located at 1815 K St., will close for the final time Sept. 30 as the Celestin family looks to relax and take a vacation.

“It’s the right time,” co-owner Phoebe Celestin said. She and her husband are looking to get out of the business, and they will now rent the space to a Southern-themed restaurant called The Porch.

She added that the closure is not financial. They handed it off to their son and his wife in 2006, but took it back in June, as the younger couple wanted to spend evenings together with their child. From that point on, they were looking to lease the space.

Selling Celestin’s wasn’t really an option, she said, since it had always been a family business and wouldn’t be the same otherwise.

Celestin said she and her husband are happy to see that Midtown has grown and prospered, getting to the point they dreamed of it becoming almost three decades ago.

“It’s bittersweet to leave it now, since the area is what we wanted it to be all that time,” Celestin said. “We were popular from day one, and we’ve been really fortunate. We had a strong beginning, middle and end. Every story should have that.”

Celestin added that several things were memorable over the years. She said customers always commented on how the windows on the original J Street location constantly steamed over, and she also remembers high-profile politicians stopping in for lunch.

But there’s one aspect of running the business that she said she will especially miss.

“My favorite was always being in a rush and working really hard and then pulling it off,” she said. “That was always a great feeling of satisfaction.”

With news of the restaurant’s impending closure coming out on Wednesday, Thursday’s lunch was very busy, and when the rush was past, co-owner Patrick Celestin, Phoebe Celestin’s husband, was wiping down patio tables.

“It’s what I do,” he said. “It’s important to have a good work ethic. I really like serving the folks and cooking the food. I’m going to miss the people and the hustle and bustle.”

Born in Port au Prince, Haiti, Patrick Celestin was in Sacramento visiting a friend from the Peace Corps when he met Phoebe, who had moved to the city from Seattle, and the two were later married.

Opening a restaurant seemed the natural thing to do for Patrick Celestin, who came from a family of chefs, caterers and restaurateurs.

“It’s in my blood,” he said Thursday. “What pleased me the most about owning this restaurant is that we maintained the quality of our food the whole time.”

The move from J Street to K Street came in 2001, after a fire burned a beauty salon on the space, and the Celestins were able to have a building constructed to their specifications.

At that time, they upgraded from a beer and wine license to a full liquor license and added mojitos and sangria to the menu, which have been some of the restaurant’s best-selling items since.

When it comes to food, the gumbo soup has remained a staple, as well as Haitian dishes.

“I have my favorite dishes,” Phoebe Celestin said. “I never tired of the gumbo, and I always loved the poulet blanchi, which is chicken in cream sauce with peas and onions.”

She added that another popular item is Haiti’s national dish, grio, which is twice-cooked pork with a sauce called Ti-Malice made of shallots, lime juice, chilies and thyme.

On Sept. 30, an auction of Haitian voodoo flags that grace the establishment’s walls will be held, with 15 percent of the proceeds donated to a charity the restaurant has partnered with for years, the Haitian Education and Leadership Program.

Customers packed the restaurant Thursday, and one of them was Nebrisa Novello, who came to celebrate her 28th birthday.

“I’ve come here on and off for the past 10 years,” she said. “It’s one of those Sacramento institutions. I like to keep going to them and help keep them around.”

She said she is happy that Celestin’s isn’t the victim of the economy and that The Porch will open in November to keep it from becoming an empty space.

Phoebe Celestin said the owners of The Porch, who also own nearby Capitol Garage, agreed to interview the entire staff of Celestin’s.

“That was very important to us,” she said.

Terry Sidie, who owns the Faces nightclub at 20th and K streets, ate at Celestin’s Thursday and said he is sad to see it go.

“They’re absolutely great,” he said. “There’s nothing else like it in town. There’s nothing I can say about Patrick and Phoebe that isn’t good.”

With the restaurant’s final three weeks approaching, the Celestins are making plans for what to do in the future.

Phoebe Celestin said she wants to return to Paris on a European vacation that might also include Spain and Switzerland to visit friends and family.

Patrick Celestin said he wants to relax, work around the house and clean out the garage.

Down the line, the couple might start a small product line of some of the restaurant’s favorites, including the gumbo soup and Ti-Malice Haitian hot sauce. They would then look to sell it at local markets.

But that’s in the more distant future. On Thursday, Patrick Celestin said he was focusing on the last weeks, where he hopes to see a lot of familiar faces so he can thank them for coming in over the years.

“Thank you. Thank you, Sacramento,” he said. “I am so grateful for the 28 years of support. I can’t emphasize my gratitude enough.”

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

Celestin's to close this month

2011-09-08T00:45:30Z

After 28 years, Celestin’s Island Eats and Cajun Cuisine is closing its doors Sept. 30, according to owner Phoebe Celestin.

The Midtown restaurant will be replaced by a new venture from the owners of Capitol Garage, called The Porch Restaurant & Bar, which will feature Southern-style cuisine, according to a Wednesday press release.

The business was handed down to Celestin's son and his wife several years ago, she said, but once they had a child, they wanted to spend evenings together – something not conducive to running a restaurant.

"My husband and I came back and were considering offers that have been made," Celestin said. "We talked to several people and have a really good connection with the guys from Capitol Garage."

She added that there are currently no plans for her and her husband to open another restaurant, but that might be a possibility down the line.

"My husband loves to cook for people and will probably do it until he is no longer able to," she said. "He may look for something similar as a labor of love, but it's not in the plans at this moment."

Celestin’s, currently located at 1815 K St., originally opened on J Street in 1983 before moving to the current space in 2001, according to the restaurant’s website.

The Celestin family, originally from Port au Prince, Haiti, will auction off the Haitian Voodoo flags that hang on the walls of the restaurant on the last night of business, Sept. 30.

Celestin’s is known for its Caribbean- and Cajun-inspired food, including hamburgers with jerk seasoning, chicken curry and the popular gumbo soup.

The Sacramento Press will provide a more detailed article on Thursday.

To read a previous review of the restaurant by a Sacramento Press contributor, click here.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

Temple Coffee reopens in new location

2011-09-07T07:02:05Z

Temple Coffee, a fixture on 10th Street since 2005, moved a block on Wednesday to Ninth Street, where it will have a more open, modern feel, but little else will change.

The move from 1014 10th St. to 1010 Ninth St. was something owner Sean Kohmescher said he had been looking to do for some time, saying the old space didn’t fit the needs of the coffee bar.

“The design of the (new) space is set up much more for conversations and engagement,” Kohmescher said, adding that the old space felt cramped.

Also bigger, at about 2,000 square feet compared to the old location’s 1,450 square feet, the newer one gives a more open feel. Both seat about 60 people, but the feeling in the new building is more spacious.

“It’s a lot cleaner feeling,” he said. “It’s more modern and fits in more with what Temple is about.”

The old coffee bar shut down on Saturday, and the move was done on Sunday and Monday, with final inspections on Tuesday.

A grand reopening ceremony will be held Saturday, with free coffee and tea, and art shown by painter Ilah Rose Cookston.

Trees felled more than five years ago just a few blocks away were made into tables, which now dominate the interior. Concrete flooring and clean lines, as well as spaces to hang artwork, are the major differences customers will notice from the previous address.

“It has a real community feel,” said Manager Shannon Loudon. “There’s a lot more foot traffic here, and a lot of our regulars live in the lofts upstairs, so they’re happy to see us in the new building.”

She added that a larger patio seating area that will be built in the next week will be railed off and give customers the option to sit inside or outside.

Electrical outlets are provided for the six seats fronting the Ninth Street floor-to-ceiling windows, and wireless Internet will be free once it is installed Thursday.

Regular customer Chester Randle, 61, said Tuesday that he often comes to Temple Coffee on his breaks from his state job.

“The service is fantastic, and the coffee tastes better than Starbucks,” he said, adding that he is glad the coffee bar moved to a location that is still close to walk, and that he will continue to go there.

Another customer, 52-year-old Henry Tavalaro, said he lives next door to the old location and frequented it, but he will still patronize the new location.

“I hope it’s a good move,” he said. “I know they’ve been wanting a bigger place.”

The new space had lain empty before Temple Coffee moved in, and Building Manager Anthony Reda said he thinks the coffee bar will be a good fit.

“Temple is a very well-known coffee and tea shop here in downtown Sacramento,” he said. “Our building is in an area that is about bringing the old and the new together and bringing Sacramento forward with revitalization.”

Temple is now located at 1010 Ninth St. Its hours are 6 a.m. - 11 p.m. every day.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

Photo tour of K Street's 700 block

2011-08-31T05:02:25Z

The massive redevelopment project on the 700 block of K Street will be submitted to the city’s building department for approval in October, and if approved, work could begin as early as the end of this year.

“We’re looking to break ground in (February or March) of 2012, but it might be sooner,” said Ali Youssefi of CFY Development.

The approximately $47.7 million project is a collaboration between D&S Development, Inc., and CFY Development. It will be a mixed-use project with apartments, retail spaces, restaurant/bar spaces and an approximately 15,000-square-foot live music venue.

“We really want this to be a catalyst for the rest of the area,” said Bay Miry of D&S Development.

For more information on the project, its funding and how it got to where it is, click here.

Both Youssefi and Miry said they don’t want to think of the project in terms of what it compares to in other cities.

“This isn’t Polk Street in San Francisco, or some place in Portland, or the gaslight district in San Diego” Youssefi said. “Sacramento is sort of creating its own identity. We want this to be a place people use as an example.”

Miry agreed, adding, “We want this to be K Street.”

The project area stretches all along K street and 180 feet back along Seventh and Eighth streets to the alley. The 90 feet fronting K Street will maintain a similar footprint, but the rearward 90 feet will be demolished, and mid-rise apartment buildings with two levels of parking will be built.

“There’s going to be a courtyard between the new construction and the historic buildings,” Youssefi said, adding that the courtyard will be landscaped and serve as a space where people living in both the all-new buildings and the apartments incorporated into the original buildings will be able to go.

Part of the project involves thinking beyond the ground-to-ceiling spaces and making creative use of rooftops and basements.

Outdoor seating will be a big part of the restaurants on the block, with one slated to make use of a patio that extends 10 to 15 feet into the sidewalk.

The city plans to bring cars back to K Street by November, but the 700 block will still remain free of vehicular traffic.

“We’re going to get a lot of visibility when cars come back,” Youssefi said. “K Street was a big business district until they closed it off to cars, and that was really a failed experiment.”

Miry said other projects in the area are contributing to its return from being a blighted area.

“The project over on the 1000 block (composed of Dive Bar, Pizza Rock and District 30) is one aspect, and the moving of the Greyhound station (from nearby L Street to Richards Boulevard) has really helped, too,” Miry said.

“We’re down here every day, so we really notice the difference,” Youssefi agreed.

The estimated build time for the project is just under two years, he said.

The project is receiving redevelopment funds from the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, which is currently a controversial subject. On the statewide level, redevelopment agencies are fighting for their existence, but Youssefi said the 700 block of K Street has already secured the funding and will be built.

“This project could be one of the last of its kind,” he said.

The end goal, according to Miry and Youssefi, is to return K Street to its former status as one of the vibrant sectors downtown and bring mixed-use retail, restaurant, entertainment and residential entities to downtown.

Sixty percent of the project is dedicated as affordable housing. The other 40 percent will be market-rate housing.

“It’s going to bring a good mix of workforce housing as well as apartments that are as nice as any downtown,” Miry said.

Youssefi said there is one overarching reason the project excites him.

“I grew up in Sacramento,” he said. “To be a part of this project, which will be a catalyst for revitalizing downtown, that’s exciting”

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

Editorial Note: A correction has been made to this story after it was published.

"The Greenest Building" Film Showing at Crest Theatre July 25

2011-07-18T06:55:43Z

What: The Greenest Building Documentary Film, followed by a panel discussion on the connections between historic preservation, green building and economic sustainability.
When: Monday, July 25 at 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM (Movie 7:00 PM, discussion panel 8:00 PM)
Where: The Crest Theatre, 1013 K Street, Sacramento
How Much: Free!

Over the next 20 years, Americans will demolish one third of our existing building stock (over 82 billion square feet) in order to replace seemingly inefficient buildings with energy efficient “green” structures. Is demolition in the name of sustainability really the best use of natural, social, and economic resources? Or, like the urban renewal programs of the 1960’s, is this well-intentioned planning with devastating environmental and cultural consequences?

On Monday, July 25th, “The Greenest Building,” a new hour-long documentary by Eugene, Oregon film producer Jane Turville, will be screened at the Crest Theatre, 1013 K Street, Sacramento. The film presents a compelling overview of the important role building reuse plays in creating sustainable communities. Narrated by David Ogden Stiers, “The Greenest Building” explores the myth that a “green building” is a new building and demonstrates how renovation and adaptive reuse of existing structures fully achieves the sustainability movement’s “triple bottom line” - economic, social, and ecological balance. The film reveals: (a) how reuse and reinvestment in the existing built environment leads to stronger local economies that can compete on a global scale, (b) that sense of place and collective memory, while intangible, are critical components of strong sustainable communities, and (c) the direct correlation between reuse of existing buildings and a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, degradation of the natural environment and overuse of precious natural resources.

If you are interested in buildings, community development, sustainable communities or just plain want to find out if existing buildings really are worth keeping, plan to attend this special event. “The Greenest Building” starts at 7:00 pm. The panel discussion starts at 8:00 PM, and will feature Matt Piner of Pinerworks Architecture, Roberta Deering, LEED AP BD+C, Senior Planner for Historic Preservation, City of Sacramento Community Development Department, Bay Miry of D&S Development, Ray Nalangan of SMUD, Susan Rainier, AIA, LEED AP, of USGBC and UC Davis, and Craig Hausman, AIA, Hausman Architecture. This panel will help relate the ideas presented in the film the film to recently completed and upcoming preservation projects in Sacramento.

From the film's website:

"At the start of “The Greenest Building” narrator David Ogden-Stiers poses the question “Might it be that the greenest building is the one that is already there?” The answer at the end of the film is true for buildings, as well as all consumer products – “Reuse is key to triple-bottom-line sustainability.” Why? When we reuse any consumer product, whether it be a plastic milk jug or a ten story building, we automatically reduce our consumption of natural resources as well as recycle that item either for its original purpose or for a new purpose. An item doesn’t necessarily have to change physically (as in plastic bottles into carpet) in order to be recycled. In fact, synonyms for “recycle” include “reprocess”, “salvage”, “recover”, and “reuse”. In building reuse, it’s often called “adaptive reuse.”"--Jane Turville, producer

This film is presented by the Sacramento Old City Association (SOCA) in conjunction with Wagging Tale Productions and the assistance of the Crest Theatre.

For more information, visit http://www.sacoldcity.org or www.thegreenestbuildingmovie.com.

The Sacramento Old City Association promotes actions that preserve and enhance a high quality of life for Central City residents, businesses, working people and visitors. The organization works to achieve balanced and harmonious relationships among residential, commercial and employment uses in the Central City.

Disclosure: William Burg is a board member of the Sacramento Old City Association.

New coffee bar coming to Seventh and K

2011-07-15T00:47:51Z

An empty former Starbucks at Seventh and K streets will soon be serving coffee and food as Plaza Cafe Lounge opens next month with an emphasis on bringing a San Francisco-style coffee bar to downtown Sacramento.

“We want to make it a lounge place where you can sit on a comfortable couch or out on the patio and meet with friends,” said co-owner Zack Alemi.

The 1,800 square-foot space will be outfitted with $10,000 worth of leather lounge chairs and couches as well as free wi-fi. A 1,500-square-foot patio fronting St. Rose of Lima Park will add seating, and Alemi said the coffee lounge will connect to the Antigua night club next door.

Six big-screen plasma TVs will be in the space as well, tuned to various news channels or whatever customers want to watch, Alemi said.

A mixture of hot sandwiches, ciabatta paninis and pizza by the slice will be available, as well as bagels, other breakfast foods and desserts.

“We’re going to have pies, probably six types of cheesecake, and smoothies and shakes,” Alemi said. “I don’t know of many places where you can just go and get a piece of pie and some ice cream, and we want to offer that.”

The shop will stay open until 11 p.m. on weeknights and 2 a.m. on weekends, and Alemi said hookah pipes will be available as well.

“We’re really bringing a new-age cafe like you see in San Francisco, L.A. and San Diego,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of potential here for a coffee cafe with the mall and the Capitol so close.”

The coffee will come from Vaneli’s Handcrafted Coffee of Rocklin.

“(The owner) goes all over the world and goes straight to the farmers for the coffee,” Alemi said. “He’s got the best Italian roast – it’s smooth and you don’t even need to add sugar or cream.”

Much of the plumbing and other infrastructure was already in place from Starbucks, and Alemi said that enabled him to save money on the building, though he estimated the cost redo the space and add equipment – such as a $5,000 machine to squeeze fresh orange juice – to be about $175,000.

The 24-year-old Alemi and his 22-year old co-owner Omar Tarin said they are excited about recent developments to that section of the K Street Mall.

The City Council’s June 21 approval of the redevelopment plan for the 700 Block of K Street along with the move to bring cars back to K Street will both benefit their business, they said.

“When we get those apartment buildings right across the street, it’s going to be really good for us,” Alemi said. “And the cars will be good, too. Light rail comes by every 30 minutes, but cars come by all the time, so they’ll see us.”

If the possibility of Temple Coffee’s move from the Levinson’s Book Store space pans out, Alemi said his coffee cafe will be the only coffee bar in the area.

Tarin said he sees the potential for the corner of K Street and Seventh Street as a beautiful area, adding that he likes being next to St. Rose of Lima Park.

Alemi said he anticipates coffee and hot chocolate sales being good during the winter when the park has its ice-skating rink.

Next door to the coffee cafe, Antigua owner Felipe Olvera, 32, said he thinks the coffee cafe will be a good addition to the corner.

“They’re going to add to the potential of K Street,” he said. “We’re some of the first businesses to be here, and we hope to be here for a long time as the area really develops.”

He said opening up a walkway between his night club and the coffee cafe will be a way to give his customers a place to hang out and have a conversation when they want to take a break from dancing or drinking.

“We want to promote each other and be able to survive in this hard economy,” he said. “We need to all come together.”

Alemi said his biggest concern with opening the business is the fate of the nearby Westfield Downtown Plaza, which has been the subject of sale talks.

“I’d love to see someone come in and buy it and bring some high-end stores in,” Alemi said.

He added that he anticipates the completion of the 24 Hour Fitness remodel will bring a steady flow of traffic to Seventh Street.

Neither Alemi or Tarin have formal business degrees, but both own or have owned businesses in the past, and Alemi said he thinks it’s more important to know how to connect with the community and offer a product than have formal schooling.

“There are people with business degrees looking for jobs at Target,” he said. “You’ve got to know how to bring people what they want.”

Alemi owns Frontier Limo Service in Elk Grove, and Tarin owned the World Class Motors car dealership in Roseville, as well as two Paradise cafe locations in Rancho Cordova, which he sold.

Two employees have been hired, and Alemi said hours will be from 8 a.m. - 11 p.m. on weekdays, and the business will stay open late – until 2 a.m. – on Fridays and Saturdays.

“It’ll be a cool place for people to lounge and get coffee,” Barista Jasmine Mojadidi, 20, said.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

No longer a ‘pedestrian mall,’ K Street prepares for cars

2011-07-12T02:39:31Z

On Tuesday evening, the City Council will consider revising a local ordinance that will bring the city one step closer to seeing cars on K Street for the first time in more than 45 years.

The revised ordinance will change a city code that has been in place since the early 1960s that defined the five blocks of K Street between Eighth to 12th streets as a “pedestrian mall,” closing it to vehicular traffic.

“It was something that was happening in a lot of places back then,” said Denise Malvetti, department manager at the city’s Economic Development Department. “Cities were trying to replicate the suburban experience, and they created a lot of these pedestrian malls. It was a failed experiment, though.”

Roughly 150 cities in the U.S. installed pedestrian malls in the 1960s, Malvetti said, and now about half of those have converted back to allow street traffic.

“We’ve been working on getting cars back on K Street since late 2008,” Malvetti said. “We’ve put a lot of consideration into this project, and we did a lot of outreach to the community.”

Business owners were outspoken in saying that returning cars to K Street is vital to increasing retail activity in the area, Malvetti said, but they won’t see an instant change.

“It will likely be an incremental increase over time,” Malvetti said.

City Council recently approved numerous projects intended to revitalize the J-K-L corridor, and K Street in particular, in order to stimulate economic activity in the area and bring people back to what was once a hub of activity in the city, Malvetti said.

The “Cars on K Street” project was part of a $2.7 million construction and design project approved by City Council in April 2010.

The purpose of the project, according to a staff report, is to “increase access and visibility to businesses, promote a safe environment, stimulate additional economic activity, and improve (traffic) circulation.”

“Sacramento needs to be more pedestrian-friendly,” said Councilman Steve Cohn, “but the way that part of K Street is laid out, it wasn’t working as a pedestrian-only street.”

Cohn said returning cars to K Street makes sense because it will help with traffic flow and make it easier for people to get to the businesses along that part of K Street.

In order to allow for the reintroduction of cars on K Street from Eighth to 12th streets, the city code must be amended to remove the definition of “pedestrian mall” currently applied to those five street blocks.

According to provisions in the city charter, the council must first pass the revised ordinance for publication, and then it can finalize the approval at the following City Council meeting.

This is one of the last steps before construction can begin, Malvetti said. The Department of Transportation will bring a construction contract to City Council next week for approval, and then groundbreaking can begin within the first week of August.

Design plans for the “Cars on K Street” project include creating new crossing signals at 11th and K streets, wheelchair access at intersections and the addition of edge treatments (possibly planters or street furniture) to provide a buffer between the roadway and sidewalks to increase pedestrian safety and make the blocks more visually appealing.

“Our goal is to have cars back on K Street in early November,” Malvetti said. “It’s one more step in the revitalization of K Street.”

Melissa Corker is a Staff Reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @MelissaCorker.

K Street redevelopment project a 'great investment for the city'

2011-06-25T03:02:16Z

The approval of the redevelopment project for the 700 block of K Street brings more than just the prospect of a revitalized block of the J-K-L corridor, it also includes financial incentives that supporters say will spur the local economy and bolster revenues for the city.

Originally, developers Bay Miry, D & S Development, and Ali Youssefi, CFY Development, proposed that the city put in $16 million of funding assistance – one half of that amount in the form of a grant, and the other half in repayable loans from a variety of redevelopment agency sources.

Since the initial proposal, however, Miry and Youssefi were able to tap into new funding sources for the project, including a federal program called New Market Tax Credits (NMTC).

With more outside funding, the amount of private investment increased and the level of public investment decreased.

The approved project now includes only $14.7 million in public funds – nearly $2 million less than originally proposed.

“From a financing standpoint, we’re pleased that the developers have made such an effort to increase their equity input,” Councilman Rob Fong said Friday. “It’s a great investment for the city.”

In addition to a decreased level of public funding for the project, the city will profit from the redevelopment project at 40 percent of whatever the cash-flow is.

This translates to a return for the city of approximately $17.4 million on a $14.7 million investment.

“That is unheard of in a private-public partnership project,” Miry said. “It’s a really good thing for the city.”

That’s not all, though, according to Miry.

The financing terms of the project include yet another added incentive to the city.

In the event the development is ever sold to new investors, the city will receive 20 percent of the profit from the sale, over and above full repayment of all loans on the original project.

“Neither of those two aspects (a high return on reduced investment and profit on future sale) were part of the initial proposal,” Miry said.

City Council members gave the green light to the K Street project on Tuesday, saying the project would be “transformative” and “invigorating” for the downtown sector.

“This long awaited project will certainly change the face of K Street,” said Maurice Chaney, communications specialist for the city’s Economic Development Department. “It will generate millions in tax revenue and support 500 permanent jobs once operational.”

“This is a win, win, win situation,” said Councilman Kevin McCarty Friday.

“It’s a win for revitalizing K Street. It’s a win for housing downtown. It’s a win for development and jobs,” McCarty said.

Read more about the 700 block project here.

Moving forward with K Street redevelopment plans

2011-06-23T02:02:53Z

With the approval of the 700 block project on K street, developers Bay Miry and Ali Youssefi are closer to realizing their long-awaited vision.

But that vision has changed in some unexpected ways since its initial proposal.

First, that vision “got a lot bigger,” Miry said.

When Miry and Youssefi were awarded the project in July 2010, they didn’t have access to the interior of the buildings at the project site.

“The initial proposal was very conceptual in nature,” Youssefi said. “We knew that if our team was selected we'd have the opportunity (later) to refine the project design based on a thorough inspection of all the buildings.”

Once they were handed keys in late August, they had a chance to fully explore what the building had to offer – and what they found was surprising.

“We realized that there’s tons of character and potential to not only create basement concepts, but also rooftop concepts,” Youssefi said. “Sacramento just doesn’t have nearly enough rooftop restaurants and businesses.”

The discovery allowed them to nearly double the amount of retail space offered in the plan from 37,480 to more than 64,000 square feet – and increased the total cost of the project from $35.5 million to about $47.7 million.

The housing element of the project also changed.

Initially, the plan called for 136 rental housing units, but the design underwent some architectural changes, and the overall appearance of the block was modified and the number of rental units increased by one.

The level of affordable housing also changed from all moderate-income units at the start to a mix of 60 percent low- to moderate level affordable income housing units and 40 percent units rented at market rate.

“The affordability and total number of housing units fluctuated for several months as we were refining the design of our project and evaluating different sources of financing,” Youssefi said.

(An in-depth look at affordable housing is covered here.)

A portion of the project relies on affordable housing subsidies – funding that critics have called into question.

During the discussion of the project at the City Council meeting on Tuesday, Sacramento Housing Alliance Policy Director Bob Erlenbusch said the public subsidy is being applied inappropriately.

“The current proposal … over-subsidizes the affordable units in the development,” Erlenbusch said. “It’s significantly higher than the average (for the area) and is based on unreasonably high market rents.”

Erlenbusch said, “Simply put, SHA feels that there is too much subsidy for hardly any affordability.”

The developers disagree.

“Having the units be a mix of low/moderate and market rates creates a diverse community,” Youssefi said.

It also provides apartments to “an under-served demographic – people who don't qualify for traditional low-income housing but who can't necessarily afford the market rents in downtown Sacramento,” Youssefi added.

Miry noted that the city has invested a lot of money in projects in the downtown area that target low- and very-low-income thresholds.

“To balance that out in the K Street area,” Miry said, “there was a strong desire (from Miry and Youssefi and the Economic Development group) that there be a healthy portion of market-rate housing in the block as well.”

Council members applauded the revised proposal as they completed the agreement with developers and gave their approval for the project.

“This is a very exciting project,” said Councilwoman Angelique Ashby. “This (project) is what we are trying to do: rebuild our city. Make it a special place for people to come together. (This project) provides solutions for everyone who wants to be a part of downtown.”

Where Do They Go From Here?

Now that the project has City Council approval, Miry and Youssefi turn their attention to the next two steps in the process: finalizing project financing and securing building permits.

“Everything we’ve worked on architecturally so far was the conceptual drawings package required for Planning Department approval,” Miry said. “Now we go into specific detail of how we are actually going to construct the project.”

The developers need to complete and submit final construction drawings and get them reviewed and approved by the building department before breaking ground on the project.

Miry said it will take two to three months to complete the construction drawings and another two to three months to obtain approval from the city building department.

“After that, we’re ready to go,” Miry said.

Both D & S Development and CFY Development have their own in-house contracting licenses, and will oversee the actual construction.

“We’ll be (sub-contracting) some work, but the day we have permit in hand, we’ll be able to start the demolition process,” Miry said. “If (the building department) will issue a demo permit ahead of the building permit, we’ll start even sooner.”

Ashby and Councilman Kevin McCarty underscored the importance of the 700 block project with praise for the benefits of moving the project forward.

“We’re always saying ‘jobs, jobs, jobs,’ ” McCarty said. “Well, (this project) means 400 jobs for our community. This is great.”

“It’s a true partnership between the (Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency) and the business community, and a partnership with the community at large,” Ashby added.

Miry and Youssefi said a lot of people have wanted to see K Street revitalized for a long time.

“We’re confident we’ll be able to put it together by the new year timeframe,” Miry said. “We’re going to see a cool new Renaissance here on K Street pretty soon.”

Bay Miry talks about getting approval of the 700 block project from MelissaCorker on Vimeo.

Council approves K Street redevelopment proposal

2011-06-22T07:22:40Z

The proposal for redevelopment of the 700 block of K Street received the nod of approval from City Council Tuesday night, opening the way for developers to move forward with the $47.7 million project.

With close to 64,000 square feet of retail space and more than 130 housing units, the project is designed to revitalize a long-ignored section of K Street with a diverse tenant mix of restaurants, boutique shops and a live music venue.

If all goes as planned, developers expect to begin construction in late January or early February of next year.

With their unanimous vote, council members approved the environmental impact and planning commission reports, and formalized a Developer Disposition Agreement (DDA), which spells out the terms of the redevelopment deal with the city.

Bay Miry, senior associate at D & S Development, one of the project’s development companies, said they anticipate the project will create approximately 300-400 construction jobs during the building phase, and another 400-500 permanent jobs from the 14 retail spaces being built into the development.

“We’re very excited and thankful for (the) council’s approval,” said Ali Youssefi of CFY Development, the other half of the 700 block development team. “Now it’s all about completing the plans, getting to construction and getting to the day when we can go out and enjoy the finished product.”

The next steps for Youssefi and Miry will be securing the remaining financing elements, including a conventional loan and a federal grant for redevelopment of blighted neighborhoods in distressed areas.

“We’re hoping that this will put us where we consider to be very solid ground,” said Beth Tincher, a senior project manager with the city's Economic Development Department.

Tincher described working with city planning and building officials on the project at every step as a “collaborative effort to ensure the success of the project.”

“They have indicated their willingness to work with us and help us to keep to the schedule we’ve outlined,” Tincher said.

The development team initially requested $16 million in existing city redevelopment assistance funds to go along with developers’ private investment of $1.5 million in cash equity and $18 million in conventional debt to develop the 700 block, Miry said.

As the project was being negotiated, however, the deal was revised so the city would contribute only $14.5 million, and developers increased the private investment of debt and equity to a total of $33 million.

The development team anticipates about 200 residents “living, working and playing” in the K Street area from the 137 apartments planned for the project, Miry said.

The developers anticipate the project will bring about 6,000 patrons to K Street every week.

Additionally, developers estimate about $1.6 million in annual sales tax revenue generated from the project, and another $330,000 annually in property tax.

“We really feel this project will encourage development in the surrounding underdeveloped, vacant, blighted parcels,” Miry said. “It’s a home run for the city, for sure.”

Lounge on 20's remodel

2011-06-18T08:15:08Z

Midtown’s Lounge on 20, known for its all-white décor and dim lighting and as a place to grab a drink and relax, transformed last month to include dining and incorporate a warmer color scheme.

“We added almost 100 seats for dining, a new menu and (Executive Chef Pajo Bruich),” said owner Ali Mackani. “There are color changes, new lighting, a freestanding sculpture that’s also a fireplace, and we still have areas for lounging.”

He added that a dessert chef, Elaine Baker, formerly of Grange Restaurant and Bar, is also working at the remodeled space.

Also included is an elevated stage for live performances Thursday through Saturday nights.

Careful preparation enabled the transformation to take place over four nights, Mackani said, adding that it reopened to the public on May 20.

The successful lounge concept is still evident, but Mackani said the goal was to bring in dining, and he added that from the outset he wanted it to be unique.

Bruich uses sous vide cooking methods, which allow meats to be slow-cooked for hours at a low temperature to retain their juiciness and flavor.

Mackani said Bruich will also be incorporating “molecular gastronomy,” which is paying close attention to the way foods interact with each other at the smallest level of detail to deliver the exact taste the chef is looking to create.

In about a month, the bar menu will be updated to include demonstrations – such as one where liquids will be turned to gels – and specialty drinks, some of which will be served in glasses made entirely of ice.

The overall effect of the remodeled space, Mackani said, gives a softer touch to the colors and makes the area feel more intimate. Curtains allow some areas to be shielded from the rest of the space for a more private feel.

Mackani said customer response has been very positive.

Customer Desmond Williams of East Sacramento told The Sacramento Press Friday that he loves the addition of food.

“I hope the community really embraces it,” he said. “Chef Pajo’s making really great stuff.”

He said he also likes the space, adding that it does a good job of providing both openness and an intimate feel. When it comes to live music performances, he said the acts start late enough that diners can still have conversations over dinner, then stick around for the music.

Customer Mary Daffin of Sacramento raved about the food selections as well, calling the whole menu a “When Harry Met Sally” experience.

Mackani said he is happy with the renovation of the restaurant and lounge, which originally opened in 2008.

“We just think it’s a great place to come and dine and stay later at night for drinks,” he said. “We want to really be a place you can pick for a lot of different occasions.”

To view the menu and prices, click here.

To stay up to date on events and musical acts, check Lounge on 20’s Facebook page.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

Public art grows in Midtown alleys

2011-05-14T01:00:00Z

An alley art project is growing in Midtown.

Three new pieces featuring the Sacramento skyline and a desert scene were installed on an alley off K Street within the last two weeks.

Many people are already stumbling on this cache of alley art. By early June, residents will be able to take walking tours of this growing outdoor gallery, thanks to tour maps being printed and posted online as part of the Midtown Alley Project (MAP) led by artists and an art-loving property owner.

"The whole thought is to take these alleys back, make them more aesthetically pleasing and also provide points of interest," said Gallery 2110 owner Clare Bailey, a muralist and fine artist who started the alley art project with artist Kristina McClanahan and property owner Thomas A. Roth.

"We are making art happen on K Street," she said.

They created MAP about three years ago using buildings Roth owns on K Street as the canvases. MAP now includes seven pieces of art: five murals and two sculptures. All of the art faces alleys between K and L streets from 21st to 24th streets. Maps will be available online and in print at Gallery 2110 by June 11.

The first installation was the 80-foot Midtown Mosaic on a wall behind Art Beast, 2226 K St. The mural is a community mosaic of paintings and one tile piece by 60 people ranging from tattoo and graffiti artists to nuns from a nearby Sisters of Mercy home.

Kristyne DiMeo later painted the 18-foot-high Hollywood Mural, also known as “Hollywood comes to Sacramento,” on the back of Studio 24, 2220 K St. A silhouette of a man painted in the left bottom corner was a tribute to Roth.

Two more works can be found behind Gallery 2110 at 2110 K St. – formerly called the Sacramento Art Complex. Metal assemblage artist Steve Cook created a 40-foot-wide metal peacock sculpture with tail feathers made of rebar and sawblades atop an iron gate on a back patio. Other artists are collaborating on a mural there.

The three newest pieces include a 16-foot-by-4-foot Steve Memering mural of the Sacramento skyline, which was restored by Laura Carone and hung on an apartment building at 2320 K St. a week ago.

Artists Margaret Arnold and Cook collaborated to make a 30-foot-wide patio wall behind Roth's Western Properties office, 2318 K St., beautiful and more secure. Arnold painted the new “Desert Cactus” mural on the three-sided, 6-foot-high wall.

Two weeks ago, Cook installed another assemblage sculpture on top of the wall as functional art. “Prickly Pear” is a collection of cacti and aloe vera plants made from rebar, nails and sawblades. He also built a secure, tall metal door to replace the patio's wooden gate.

The patio had problems with intruders who left needles, condoms and beer bottles, Bailey and Cook said on a tour of the art pieces Friday.

The alley art project was created to beautify buildings and alleys, and to help make alleys safer by bringing more people there. Murals can help deter graffiti artists from tagging buildings.

The project was also started to bring artists more work and give their art more visibility. The MAP pieces are the first public art projects each of the artists have done, Bailey said.

New construction projects on empty lots are required to devote a certain percentage of budgets to interior or exterior art. Redevelopment projects may be eligible for public funding of art. Midtown doesn't have many empty lots or redevelopment projects, Bailey said.

"Public art isn't going to happen unless a private entity makes it happen," she said.

Roth, who's owned property in Midtown for at least 20 years, has paid for six of the art pieces in the project – all but the Midtown Mosaic – to launch the project and inspire others to add to Midtown's public art offerings. Roth estimates the pieces cost more than $20,000 total.

Some already have been inspired by the project. Three murals have since been painted by others on the back of a house, a garage door and record store Phono Select on an alley block across 23rd Street from the Midtown Mosaic.

Owners of at least three other properties are now talking with the MAP crew about adding public art at their spaces.

The founders of New Era Garden, a community garden that sits on a cul de sac and alley at 26th and B streets, would like to add some art – possibly a recycled metal sculpture. They would have to do some fundraising first, said co-founder Deniz Tuncer.

"I think it's a lovely idea to beautify the area," she said.

For future pieces, he and Bailey determine the budget property owners have. They then meet with the artist to determine the cost to create the art. MAP organizers will hold fundraisers to help make up the difference. Fundraisers could include bake sales, art auctions and art classes at Gallery 2110. Artists donate talent, time and materials, Bailey said.

"We had to get enough of these out here, and now people are starting to catch the enthusiasm," Bailey said. "Some day we're going to have a really great strolling outdoor art gallery."

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @SuzanneHurt.

Cold case squad solves crime, faces budget cuts

2011-05-12T00:18:16Z

It was a beer can that gave cold case detectives the evidence they needed to make an arrest in a 1987 homicide on Friday.

Detective Peter Willover spends his time poring over homicide and rape crimes committed before DNA became a routine part of police work. He is a reserve officer who previously spent 40 years as a detective with the Sacramento Police Department.

“I’ve probably reviewed close to 100 cases,” he said Wednesday. “We focus on cases that may provide DNA evidence.”

One of those cases was the 1987 stabbing death of 52-year-old Richard Schultz in an alley near 21st and K streets.

At the time, homicide detectives had a vague description of a man who had allegedly stabbed Schultz and another homeless man, who survived his wounds.

When reviewing the report of the case in February of 2009, Willover noted the surviving victim’s statement that he, Schultz and the attacker had all been drinking beer together. That detail made the case a priority for Willover.

“We get a lot of DNA evidence off of beer cans and bottles,” he said.

The can was sent to the crime lab, where DNA evidence was eventually extracted and uploaded into a national database of DNA profiles.

It took more than two years to get a result – a fact Willover attributed to manpower shortages at the crime lab. He said the crime lab is integral to solving cold cases.

“Cases that are going to court get the first priority,” he added.

The Department of Justice’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database matched the DNA to 48-year-old Gregory Samuel Olguin, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

At 8:15 a.m. Friday, officers arrested Olguin in the 9100 block of Elk Grove Boulevard, and he was subsequently booked and charged with murder, according to a police department press release.

Department spokeswoman Laura Peck said Wednesday that she could not discuss whether Olguin made any statements or confessions, but said he is being held without bail and will go to trial.

The cold case unit at the department is composed of Willover, two other part-time reserve officers and a full-time detective.

While Willover and the other reserve officers are funded by a federal grant set to expire in October, the full-time detective is employed by the Sacramento Police Department, which could potentially lose about 12 percent of its staff, Peck said.

Proposed budget cuts include eliminating 80 sworn police officer positions, which could see the end of the cold case unit, Peck said.

“It’s all up in the air at this point,” she added. “We’re not sure what the department is going to look like.”

Willover said that, depending on the language in the grant, it’s possible that the cold case squad could be eliminated if other positions in the department are lost, including the detective assigned to the unit.

Peck said cases like the one from 1987 would essentially have no one looking into them if that happened.

Willover said there are more than 100 cases from before the early- to mid-1990s – when DNA testing became mainstream – that still need to be reviewed.

Generally, he added, homicide and rape cases top the list, since other crimes tend to be past the statutes of limitations, meaning that even if they are solved, arrests can’t be made.

The department’s cold case unit has been featured three times on the A&E TV show “Cold Case Files,” Willover said.

Most notable was a case shortly after the program was started 10 years ago at the behest of Sacramento County Deputy District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert.

The murder of a young woman, Penny Parker, in 1977 had originally been investigated by Willover when he was a homicide detective. She was a paper carrier for The Sacramento Bee and went missing while on her route, only to be discovered dead several days later, with evidence of sexual assault.

Willover said he had a good idea of who had committed the crime, but didn’t have enough evidence to make an arrest at the time.

In the early 2000s, the case was one of the first he looked at, and DNA evidence placed the original suspect at the scene of the crime.

Willover traveled to Arkansas, where the man was living, and he still denied knowing the woman.

A warrant was obtained, and when police knocked on the door, the suspect killed himself.

“It was a made-for-TV movie,” Willover said.

To read more about that case and Willover, click here.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @Brandon_Darnell.

DWB: Before the BIG news

2011-05-02T20:19:41Z

Before the events of this weekend were overtaken by Sunday night's historic news of Bin Laden's assassination, and then immediately by this morning's local news of the Maloofs' decision not to leave for Anaheim (yet), this weekend was already pretty great.

Downtown and Midtown were bumpin' all weekend. I spent a lot of it on my bike, morning, noon and night, and I was not alone. I felt like I was in Sacramento future. But in fact, I was in Sacramento NOW.

Despite terrible news early last week - Sacramento's job market is clearly, measurably the worst in the country, our new budget may have to cut public safety in a way we've never done, and our air quality is Top 10 worst in the nation - it was a great weekend to be in Sactown.

The media, including Sacramento Press, was fixated on the Mobile Food Festival, which was a success. No, not just a success: It was a SUCCESS!! There were people everywhere, on bikes, in lines hundreds long, in traffic backed up all over the area around Fremont Park, and eating in neighboring restaurants that reported 50-100 percent increases in business.

It was a clear message to our "Footloose" mentality City Council and other regulators of civic behavior that we're a grown up city, and we don't need (and our businesses don't need) to be protected from competition or "roaches" or whatever they think they're protecting us (or some of us) from.

As Sacramento Press community contributor Lindol French put it:

“SactoMoFo was an emphatic repudiation of the draconian mobile food restrictions imposed upon us by our elected delegates. Basically, we voted 10,000 to 0 that Measure 5.68 is a crock. We're here and we're hungry, and we don't need our city council to protect us from cheap and delicious street food."

The council should rescind Measure 5.68 immediately. Restauranteurs who feel the heat from food trucks might want to start one or two of their own. Mai Pham of Star Ginger already has plans to do this. Others should follow suit. Free enterprise, remember? In any case, grabbing a bao or tiny burger is an entirely different thing than sitting down for a three course meal. Apples and oranges.

But that wasn't all that was going on in the Grid. Friday night I did an informal study of local restaurants (creepily peering through windows, sorry diners!), and found that while a few were more or less full, most were not. And it wasn't mobile food that was doing it. It was the high price of a nice meal out. We're in a new economy, and that was very clear on a Friday night in the Grid.

Midtown, especially J Street, was busy enough, but nothing worth noting. At that point, I thought the weekend was going to be typically quiet.

But then I went, of all places, to K Street Mall downtown. It was sick with people. People walking from the Kevin Hart's show at the Community Center Theatre, people lined up to get into Dive Bar and Pizza Rock, people eating dessert at Ambrosia Cafe and GoGi tacos at 15th and L.

It was amazing. The main source of the foot traffic was the California Democratic Party's annual convention, which drew a lot of people, as well as the Hart show. But there were also Cindo De Mayo events, a protest or two at the Capitol, and good (if a bit windy) weather. It was a great night to be out and about, and it lasted through the weekend.

Sacramento can be this more often. We have something to offer. We are a destination: A lot of those people were from out of town, and my bet is that they'll say nice things about Sacramento to their friends back home. Six months ago, that may well not have been the case.

A lot of people are working to make this community better, however they define that. And as bad as the news has been lately, it was encouraging to see life being lived on the streets, by locals and tourists and conventioneers.

Let's keep it going. It can work. It TAKES work. But the end result, a vibrant city full of people out and about, eating, drinking, talking and enjoying our central city, is worth every bit of it.

And let's get rid of the silly ordinance.

Future of Westfield Downtown Plaza in doubt

2011-04-29T00:06:15Z

Will Westfield Downtown Plaza be put up for sale?

According to the Wall Street Journal, Westfield is testing the market for a buyer for the mall, which has been plagued by empty storefronts.

In August, when the mall underwent a remodel, General Manager Russell Dougherty said it was only 65 percent occupied.

Westfield officials did not return phone calls for comment on their plans for the mall this week.

“The Mayor remains committed to working with Westfield and finding ways to make the plaza a viable entity in Sacramento,” said Joaquin McPeek, press secretary for Mayor Kevin Johnson. “At the end of the day, this is such a critical piece of downtown and we’ve all got to work together to see it reach its full potential.”

Johnson has previously said the city is “extremely committed” to reviving the mall.

“I don’t think we’re overly surprised with the announcement,” said Michael Ault, executive director of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership. “We knew for a long time it wasn’t an asset that was paying off.”

Ault said the mall in the heart of downtown – straddling K Street from Third Street to Seventh Street – is an asset that is too big to let deteriorate, and if it does end up being sold, he said he hopes any potential new owner will be able to revitalize it.

“Westfield is one of the largest mall operators in the world,” he said. “If they didn’t make it work, maybe somebody needs to re-look at what it is.”

That could be an opportunity, to reconfigure it from a shopping mall to more of a mixed-use space including both retail and office space, he said.

But don’t look for it on Craigslist yet.

“At this point, they’ve just hired somebody to see if anybody is interested,” Ault said. “We’re not sure that anybody wants to buy it. We clearly don’t want to see it continue to deteriorate to the point that it starts to impact some of the new development.”

The downtown core has seen some successful recent development, with more on the way.

The trio of nightlife venues a few blocks down K Street, another nearby restaurant opening and the endorsing of the downtown railyards as the site for a new courthouse are spread around the mall.

Another player in the area is Macy’s, which owns its buildings in Downtown Plaza. The two separate downtown Macy’s stores on the plaza compose one of the biggest Macy’s stores in the state, Ault said.

“Macy’s represents a large part of why people continue to shop at Westfield,” Ault said. “No matter what happens at Westfield, we want to make sure we support Macy’s as well.”

Macy’s officials were not available for comment this week.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow him on Twitter @brandon_darnell.

City loans California Musical Theatre $300,000

2011-04-28T01:17:51Z

The struggling California Musical Theatre in Sacramento will receive $300,000 from the city to help it stay afloat.

The Sacramento City Council unanimously decided Wednesday to loan the amount to the theater over the next three years. The theater can withdraw the money in $50,000 increments each quarter until the $300,000 total is reached, according to a report by city staff. The money will go toward the theater’s operations.

California Musical Theatre runs Music Circus, the Broadway Series and Cosmopolitan Cabaret.

“It’s an important piece of downtown,” Councilman Jay Schenirer said, referring to the theater. The business the theater brings to downtown is “incredibly important,” he added.

The city is taking $300,000 from its Community Center Theater Renovation Project for the loan.

Councilwomen Sandy Sheedy and Angelique Ashby noted that the money for the loan is designated for the arts and cannot be used in the city’s general fund.

When the theater withdraws money from the loan during a fiscal year, it must pay back the city the amount plus interest by June 30 of that fiscal year, according to the city staff report.

The theater cannot receive a bank line of credit because of its financial situation, the staff report said.

Still, the theater provides benefits to the city, according to the report. The theater employs more than 550 people, and pays $800,000 to the Sacramento Convention Center in rent annually, the report said.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Ask Officer Michelle - Incident at 9/K Streets

2011-04-17T15:52:29Z

Posted by Frank000064

On 4/5/11 just after 2:30pm when I went into the RiteAid at 9th & K, I was told by a cashier that a customer had just been body slammed into the side of the building and robbed, but no one had been apprehended. Do you know if anyone was caught? I work a couple of blocks from there and myself along with other in my building were concerned about what happened. I checked the various news sites but didn’t see anything about it and did not see anything in your crime log either.

Dear Frank000064,

I know exactly the call you are speaking of. I was dispatched to that call myself. The complainant/victim was contacted at the bus stop at 9th/K Streets by a Hispanic male who asked him if he wanted to buy some marijuana. The victim told the suspect that he wanted to see the marijuana first. When the Hispanic male took three bindles of marijuana out of his pocket to display it to the victim, the victim grabbed the marijuana out of his hand and proceeded to walk toward the Rite-Aid. The Hispanic male caught up to the victim and punched him in the face. The Hispanic male then took off on a bicycle. The complainant said that it was his intention to give the marijuana to the police, and that he took it as evidence. Responding officers checked the area but were unable to locate the Hispanic male. The victim was taken to an area hospital for a precautionary examination. Thank you for your post.

Officer Michelle

The Crystal Method coming to District 30

2011-03-31T01:22:46Z

Electronic music duo The Crystal Method will be coming to the new District 30 venue April 7, and Ken Jordan, who founded the group with Scott Kirkland in the 1990s, spoke to The Sacramento Press about the upcoming show.

The Sacramento Press: How would you describe your music?

Ken Jordan: I would say it’s electronic dance music. It’s hard and soulful, and it’s more of a, well, not-quite-underground sound. There’s lots of jargony words I could use to describe it, but it’s cool, electronic dance music.

SP: You’ve been nominated for Grammy awards twice for best electronic/dance album (2009’s “Divided by Night” and 2004’s “Legion of Boom”). What does that sort of recognition mean to you, and has it changed anything in how you make your music?

KJ: It’s great. Ever since they’ve had the electronic music category, our two albums released since then have been nominated. We lost to Lady Gaga (“The Fame Monster”) this last time, and, you know, she had a really big year. It’s great to be nominated, but it’s never a goal. Our goal is always to create a record that’s good and something we enjoy.

SP: When it comes to creating electronic music, how have the technological advances since you formed more than 10 years ago changed the way you work?

KJ: It’s changed a great deal. The creative part of it is essentially the same. When we were first making music, though, just disc storage and RAM memory was all at such a premium. I can remember the first time we had 44-megabyte cartridges for memory and that was a big deal. Overall, the hard disc size and speed – all of that has come so far. That was always a technical limitation that cramped creativity. All of it is so cheap and so fast now that it’s become something you don’t think about so much.

SP: What are you looking forward to in Sacramento? Are you familiar with District 30?

KJ: I know it’s a new venue, and some of the people from Ruby Skye in San Francisco own it. We trust that element of it, and we’re excited about the new club. The last show we had in Sacramento was at Harlow’s. That was 2008, probably, and it was a lot of fun, but this show is going to be totally different, so it’s still something fresh.

SP: How is this show different from the last one?

KJ: That was a live show. We had keyboarders and drummers, and this one is going to be a DJ set. We usually play live shows with keyboardists and drummers and some additional people when we’re promoting an album, but we’re currently not promoting a new album. It’s going to be a really cool show. What we like doing the most when we tour is playing places (for) the first time or ones we don’t hit that often. It’s a fresher crowd.

SP: Will you be playing music from your albums, or will it include more than that?

KJ: We play lots of music that’s ours and remixes we’ve done and remixes of our music done by other people. There’s a lot of Crystal Method music in the set. We just finished a remix for the “Tron” soundtrack, so we’ll play that. What we’re working on right now is a couple of scenes from a big movie that’s coming out later this year. We will possibly play those.

SP: What is the name of the movie?

KJ: I can’t say. I’m in a non-disclosure contract.

SP: In doing work for TV, movies, video games and your own albums, which do you prefer?

KJ: Working on our albums is always the No. 1 priority. You get more satisfaction out of that, since you’re making it for yourself. On the other (projects), you’re making music for another project.

SP: Is there anything else you’d like people to know about The Crystal Method?

KJ: We’re a couple of nice, American boys from Las Vegas residing in L.A. A lot of times people ask us if we’re from England. A lot of our sound is based in classic rock and ’70s punk and early hip hop. We’re not that far out there. Anyone that likes music, if they give us a listen, they should like it. Even our parents like our music.

The Crystal Method’s show will be held at District 30, 1022 K St., from 9 p.m. - 3 a.m. April 7. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased here.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Photo essay: Tequila Museo Mayahuel; soft opening Friday

2011-03-30T05:06:49Z

Monday night, a huge Dia de los Muertos caricature welcomed guests to Tequila Museo Mayahuel on 12th and K streets.

Inside, sugar skulls, candles and marigolds transformed the new tequila museum and restaurant into a Dia de Los Muertos party, called “Subterraneo” put on by Jose Cuervo Tradicional tequila.

The party was a sneak preview of the not-yet-open Tequila Museo Mayahuel. Only those in the restaurant and bar industry were invited.

Jose Cuervo Tradicional is touring cities around the country with the Dia de los Muertos party and selected Sacramento to host Monday’s event.

According to Gina Castillo, tequila ambassador for Jose Cuervo and Don Julio Northern California, Tequila Museo Mayahuel was chosen because Sacramento is an important tequila market and it’s a brand new restaurant that has a tequila museum in it.

This is the first time Jose Cuervo Tradicional has hosted an event in Sacramento.

“(Mayahuel is) a place that’s going to stick to Mexican culture and since Dia de los Muertos is such a Mexican holiday, we wanted to make sure that we had it in a place that made sense,” Castillo said.

Some of Sacramento’s restaurateurs came to check out the new K Street restaurant and bar, including Ali Mackani, owner of Lounge on 20; Billy Ngo, owner of Kru and Red Lotus Kitchen & Bar; and Andrea Martin, who owns Bulls.

TJ Bruce, who owns Badlands and Hot Rods, was also there and said he was enjoying the party.

“It is very rustic. The food is wonderful,” he said. “It’s very clubby. I think a restaurant would do well (having) a club” atmosphere while it was serving food.

“I have a feeling it’s going to be a lot more low-key” normally, he added.

Small bites, or bocadillos, were served from the menu, including

Bruchetas de Rajas con Crema (french bread slices topped with strips of poblano chiles marinated in sour cream);
Dobladitas de Camaron y Queso Manchego (tortillas stuffed with shrimp and ricotta cheese sautéed with onions);
Molletitos de Chorizo y Queso Monterrey (baguette with black refried beans and chorizo and crumbled cheese);
Brochetas de Pollo y Nopal al Guajillo (chicken with cactus, Guajillo chile and mushrooms);
Tostaditas de Chile Ancho y Nopales (tostadas with Ancho chiles, guacamole and cactus);
Tostaditas de Tinga de Pollo (shredded chicken breast cooked in chipotle sauce, served on a tostada);
Panuchos de Cochinita Pibil (pulled pork that’s been cooked in Ancho chiles and citrus sauce on a soft tortilla with refried black beans).

For dessert, they served Mosaico de Flan de Chile Ancho (flan with pasillo peppers) and a mango mousse cake.

Nate Radabaugh, David Tyler and George Boeger came all the way from Chico to see Tequila Museo Mayahuel.

Radabaugh and Tyler said they do security for Chico’s Normal Street Bar, which Boeger owns.

“This is my first time in Sacramento,” Radabaugh said. “It’s a great city – a walking city – I didn’t know what to expect. I like the celebration.”

On display behind the bar were hand-painted Jose Cuervo Reserva de la Familia tequila boxes.

“Each box is different – different artist, different art,” Mayahuel owner Ernesto Delgado said. “They hired a Mexican artist to paint their box, and each year, they select a new artist to paint the box, and now it’s a series.”

The tequila boxes are the current display for the “museo” (museum) part of the restaurant. The history and culture of tequila will continue to be reflected in the rotating exhibits planned for Mayahuel.

“The idea is that the whole place is going to function and work like a museum,” Delgado said. “(The) one (behind the bar) is obviously the main exhibit, but throughout the entire restaurant we’ll have different exhibits on different walls that will coordinate with events, programs, venues (and) tastings.”

The exhibits will rotate every three months or so, he said.

Bartenders stayed busy serving specialty drinks, which included Trad Fresco, made of Tradicional Silver, simple syrup, grapefruit juice, muddled cucumber and mint leaves; Paloma Mayahuel, which mixed Tradicional Silver, grapefruit juice, agave syrup, lime juice, seltzer water and a pinch of salt; El Beso Ardiente, made of Tradicional Silver, agave syrup, lime juice, Serrano pepper and muddled pepper wheels; and others.

El Beso Ardiente means "the fiery kiss," according to Castillo.

Nicole Novoa, an analyst for the California Department of Consumer Affairs, said she came Monday because she is friends with the restaurant’s manager, Javier Valdez.

When asked what she thought of Mayahuel, she said, “It’s different from what I’ve seen. It doesn’t compare.... It’s culturally diverse. It has a really good ambiance.”

More than 200 people took part in the celebration throughout the night, according to Delgado.

DJ Alex Trujillo and DJ Will Rodriguez played music all night, getting the Day of the Dead caricatures on the dance floor along with many painted faces in the crowd.

Delgado said Tuesday that he was very pleased with the event.

“I personally loved it. It was a great reflection of what I’m trying to showcase – the culture.... Dia de los Muertos is a day of appreciating the past with the present – the people that have been here – their life and history. In Mexico, we celebrate our past by celebrating the deaths of people that were close to us,” he said.

The grand opening of Tequila Museo Mayahuel is scheduled for the weekend of Cinco de Mayo. However, the restaurant and bar will be open well before that, with a soft opening at 3 p.m. Friday. Delgado said they will serve small plates and a limited cocktail menu.

Tequila Museo Mayahuel is located at 1200 K St. For more information, read Suzanne Hurt’s recent article here or Brandon Darnell’s original article here.

Photos by Chris Brune and Colleen Belcher.

Joan Rivers at the Crest Theatre - Slideshow

2011-03-14T08:13:30Z

800 K Street Plan at Preservation Commission

2011-03-02T02:13:31Z

This Wednesday, March 2, the City of Sacramento's Preservation Commission will review and comment on plans for the 800 block of K Street. This plan follows the February review and comment for the 700 block of K Street, (a project of D&S Development and CFY Development) by the Preservation Commission, later presented to Design and Planning Commission.

City of Sacramento Preservation Commission

Wednesday, March 2, 5:30 PM, City Council Chambers, New City Hall, 915 I Street, Sacramento

Agenda for the Preservation Commission meeting can be found here:

http://sacramento.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=21&event_id=144

This project, selected last summer as one of two projects for the 700 and 800 block of K Street, is presented by David Taylor Interests, Domus, CIM and Zeiden Properties. After input by the city of Sacramento, the project now includes 200 apartments (the original plan called for 110) varying in size from 450 to 1100 square feet, and 20,000 feet of retail space, on a lot of approximately 1.1 acres. Two new buildings will be constructed, at 800 K Street and 801 L Street, and the historic Bel-Vue Apartments/American Cash Apartments building will be restored and renovated. The 800 K Street building will be six stories tall, not including a basement parking level at Sacramento's original street level. The 801 L Street building will be five stories. Affordability levels will vary within the project, ranging from low and moderate income to market-rate units. Potential tenants for the ground floor retail units were not specified in the staff report.

The complete report for the 800 Block proposal can be found here:

http://sacramento.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=21&event_id=144&meta_id=218914

This item will be received for review and comment, most likely to be followed by presentations to Design Review and Planning Commission in the coming weeks.

This month's Preservation Commission will also feature public hearings on two items: a recommendation for the Broadway Triangle project, a mixed-use project planned for Broadway between 34th and 36th Street that will include several landmark buildings in the Oak Park/Broadway historic district, and a recommendation for district signs, art, and bicycle furniture for the R Street Corridor between 10th and 13th Street.

Details about the Broadway Triangle project can be found here:

http://sacramento.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=21&event_id=144&meta_id=218908

The R Street streetscape plan can be found here:

http://sacramento.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=21&event_id=144&meta_id=218910

The Preservation Commission will also review a staff report regarding whether or not to recommend the California State Printing Plant on North 7th and Richards Boulevard to the City Council as a city landmark. Staff report can be found here:

http://sacramento.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=21&event_id=144&meta_id=218912

Pictures accompanying this article were taken from the City of Sacramento staff report, linked above.

Downtown is focus for urban design experts

2011-02-17T02:04:29Z

Sacramento needs to build a better image for its downtown, and Downtown Plaza should be “ground zero” for change, urban design experts said Wednesday.

City and business leaders often refer to the heart of downtown as the J-K-L Corridor, named for the major streets the area is built on.

But referring to downtown that way promotes the idea that it's just an area to move through on the way to somewhere else. The city needs to focus on creating a downtown district that becomes the center of the city, said Betsy Jackson, president of The Urban Agenda Inc. of Ann Arbor, Mich.

"Stop thinking and speaking of this as a corridor," Jackson said at City Hall during a presentation by a team of urban design and city planning experts.

Mayor Kevin Johnson invited the six-person team to visit the city through a National Endowment for the Arts leadership initiative called the Mayors' Institute on City Design. The program is offered in partnership with the American Architectural Foundation and the United States Conference of Mayors.

The institute holds six to eight such workshops throughout the country each year. The team was brought to Sacramento to help support ongoing efforts to revitalize downtown.

The team spent two and a half days touring Sacramento, learning from local stakeholders and developing guiding principles and recommendations. Those stakeholders – city staff, labor officials, artists and business owners – attended the presentation.

Echoing the concerns of all local stakeholders, the team identified major change at Westfield Downtown Plaza as downtown's top redevelopment priority.

The 1970s-era shopping mall is a visual and physical barrier that helps disconnect downtown from the central city's grid and doesn't contribute as much as it could to downtown's economy. The city should consider replacing the internally focused plaza with externally focused mixed uses such as retail, office and residences, said Graham Stroh, a program manager with the American Architectural Foundation.

"That is probably ground zero for Sacramentans," he said.

The team offered plenty of other ideas. They include:

• Improve downtown's connections to its near neighborhoods;
• Invest in quality for streetscape, landscaping, parks, trash pickup, maintenance and graffiti prevention/removal;
• Activate public spaces year-round with events and recreation that draw different demographic groups and make use of undeveloped lots;
• Promote informal, spontaneous uses of public spaces and different activities for different sites;
• Enhance major streets with more landscaping and a green infrastructure of open space and natural areas, starting with 10th and J streets, then expanding to I Street and beyond;
• Educate property owners and residents about the economic benefits of preserving and adapting historic properties, such as Sacramento's original street level hidden away in basements and hollow sidewalks;
• Reform permitting and regulations to make development less confusing, less expensive and less time-consuming;
• Build safety by adding downtown guides at night;
• Review efficiency of one-way streets;
• Improve on the almost-nonexistent access to Sacramento and American rivers;
• Build downtown's identity through mid-rise buildings that stand out from the low-rise residential buildings of surrounding neighborhoods.

The city should develop a "customer service approach" to building downtown and its image, Jackson said.

"The idea is you need to sweat these details," she said.

The other people on the team were Brad Cownover, a regional landscape architect with the U.S. Forest Service in Portland; Mark Dawson of Sasaki Associates in Boston; and Keith Lichten with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board.

The team will present a final plan to the city within two weeks. The plan will be posted on the city's website and then used to continue a conversation about changing downtown, said Kunal Merchant, Johnson's chief of staff.

World-renowned artist's originals for sale in Midtown

2011-02-11T01:44:50Z

Eric Decetis’ cartoons have appeared on greeting cards, in magazines and likely, to his chagrin, in your e-mail inbox.

He is probably best known for his “Lost Puppy” cartoon, pictured below, and now the Sacramento native is offering his original works to the general public for the first time at Gallery 2110 on K Street.

“I have never had a showing of my originals,” Decetis said. “I’ve flown under the radar for many years now. I’ve been in the business for 30 years.”

He has only sold three originals – one to a collector and two to Charlie Sheen.

But with his work appearing in Penthouse, Hustler and on greeting cards around the world, even if he has managed to stay out of the public eye, his work has not.

The proliferation of his work on the Internet, however, is a double-edged sword, according to the 58-year-old artist.

“The cartoon business is my primary income,” he said. “To see my cartoons in e-mails is flattering, but I can’t spend flattery.”

Decetis said he has been drawing since he was a kid, but it wasn’t his first choice as a job.

After graduating from Christian Brothers High School, he went on to University of California, Davis, and earned degrees in biology and respiratory therapy.

“I was a respiratory therapist at Mercy Hospital back in the '70s,” he said. “I never had any art classes. I just got lucky.”

It wasn’t long before his hobby was noticed, and he started drawing cartoons for Hustler and Penthouse in 1982, where he stayed until 2005.

He said he draws about two or three cartoons per week, and he does them all by hand.

“The trend now is a lot of the younger cartoonists are scanning their line art into computers and using various illustrative programs to color them,” he said. “I enjoy hand-inking all of my work. I really enjoy using brushes and dyes.”

When he finishes a piece, he scans the completed image and sends it to whomever has bought the licensing to use it. The original then goes into a file drawer.

Decetis recently decided to move – for the first time in 36 years – and it was then that he realized just how many original pieces he has.

“I have a huge volume of work,” he said, adding that he has a lot of unpublished work as well, but didn’t give specific numbers.

Around the same time, he was approached by a friend of a friend who happens to run Gallery 2110 at 2110 K St., Clare Bailey, who pitched him the idea of doing a showing.

“I thought, ‘This must be the time to do it,’ ” he said. “If not, it’ll probably all end up at Denio’s upon my demise.”

His works will be shown at the gallery until March 4.

The show, called “Cupid Made Me Stupid,” has a number of Valentine’s Day-themed works, and all are for sale. Prices range $1,500 - $5,000.

“He is at the top echelon – he’s an established artist and internationally renowned,” Bailey said.

She added that the fact that he is both so well-renowned and also from Sacramento is “a blessing” for the community.

The gallery is open 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Saturday and is closed on Sunday.

This Saturday, the gallery will be open from 10 a.m. - 9 p.m. for the Second Saturday Art Walk, and Decetis will be in the gallery from 6 - 9 p.m.

“People will be captivated by his personality,” Bailey said, describing him as both very talented but also humble and somewhat shy.

Decetis said he has always followed a guiding principle – advice given to him years ago by his father.

“ ‘No excuses.’ That’s what my dad told me,” he said. “If you want to get into the business, you just can’t give up. You’ve gotta just keep hammering away.”

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Illicit mural removed

2011-02-02T04:22:18Z

The smoke has cleared in the skirmish over a guerrilla-art mural painted next door to Sugar Plum Vegan Bakery in Midtown.

A graffiti-removal service hired by the Midtown Business Association painted over or "buffed out" the roughly 20-foot-tall mural of a three-headed blue and green man a little more than a week ago.

Sacramento artist Shaun Turner had painted the outdoor mural Nov. 13 as a Second Saturday Art Walk event to help draw attention to the bakery, which opened at 2315 K St. in March.

Trouble was, the mural was technically painted on the wall of a small commercial building next door at 2309 K St.

The bakery’s manager and chef, Marshall Massa, and Sugar Plum owner Melissa Sugar had given Turner the go-ahead to paint the mural on the wall, which forms sort of a backdrop to their front courtyard. But they didn't have permission from the owner of the building next door.

"It was 100 percent guerrilla style," Massa said Tuesday. "We knew it would obviously raise some eyebrows and ruffle some feathers."

Those behind Sugar Plum are fans of Turner's work. Two more of his murals hang on drop cloths inside the bakery and in a back courtyard. They paid him to paint the mural that was removed and a mural containing the Sugar Plum name in back that's served as their business logo on menus, business cards and packaging. Another artist painted the lettering.

But the blue and green man – which looked like a cross between a futuristic industrial style and folk art – didn't appeal to the building's owner, Bob Proctor.

Proctor has owned the building for 11 years. His business, Statewide Information Systems, operates in a second-floor office. Other businesses also lease space there.

He was out of town when the mural was painted on the building. He wasn't asked for permission and wouldn't have given it if he was, he said.

"I'd a said ‘no,’ " Proctor said. "They're promoting their business. And quite frankly, I love this little building."

He didn’t consider pressing charges. Businesses like his pay property-based improvement district assessment fees to the city for services such as graffiti removal, administered there by the MBA. But Proctor had to pay a little extra – about $75 – to match the brown exterior, according to Proctor and the MBA.

Sugar and Massa have brought in music, art and plants to help create character in the space. Sugar tried to persuade Proctor to keep the mural, which stayed up longer than expected.

"We're just trying to keep it as vibrant as possible," Massa said.

Turner did a nice job on the mural, said James Cooper, executive director of the nonprofit Sacramento Education Events for Art Midtown Murals Project.

“I was saddened to hear that there were some discrepancies in the process of getting it up,” he said.

Turner, 29, said the mural was one of the best he’s done in Sacramento, although it was only 60 percent complete. He described the style as free-form and stream-of-consciousness – something he’s been developing over the last six months.

“I was bummed that it got painted over. But I understand,” he said. “It just wasn't doing it for him.”

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @SuzanneHurt.

A Happier Hour for K Street?

2011-01-31T18:44:55Z

For some time now, K Street has been wavering between its past life as a Sacramento hot spot and its future as a wilting has-been. The busy street is clearly an institution from 9 to 5, but despite the Crest and the constant stream of events, city planners have been struggling to pull in a real evening crowd.

The news is out that a team of fairytale Bay Area developers has joined forces and created Dive Bar, Pizza Rock and District 30. This nightclub-pizza-bar trio hopes to entice the masses for some good old K Street entertainment and after-hours. But is this Bay Area vibe a bit of a stretch in grabbing the attention of the average Midtown resident? Even worse is the grueling task of convincing the average state worker that, despite ridiculous amounts of overtime, they have the energy for just a few more hours after work. Fun it may be, but it still takes energy.

So how will this all shape up? Will we be pleasantly surprised and find ourselves meeting up on K next Saturday? Or will it all be a blur of good press and hearsay, and we'll be left wondering if it will be yet another Subway? Do the mermaids get a pension?

The future is less predictable than we would hope, but I would have to wager that, at the least, Pizza Rock is here to stay. The rock in Pizza Rock is subtle, drawing in those who know trendy and comforting those who don't. A clean, silver chain holding back the heavy floor-to-ceiling black curtains, a Craftsman toolbox serving as the hostess station, and even the bathrooms are tastefully done, with Japanese-esque red walls, weathered framed mirrors and the city-standard 1930s-era hexagonal tile. The Peterbilt barreling out of the wall above the bar is a bit more than subtle, but you have to expect something outrageous from the creators of Dive Bar.

The pizza was dazzling in a way that had me planning my next visit. Five different types of crust, all of them flawless and the perfect blend of real Italian-style pizza and the American level of toppings that we just can't resist. The food was fresh, fast and reasonably priced.

The old-school music had Midtowners and middle-agers alike tapping their feet along with at least a song or two. The beverages were quality and varied with a full bar, a reasonable wine list, and even Bear Republic's Racer 5, a nice nod to the regional craft beer industry that's becoming more popular each day. On the whole, it's stunning that such a well-balanced pizza place was designed by the same people that created a bar with a 7,500-gallon tank filled with scandalously live mermaids.

Hopefully the next newbies on K Street will follow their lead, thinking of all and excluding none, if only so we can wander down the K Street Mall among friends rather than just passing through it on the way home. Currently, it's a bit too much like a deserted rail corridor, where it would be wholly unsurprising to find someone stripped naked in front of Pizza Rock, warming their clothes on the decorative blue flames that were forgotten at closing that night.

Or is a noon rush all that K Street has left?

French composer to add life to time-tested film

2011-01-22T02:10:57Z

Kicking off its 10th year, the Sacramento French Film Festival has invited French composer Raymond Alessandrini to direct an orchestral accompaniment for its first film/concert, which will be performed by the Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra.

“It’s something we’ve never done before. It’s quite exceptional,” said French Film Festival Executive and Artistic Director Cécile Downs.

The show will be held at the Crest Theatre on Jan. 29 and 30.

“It’s a very big event for us,” Downs said. “We (often) have guests, but usually they are just coming to present a film that is already finished. Having the composer of the score coming is more exceptional.”

The film to be shown is a 1928 silent film, “Un Chapeau de Paille d’Italie” (“An Italian Straw Hat”), directed by René Clair. It was originally based off the play by Eugène Labiche.

“This film is extremely funny,” Downs said. “It goes at a very, very fast pace ... in France, it is one of the most famous silent films.”

When the film was originally shown, it would have been accompanied by a pianist in a theater, Downs said.

In 1986, when the Cinémathèque Française (France’s national film center) celebrated its 50th anniversary, several composers were asked to write scores to original silent films that had been restored, Alessandrini told The Sacramento Press.*

Alessandrini was chosen to write the score to “An Italian Straw Hat” and another film.

“The challenge is always to respect the character, the style and the spirit of the director,” Alessandrini said in an e-mail. “For ‘The Italian Straw Hat,’ the difficulty was to be musically funny with the most subtlety possible, all the while staying true to the occasional surrealism of René Clair, as well as the rapidity and precision of the film editing.”

He added that in addition to needing to write the music so it is both precise and detailed – akin to the music of a cartoon – a lot of the difficulty comes in directing the orchestra so the sounds are at all times synchronized with the film’s images.

“The film is one of the great classics of French cinema and is very much appreciated by the film lovers in France and those interested in René Clair,” Alessandrini said. “It is also one of the great theater works of the 19th century.”

Alessandrini said Labiche wrote the play as a mockery of the stupidity of his contemporaries.

“It is a very funny film that puts everyone in a good mood,” he said. “The duration is 1 hour and 24 minutes, but it gives the impression that it’s over in 10 minutes. The music contributes enormously to the humor of the scenes, and it is always a sight to see these films on a big screen with a live orchestra.”

Alessandrini said he has not spent much time in the United States, but did a similar show in the early 1980s at a film festival in Colorado, also working with American musicians.

He has performed “An Italian Straw Hat” in England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and all the large cities in Italy. He has also done two show tours in Russia, and one on the Middle East, he said.

He got his start in the industry as a classically trained musician, and it was when he worked as a pianist that he met filmmakers and producers, who led him down the path to eventually composing scores to accompany restored films.

“It’s an honor to me to be able to work with the musicians of the Sacramento Philharmonic, and I hope that this will be a pleasant experience and will bring much pleasure and joy to the people of Sacramento,” he said.

“Everywhere you go in the world, this music and this film are a success,” he added. “It’s a rare show, and it’s a shame if you don’t take advantage of it.”

The film will be shown twice – at 8 p.m. Jan. 29 and 2 p.m. Jan. 30.

Tickets are $30, or $25 for friends of the film festival, philharmonic subscribers and members of the Alliance Française or Tempo. Tickets can be purchased at Tickets.com, by phone at (800) 225-2277 or at the Crest Theatre box office.

“I think, to me it’s kind of a historic moment in Sacramento,” Downs said. “We’re bringing a French composer, it’s a very very famous and funny film, and it’s just gonna be fun. I can’t say when we’re going to do that again, so it’s not to be missed.”

*Interview with Raymond Alessandrini conducted in French and translated to English by Brandon Darnell, staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Pizza Rock opens to the public

2011-01-17T05:32:31Z

K Street’s newest restaurant Pizza Rock opened Friday with success and a lunch rush that lasted past 3 p.m.

“There was a line when we opened and it’s been like this all day long,” said Pizza Rock pizzaiolo (or pizza maker) Jim Hemstalk.

Pizza Rock is one of three establishments opening this week on K Street. The other two, District 30 and Dive Bar, will have grand openings on Wednesday.

“The turnout so far has been fantastic and the response from everybody has been wonderful,” Hemstalk said. “Everybody just raves about it as they walk out the door, so that’s a good sign.”

Pizza Rock’s co-owner Tony Gemignani, internationally renowned pizza-throwing champion and chef, said the inspiration for the place came about five years ago and the overall concept is “nightlife meets pizza.”

And that’s definitely the vibe you get when walking into the place.

At the front end of the restaurant to the right of the entrance is a Cirigliano Forni pizza oven and kitchen, imported from Italy, which cooks pizzas in 90 seconds at 900 degrees.

This oven is manned by two pizziolos, and their station is enclosed by a huge gray marble counter.

Gemignani said he thinks the front oven is great for kids to be able to come up to the counter, hang out and watch how pizza is made.

But the restaurant has three other ovens — one rotating oven that is made of stone and can cook about 50 pizzas at a time, and two regular-sized pizza ovens in the back of the main kitchen.

The dining room of the restaurant is where the “rock and roll” style really comes out with the punch-cut steel ceiling decorations, red linens, alternative rock songs playing over 10 large overhead speakers, high black ceilings, black chair-backings made to resemble the inside of a guitar case, six flat-screen TVs sitting plush against all-brick walls, black and gray checkered carpet and drawn black curtains separating the dining room from the two kitchens.

Meanwhile, a chain-link fence with barbed wire tops the long bar to the right side of the restaurant.

As though driving through the fence on top of the bar, the front end of an old-fashioned Peterbilt truck is painted with flames and doubles as the DJ booth.

As for the pizza?

Gemignani says Pizza Rock pizza is unique in a variety of ways, but mostly in the way it stays true to the ingredients, with six types of dough, ingredients imported from Naples and the best cheeses in the nation.

Each pizza is between 12 and13 inches around with six slices and serves two to three people, and the prices range from $11-30 a pop.

Pizza Rock also serves a Pizza Romana, which stays true to its Italian roots as a meter-long thin pizza with 18 slices and three separate arrangements of pizza toppings on it.

Downtown Sacramento Partnership Marketing director Lisa Martinez ordered a Margherita pizza and the Sicilian pizza to share with a group of co-workers.

She said the food was phenomenal and that she appreciated the variety of pizzas.

“They have a bunch of different varieties of Italian pizzas, and I think that it’s a little bit of a different style than what we’re used to seeing here in Sacramento,” Martinez said.

Michael Ault, executive director of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, said he was also very satisfied with his experience.

“The food was incredible,” he said. “You know it’s day one so you’ve got to have a little perspective coming in, but the food came out delicious and it’s definitely somewhere we’ll be back.”

“The decor gives a feel that all along people have said Sacramento deserved,” Ault said. “I think some of the investment that’s being made in the central city as it relates to the quality of the product and the real destinations are very, very impressive. They did a wonderful job.”

Jay Sherman, the restaurant’s other acclaimed dough spinner, will perform regular shows of pizza acrobatics in the dining room.

Pizza Rock hours are as follows:
Monday and Tuesday: 11 a.m. - 10 p.m.
Wednesday through Friday: 11 a.m. - 3 a.m.
Saturday: 11:30 a.m. - 3 a.m.
Sunday: 11:30 a.m. - 10 p.m.

Photos by Ron Nabity

A year's activity on K Street

2010-12-30T01:19:45Z

The downtown portion of K Street saw a lot of activity in 2010, from streetscape improvements to community debate over the redevelopment of troubled portions and the construction of new nightlife venues.

At the beginning of the year, portions of K Street were still torn up from the previous year’s streetscape improvement project. A Sacramento Press article from February covered the ongoing improvements, which have since been completed.

By late March, the city was discussing the next step in the process and considering four proposals for the 700 and 800 blocks of the street.

The plans for K Street were the subject of significant public debate, with historians, developers, residents and businesspeople all involved. Historian William Burg wrote his opinion on the plan here, generating a lengthy discussion on what the future should hold.

In advance of a pivotal July City Council meeting, the major contenders were vying for the city’s nod to develop portions of K Street, and Sacramento Press Editor in Chief David Watts Barton wrote his first of several editorials on the subject.

The July 13 City Council meeting saw two teams – one led by D & S Development, Inc. and CFY Development, Inc. and the other by Sacramento developer David Taylor – come out on top. To read more about the meeting and their proposals, click here.

Barton wrote a second editorial on the subject in which he expressed his approval of the decision as well as the community involvement throughout the process.

Other news on K Street in 2010 involved the construction and opening of new businesses.

The portion getting the most attention was the 1000 block of K Street, in which a trio of venues promises to add to the street’s nightlife.

San Francisco nightclub owner George Karpaty’s multimillion-dollar vision was undergoing construction in 2009, but work had stalled. By February, the construction was back on track.

As the months passed, construction steadily progressed, and Barton wrote another editorial about K Street – this time specifically about Karpaty’s project.

Late in the year, things were coming together, with a projected opening for the end of December or January, and The Sacramento Press brought readers a glimpse into the venues.

By the middle of December, projected January opening dates for the three businesses were given in an update on the construction progress.

Just a few blocks away, near Seventh and K streets, Vive Cocina opened in March, and a tequila-themed restaurant and museum – Tequila Museo Mayahuel – was under construction at 12th and K.

To finish out the year on K Street, the Sacramento County Historical Society brought back a holiday tradition – antique holiday window displays on the corner of 10th and K.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Image one by Brandon Darnell. Images two and four by Staff Reporter Suzanne Hurt. Image three by Ingrid Ratliff.

Holiday Evenings on K Street

2010-12-17T19:29:00Z

Fog around US Bank and Wells Fargo towers seen from K St.

SacPress Photos | Kati Garner

Council members discuss Central City

2010-12-16T02:42:44Z

Sacramento’s Central City has received a lot of media attention for shootings and muggings in recent months. However, the area is also frequently in the spotlight because of large-scale development projects, such as the downtown Railyards or George Karpaty’s trio of businesses on K Street.

The Sacramento Press recently interviewed three City Council members to learn about their plans for the Central City. Councilwoman Angelique Ashby and Councilmen Steve Cohn and Rob Fong shared their priorities for the different parts of the Central City they represent.

Ashby’s portion of the area includes the downtown Railyards, K Street, Old Sacramento, Alkali Flat and the River District. Ashby mentioned the Railyards and K Street Mall as examples of key development sites in her district.

“Some of the best opportunities in the city lie in the downtown portion of District 1,” she said.

As an elected official, she said she wants to help avoid hurdles in the development process. “In my position, I can help make sure they get those projects done in a timely manner,” she said.

Ashby also said she wants to be a behind-the-scenes facilitator for the various groups involved with projects in the area. Stakeholder groups involved with Central City development projects, such as community members, government agencies and environmental organizations, need a “point person” at City Hall, she said, adding that she wants to take on that role.

Public safety in her district, and throughout the city, is a key priority, Ashby said.

Cohn, too, emphasized public safety when asked about his work in District 3. His section of the Central City includes Midtown and part of downtown. His district’s stretch of K Street starts at 16th Street and heads east.

He pointed out the shooting death of a 24-year-old that occurred after a Second Saturday Art Walk event in September. Cohn also mentioned that the neighborhood has bar and nightlife issues. He said he wants neighborhoods and businesses to work together to solve public safety and public nuisance issues in Midtown. In his view, Midtown’s development has been a success, he said.

“I want to make sure it can continue to succeed and not be a victim of its own success,” he said.

On a different topic, he said work is under way to enhance Sutter’s Landing Park on the northeast edge of Midtown.

Meanwhile, Fong said he was excited about the R Street streetscape project in his district. Fong’s piece of the Central City includes part of Midtown and downtown. The street improvements will make the street more pedestrian-friendly and inviting, he said.

A groundbreaking ceremony for the effort to revamp the street with new lighting and parking enhancements was held in September. The street will be remodeled from 10th to 13th streets.

Click on the following links to view maps of City Council Districts 1, 3 and 4.

Learn more about some of Ashby’s priorities for North and South Natomas here.

Photos of Cohn and Fong by Brandon Darnell. Photo of Ashby by David Watts Barton.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Good Signs on K St.

2010-12-13T05:19:05Z

The Dive Bar is the last of three new businesses on K St. to have its sign completed. The sign maker put the finishing touches on it early this evening. Pizza Rock and District 30 signs are up and the trio are on track to open on or before Jan. 1, 2011. Crest Theatre's marque is reflected in the glass. For more info on these businesses, CLICK HERE>>> .

SacPress Photo | Kati Garner

Holiday Display at 10th & K

2010-12-09T21:06:04Z

Sacramento County Historical Society's holiday display at 1001 K Street formally opened on November 26, but its operation continues through the beginning of the New Year and it attracted attention from passersby even before the display formally opened.

The display uses figures originally built by the Gaffney Display Company in the 1950s, used in Breuner's Department Store holiday display windows. This tradition began in Sacramento in 1934, continuing until 1974. Gaffney figures were used throughout the Breuner's chain, but have been absent from K Street for decades. More information on the historic Breuner's displays can be found in this article:

http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/40096/Department_Store_Holiday_Display_for_K_Street

Construction of the display started in early November, utilizing the talents of a team of volunteers. Some were SCHS members with experience in museum display construction and art. Local artists involved with the "Matrix Arts" organization lent their talents. Some filmmakers from local film company TFO Productions took some time off from producing their new feature "Planet of the Vampire Women" to lend a hand. And some were just Sacramentans willing to help out. Mark Gaffney, owner of the figures and the still-operating Gaffney Display Company, provided the figures and his expertise in setting up the display. About 60 individuals, businesses and organizations contributed funds and materials to the display project, both through our online Indiegogo fundraising effort, solicited donations, and an appeal to Historical Society members.

The project, located in the dramatic corner window of Sacramento's landmark 1946 Roos-Atkins building, combines the historic figures with a newly designed setting entitled "Winter in the City." Set in approximately 1910, the display portrays a Sacramento streetcorner, with a department store and movie theater inspired by Sacramento buildings demolished long ago (the Edison Theater and Weinstock-Lubin department store that once stood on the 400 block of K Street.) A Sacramento streetcar, returning from Oak Park, is located on the K Street side. A family is transfixed before the store window, the parents appreciating the holiday lights while the kids detail which of the toys inside the window they want. A young couple exits the movie theater, hailing the streetcar for a ride home. A bell-ringing Santa, inspired by the "Volunteers of America" fundraising Santas, stands on the corner welcoming passersby. The display is intended to portray the era when K Street (and downtown Sacramento) was the shopping, entertainment and transportation hub of the Sacramento Valley, as well as a densely populated urban neighborhood that was busy day and night.

The display operates from 11 AM to 11 PM on weekdays, and on weekends the lights and animated figures keep running until 2:00 AM. The display will remain in operation until the first week of January 2011, when the figures will be returned and the lumber used to create the display will be donated to a local theater company.

This Saturday, December 11, the Sacramento Old City Association and SCHS will host the quarterly Preservation Roundtable across the street at 1000 K Street, inside the Cosmopolitan Cabaret. The Preservation Roundtable includes updates and information from local history and preservation organizations, and runs from 9 AM to noon. The featured speaker of this quarter's Preservation Roundtable is Mark Gaffney, who will talk about the history of the Gaffney Display Company and their involvement with the Breuner's animated window displays, as well as the story of this year's holiday display. The presentation will end with a visit to the display site at noon.

Sacramento Preservation Roundtable

Saturday December 11, 9 AM-12 PM

1000 K Street (Cosmopolitan Cabaret), Sacramento

(Photos 1 and 2 by William Burg. Photos 3-11 by M. Parfitt. Photos 12-14 by Gretchen Steinberg.)

K Street nightlife trio nearing completion

2010-11-25T00:16:22Z

After having their opening date pushed back, the three establishments on the 1000 block of K Street are on track to open by New Year’s, if not before then.

“We think we can have them open before Christmas,” said Russ Conley, superintendent for Terra Nova industries.

Conley said power has been supplied to the three businesses and that working with SMUD was a breeze.

Construction was delayed due to an unstable electrical vault under the property.

The three business concepts include a "mermaid bar," a gourmet pizza restaurant with acrobatic pizza tossers and a high-end, over-30 dance club to further develop K Street Mall into an entertainment district and to bring people from as far away as the Sierra Nevada foothills.

The project is the work of San Francisco nightclub operator George Karpaty.

Inside Pizza Rock, the big rig has been installed above the bar area.

Art on the ceiling recalls Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel piece, but with a guitar being handed over in lieu of the moment of creation.

Another view of Pizza Rock.

The pizza oven at Pizza Rock.

The pizza oven’s exterior portion fronting K Street.

Dive Bar has had its fish tank installed.

Dive Bar’s bar area under construction.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Department Store Holiday Display for K Street

2010-11-05T05:16:22Z

Sacramento County Historical Society
Holiday Window Display Project
Roos-Atkins Building, 1001 K Street, Sacramento CA
Grand Opening of Window Display: Friday, November 26, Noon

This November, Sacramento County Historical Society will recreate a full-sized holiday display window on K Street, using animated figures that once graced the windows of the Breuner’s department store in downtown Sacramento. The display will occupy the window of the former Roos Bros. department store building at 1001 K Street, the northeast corner of 10th and K. Setup will take place during November 2010, with a “grand reveal” of the completed display the day after Thanksgiving, November 26, at noon. The display will remain in place until the first week of January, 2011.

The Downtown Sacramento Partnership is an active participant in this project, with contributions from the Sacramento Old City Association, Capital City Preservation Trust, Midtown Neighborhood Association, Matrix Arts, and SCHS members. The property management and real estate firm Colliers International has provided access to the ground floor picture window of the historic Roos-Atkins Department Store. This enormous window on a feature corner provides an ideal place to celebrate K Street’s legacy and usher in its future.

The theme for the 2010 Holiday Display Window is “Winter in the City,” an urban scene set in downtown Sacramento circa 1910. Store windows containing period gifts and merchandise, a nickelodeon movie theater, a K Street streetcar, and lighted architectural elements will reflect the holiday season. Animated Gaffney Display Company figures will interact with each other and their surroundings. Local artists and SCHS volunteers will create the display setting. The window will also include historic photos of original Breuner’s display windows,other downtown department stores like Weinstock & Lubin, Roos Bros. and Kress, and past holiday celebrations on K Street, provided by the Center for Sacramento History. Interpretive panels will explain K Street’s historic role as a shopping, entertainment and cultural destination. We hope this celebration of K Street’s history can also serve to inspire its future, and recreate the sense of wonder of holiday seasons past.

Sacramento County Historical Society is organizing the fundraising effort. We are close to our funding goal, but we need your help to bring this tradition back to life on K Street. Please consider a tax-deductible donation to this project via Indiegogo.com by using the link below:

http://www.indiegogo.com/Winter-in-the-City-?a=52855&i=addr

The idea for this display window started last year, after a presentation by Gaffney Display at an SCHS meeting that resulted in a smaller window display at Grebitus & Sons Jewelers--see that story below:

http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/18787/Historic_Holiday_Display_at_10th_L

William Burg, Vice-President, Sacramento County Historical Society
SCHS is a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to promoting and sharing local history through publications, education and special events.

For more information about SCHS, please visit our website at http://www.sachistoricalsociety.org

Photos 1-8: Courtesy of the Center for Sacramento History. Photos 9-11: Taken by William Burg. Photo 12: Author's collection.

Icing on the Cupcake

2010-10-29T07:08:31Z

If you think a cupcake is a special treat – and that a business selling them might be considered a luxury in tight times – you’d be wrong.

Individual cupcake prices at Icing on the Cupcake, 1121 Alhambra Blvd., range from $2.75 to $3, and co-owner Christee Owens characterized them as being “small indulgences that make people smile.”

According to Area Manager Kristina Johnson, the store – which has been open for two weeks – has already garnered a loyal following.

“We have every-day customers,” she said. “It makes you feel good to see them coming in each day.”

The new location is the third one for the chain, which was founded three years ago in Rocklin.

Cupcakes are baked fresh each day from scratch, following family recipes, at a central kitchen. Workers arrive at 1 a.m. and bake between 2,500 and 3,000 cupcakes to be distributed to the three stores.

“My mother taught me to bake when I was really little, and it was always a tradition,” said Owens, who owns the business with Chuck Meridith and her mother, Shirley Nagasawa.

Flavors include the most-popular red velvet, confetti cake, German chocolate, maple bacon, chocolate mint and pistachio.

“The German chocolate is my great-grandmother’s recipe,” Owens said, adding that her favorite is caramel apple.

She described her cupcakes as being like old-fashioned, dense cakes.

Not all 34 flavors are available each day, but Johnson said she looks forward to Thursdays and Saturdays, when her favorite flavor – the lemony “Pucker Up” – is available.

In an effort to keep customers coming back and keep empty boxes out of the landfill, Icing on the Cupcake has developed a rewards policy that doesn’t include carrying around a punch card.

Johnson explained that customers who buy four-, six- or eight-cupcake boxes and come back to refill them, they will get an extra cupcake for free.

And before long, Sacramentans will have more locations to snag their cupcakes.

“We have a couple more Sacramento locations in the works,” Owens said. She didn’t specify the locations, but said they would be considered suburban.

Despite opening on the eve of the recession, Owens said the business has done well and was profitable within the fourth month in Rocklin.

As for the newest addition to the chain, which sits at the border of Midtown and East Sacramento, Owens said the welcoming from the community was “like a great big hug.”

The building was empty for about a year, and had previously been Sargent’s Coffee, open for about a year.

On the grand opening, she said, she was struck by the number of people coming by from the nearby neighborhoods to welcome the store.

Jess LeClerc visited the bakery for the first time Thursday, and though she hadn’t had a chance to taste any of the cakes, she said the selection was amazing.

Kristen Knerr, on the other hand, is one of the cadre of regulars happy the bakery is now open.

“I think it’s a really cute idea,” Knerr said. “My fiancé and I are not huge cake or cupcake fans, but we loved them, and they’ve got me coming back.”

Knerr said her favorite flavor is October’s monthly special: caramel corn.

“It’s not too sweet...it’s just right,” she said.

Icing on the Cupcake is open 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. Sundays. For more information, visit the company’s website.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Choral Society to give cathedral concert

2010-10-22T06:30:17Z

Surrounded by Sacramento Choral Society performers, audience members at the Oct. 30 Cathedral Vespers concert will be able to hear the music as it was originally intended – ringing through a building that optimizes the sound.

The Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament at 11th and K streets will be the venue for the event, and performers will be placed throughout the building for a show that promises quality sound and resonance.

“We’re taking full advantage of the space,” said Julie Anne Miller, mezzo-soprano soloist.

About 160 performers will be in the chorus, which will be organized in a ring around the audience from the altar to the main doors entering the nave. Miller and her quintet will be in a corner of the balcony above the doors, along with other musicians, while the conductor and another soloist will be up front on the altar.

“You get a sense, as an audience member, of being in the choir,” Miller said. “That’s very unique.”

At the society’s concerts at the Mondavi Center, the performance has a concert-hall feel and is not as intimate as the cathedral setting.

The music scheduled for the concert includes a Gregorian chant and works by Mozart, Rachmaninoff and Renaissance composer Gregorio Allegri.

Miller said that if she had to pick a favorite for the evening, it would be Allegri’s “Miserere Mei, Deus.”

“You just don’t get to hear Renaissance music that much,” she said. “And now, we’re performing it in the type of building it was composed for.”

The cathedral itself is one of the show’s stars, having been renovated in 2003 at a cost of more than $34 million, according to James McCormick, president of the Sacramento Choral Society board.

Built in 1889, the cathedral has long been a landmark in Sacramento. In the 1930s, the dome was obscured by an interior roof and was only reopened in 2003. McCormick said city leaders always wanted the building to draw the community together, and added that arts performances help further that goal.

“Music adds good health to a community, and choirs especially,” McCormick said. “It’s a community within a community.”

With a maximum audience of 1,150, McCormick said there are only 100 tickets left.

“I’m trying to save some for the walk-in crowd, but it may not be possible,” he said.

The performance is open to all, and Miller said there is no dress code for those in attendance.

“Just come as you are and enjoy the beauty of the music,” she said.

“We’re trying to knock down the barriers to classical music,” McCormick added. “We don’t want this to be some stuffy event.”

Miller said the concert will be a full evening of entertainment, with a talk about the history of the cathedral followed by the main event and topped off with a reception afterward in which audience members will get the chance to mingle with the performers.

And according to Miller, the entertainment will be top-notch, as would be expected from a chorus that has performed abroad in cities including Prague and Vienna.

The singers don’t use microphones, and Miller said that’s because microphones don’t allow the full range and tonal capacity of the human voice to be transmitted, and singing in the cathedral without them will ensure the richest sound.

“I like to watch the looks on the people’s faces as they look at the lights and the ceiling and the architecture,” Miller said.

The Oct. 30 performance will kick off the Sacramento Choral Society’s season, and McCormick said the musical repertoire is challenging. Audience members can expect to hear excellent performances in their original languages, including Latin and Russian, with translations provided in the program.

Tickets are $25 for adult general admission and $12.50 for students. Seating is first-come, first-served.

The concert begins at 8 p.m. Oct. 30 with the pre-concert talk at 7:15 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online here or by calling (916) 536-9065.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Second Saturday deemed successful

2010-10-11T05:42:52Z

Police called this month’s Second Saturday Art Walk a success, attributing that success to a heightened police presence as well as changes made by the Midtown Business Association and the city.

“We still had a shift in the crowd after the event, with them walking in circles and just hanging out, but the numbers were lower, and some of the problem groups were identified proactively by police,” said Sacramento Police Department spokesman Sgt. Norm Leong.

Approximately 80 Police Department staff – ranging from uniformed and plainclothes officers to volunteers and civilian staff – were on-hand at the event. Last month, it was 29.

“I think we balanced it with the right amount as far as what was visible,” Leong said.

In contrast to the increased number of police, the amount of event attendees was down, though Leong couldn't give estimates on numbers.

“There are slightly less people,” said MBA Operations Manager Aja Uranga-Foster, but she didn’t attribute that to fears about violence. “I think it’s because of the Crocker (opening for its members) and the Sammies. The event is more spread out.”

People interviewed by The Sacramento Press Saturday night generally said the violence didn’t deter them.

“I didn’t think twice,” said painter Chris Barnhart, who set up shop just off K Street between 20th and 21st streets. “In the early hours, there are a lot of people looking at art. We get families down here, but there’s less people this year.”

Bridgette and Marvin Maldonado said they talked about whether to come down, but in the end saw last month’s fatal shooting of a man on the Sunday morning after as an isolated event.

For many, the event is still about the arts.

“More people need to get out and paint and be creative,” said local artist Michael Sawyer. “That would provide people with something to do.”

Another local artist, Daniel Foglesong, agreed.

“We’re just here painting because we love to paint,” Foglesong said. “Most people out here on Second Saturday aren’t trying to cause problems.”

In addition to police, code enforcement officers were out, but they said their job was routine, though they noticed a smaller crowd.

“We’re just out checking for permits (for vendors and musicians), and we also carry a sound meter to make sure they aren’t too loud,” said Code Enforcement Officer Bill Hutchinson. “People have been cooperative.”

Code Enforcement Officer Julia Mason said she has friends who said they weren’t coming to the event because of fears of violence.

“Some people I talked to said ‘forget it,’ ” Mason said. “They would rather stay home and watch TV.”

Fears of violence made 17-year-old John Lamont think twice, but in the end, he came down to hang out with friends around the intersection of 20th and K streets.

“I wouldn’t want to get shot,” Lamont said. “It makes me think about who I’m out with.”

Lamont said he enjoys just being out with his friends, and planned to go home around 9:30 p.m. when the event ended so he would be home before the 10 p.m. curfew for minors.

Nai Saelee was out for a friend’s bachelorette party, and she said she wasn’t worried about gangs or violence.

“I don’t generally come out for Second Saturday, but I’m not worried,” she said.

Saturday was also the first art walk that the newly formed Lavender Angels were present for, and Director Tara Golden said having a small group of volunteers out was a good way to get a feel for the neighborhood and work out some policies.

“We’ve got a good core of dedicated people,” Golden said. “We’re hoping for more volunteers eventually.”

The Guardian Angels were also out, and Sacramento Chapter head Patrick Kent said he and his angels were making their rounds to serve as a visual deterrent to criminals.

“There’s a strong police presence,” Kent said, “but people are out here having fun. I’ve seen a couple of open containers (of alcohol), but nothing serious.”

Police did detain several people throughout the night, but Leong said none of the offenses posed a threat to the event.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

'Angels' working to keep Sacramentans safe

2010-10-07T04:51:29Z

Looking to make Sacramento a safer place after dark, two citizens' patrol groups will be out this weekend.

With their first training Wednesday night, the Lavender Angels will be joining the long-established Guardian Angels in serving as extra sets of eyes and ears for police and providing basic community services.

Now headed by the Gay and Lesbian Center, the Lavender Angels program is designed to make the Lavender Heights area anchored around 20th and K streets a safer place at night.

The intersection has a high concentration of bars and night clubs, and according to police, about 10 robberies per month are committed in Midtown against people out after dark, usually on their own in poorly lit areas.

“It’s a really awesome partnership between our community, the business community and the public safety community,” said Wendy Rae Hill of the Gay and Lesbian Center.

The Midtown Business Association is on board, as is the Sacramento Police Department.

“We’re very excited about this program,” Lt. Mike Bray said to the 15 Lavender Angels present at the training session. “Anytime we can get help doing our job ... the better. It makes your community safer and our job easier.”

Bray discussed the type of information the Lavender Angels could provide to police and gave tips on how to stay safe.

The Lavender Angels made it clear that they are not law enforcement and are mainly there to be a visual deterrence to criminals and recognizable safe contacts for anyone needing assistance.

The Lavender Angels will wear purple uniforms when they are out.

Another group of Sacramentans is part of a larger international organization – the Guardian Angels – which was established 31 years ago.

“Basically, we patrol the street to deter crime and educate people against drugs, gangs and violence,” said Patrick Kent, head of the Sacramento chapter.

Kent, who was also at the Lavender Angels training session, said he wants both groups to work in partnership, and added that he thinks the Lavender Angels program is a good idea and will keep the Guardian Angels from having to patrol the area.

“We generally will patrol once a week,” Kent said. “We don’t always do a set day, like Saturdays between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m., because if we did, then the criminal element would know when we’re out.”

Kent described his group as being “a bit more extreme” than the Lavender Angels, as Guardian Angels occasionally make citizens’ arrests.

The Guardian Angels also cover a much wider area, including patrols down Watt Avenue where drug trafficking and prostitution are problems.

"We pay attention to the news and the problem areas, and we focus our attention there," Kent said.

Their main objective, however, is still working with police and letting professional law enforcement officers handle any problems.

“Our primary goal is just a visual deterrent,” Kent said.

Both groups plan on being out for the Second Saturday Art Walk this weekend, and both groups will check in with police before their shifts.

To contact the Lavender Angels, e-mail lavender.angels@saccenter.org, and to contact the Guardian Angels, go to their website.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Q&A with Safe Ground's Tracie Rice-Bailey

2010-10-01T23:29:32Z

If you attend the weekly Sacramento City Council meetings, you’re likely to see an activist with colorful clothing address city leaders on homeless issues.

Tracie Rice-Bailey, 57, has appeared at Tuesday night council meetings so frequently in the last year that she has become a familiar face at City Hall.

For more than a year, Rice-Bailey and other advocates for the homeless have lobbied council members for a legal camping ground for the area’s homeless.

Rice-Bailey is a vocal member of the advocacy group that calls itself Safe Ground Sacramento. The group wants the city to reserve a space for homeless people where the city’s camping ban would not apply.

Rice-Bailey, who said she was homeless for 12 years and now lives downtown, often intersperses her short speeches at City Hall with quotations from the Bible. She also has a distinctive style: She is instantly recognizable because of her 1960s-era necklaces and beaded headband.

The Sacramento Press sat down with Rice-Bailey at Loaves & Fishes recently to talk to her about her role with the Safe Ground campaign. In her responses, she referred to “Tent City,” the homeless campground in Sacramento that attracted major media attention last year.

The Sacramento Press: How did you become involved with the Safe Ground issue?

Rice-Bailey: I was trying to get John Kraintz (current Safe Ground president) to work with me because I wanted someone else to roll with ... and he flipped me to work with the Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee. And out of SHOC, Safe Ground was born.

SP: So, SHOC was first, and then Safe Ground came after that.

TRB: Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee has been here for years. And that is our mother. We were at a SHOC meeting actually trying to figure out what to do with the people from Tent City because everyone was being displaced.

John had to go to the bathroom, and everyone was jamming John up, (asking): “What are we going to call it? What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?”

And John’s going, “Man, I just need safe ground!”

Hence our name.

It became Safe Ground from that second on. That’s what we all need: We all need safe ground.

SP: Safe Ground has been around for —

TRB: July 1, 2009 was our maiden march and our maiden camp-out. We camped across from the water treatment plant. And from there we went by the mission on Bannon Street. From there, we went to what we call the “field of dreams.”

From there, we went to Mark Merin’s property on 13th Street — and everybody knows about that.

And now, we’re out in the woods hiding again.

SP: Field of dreams? What is that?

TRB: That’s the North 10th property. We call it the field of dreams because when you have nothing, it’s a dream to even have a field.

SP: That’s an empty property?

TRB: It’s an empty property with trees on it, which makes it a dream in itself. The tent city by campers was not called “Tent City.” It was called “The Wasteland” or “The Badlands” because there’s no trees. There’s no shelter. There’s nothing to shelter you from the sun.

SP: Safe Ground advocates have been lobbying the City Council for more than a year. How optimistic do you feel about a Safe Ground site being set up?

TRB: I think they really have no choice. There is no budget. Nobody has a budget ... If they would just give us a moratorium (on the camping ban). And I’m not saying (that we should) sleep on K Street or J Street, which people do right now anyway. But give us a place to be, and let us be self-governing. Let us take it from there.

SP: Are Safe Ground advocates taking their cause to the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors?

TRB: We’ve made one visit there. We’ve been talking about that as something we’re going to have to start doing. The reason we’ve gone to the city so hard is that the city has the ordinance, and the city has the ability to change that ordinance. They can sign a paper and give us a moratorium ... The county does all the homeless services. But now they’re cutting all of them. So, we’ve got to go there.

SP: I’ve heard you quote the Bible in your comments at City Hall. I’ve heard you speak many times. How do your personal religious views relate to your advocacy for a Safe Ground site?

TRB: We are our brother’s keeper. How the hell are you going to say I’m my brother’s keeper and not try to find him a place to be? You can’t. It’s not acceptable behavior. We’re here to learn to love each other. If we can’t figure out how to get along here, there is nothing left for us later.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

New dance club coming to 20th and K

2010-09-23T22:57:04Z

A new dance club and bar is scheduled to come to K street by spring.

The 2,500-square-foot night spot will be built atop the Hot Rod’s hamburger restaurant, 2007 K St., and will be the first bar and dance club on the corner to feature food, according to owner T.J. Bruce, who also owns nearby night spots The Depot and Badlands.

“The main difference is we’ll have real local DJs instead of the video jockeys we have in the other clubs,” Bruce said.

The venue will be called Sidetrax, and like other bars in the area, it will cater to the gay and lesbian community, but Bruce was quick to say it’s not exclusive.

“It’s a bar for everyone in Midtown,” he said.

Bruce added that he plans to keep the club open to the 18-and-over crowd Friday and Saturday nights.

“They don’t have anywhere to go on Friday and Saturday nights, especially not gays and lesbians,” Bruce said.

The building had three stories, but Bruce said the top floors were torn off and will be rebuilt for the club, including a rear balcony and rooftop area where food and drinks will be served.

Access to the club will be via a staircase next to G Spot, an adult store.

In order to distinguish Sidetrax from the other dance clubs he owns, Bruce said it will likely have karaoke and country music at times.

“I just think it’s unique,” Bruce said. “Plus, we’ll be providing a place for local DJs to come and perform.”

Opening another gay-friendly bar and dance club in an area already dominated by them will, Bruce said, help “anchor the LGBT community to this area and provide a really strong (alternative) to San Francisco.”

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

September Neighbohood Advisory Group Agenda...Timely Issues as Usual

2010-09-15T23:56:07Z

The agenda for September's meeting of the Area 1 Neighborhood Advisory Group (NAG) follows.

Lt. Mike Bray hopes to have some updates from the police department on the Second Saturday shootings.

Food banks have become a survival resource in todays economic climate.

Many city park swiming pools have closed or are slated for closing. Some Area 1 neighborhoods have managed to keep their pools open. We will hear what their stragities were to achieve this.

Measure B is a controversial ballot measure that could have longterm consequences on how the city utilities department operates and the delivery of services to city residents.

Each month's NAG agenda is put together by residents of the City of Sacramento Area1. If you wish to contribute to this process see the information at the bottom of the agenda announcement.

Area 1 Neighborhood Advisory Group (NAG)
September 2010 Agenda

In Partnership with the City of Sacramento Neighborhood Services Division

Monday, September 20, 2010, 6:15 to 8:30 p.m., Hart Senior Center, 915 27th Street

Tonight’s facilitator: Gerald Celestine, Capitol Area R Street Association (caRsa) and Friends of Fremont Park

6:15 Complimentary pizza and soft drinks courtesy of Sacramento Deal Ticket

6:30 Welcome and Introductions

6:35 Area 1 Police Department Activity Report
Lt. Mike Bray, Police Department

6:45 Announcements

6:55 Issue Updates: Mercy Hospital; Midtown Nightlife Issues/Responsible Hospitality Institute;
R Street; Sutter Hospital/Trinity Cathedral; High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Lanes; Preservation Roundtable; Department of Utilities Funds; The Docks Project; K Street; NAG Action Request Form

7:05 Area 1 Updates
Neighborhood Services Department

7:20 River City Food Bank
Eileen Thomas, Executive Director, River City Food Bank
River City Food Bank (RCFB) is a Sacramento-area food bank open every weekday to anyone experiencing hunger from anywhere in Sacramento County is located right here in Midtown.
Learn how RCFB is helping the Sacramento community and have your questions answered.

7:25 City Pool Discussion
City of Sacramento Parks and Recreation Department; Friends of Bertha Henschel Park; Friends of Glenn Hall Park
Due to budget cuts within the City of Sacramento, many pools have closed for the summer of 2010 and many more, including the pool at Southside Park, are scheduled to close in 2011.
Learn how neighbors have raised private funds to keep neighborhood pools open.

7:55 Measure B
Patti Bisharat, Interim Assistant City Manager
Measure B is a proposal that has been placed on the November 2010 ballot regarding amending the Sacramento City Code to repeal rate increases and roll back rates levels for water, sewer, and garbage collection services.
Learn the impacts of Measure B.

Adjourn

***Next Meeting: Monday, October 18, 2010, 6:15 to 8:30 p.m., Hart Senior Center, 915 27th Street***

For more information, contact Janine Martindale at (916) 808-8193 or at jmartindale@cityofsacramento.org. Items are placed on the agenda based on their time sensitivity and relevance to Area 1. Join the NAG agenda committee in setting the agenda at 12 p.m. on the first Wednesday of the month at the Clunie Community Center. See City Council agendas and reports at: http://www.cityofsacramento.org/clerk/

Firefighters climb in 9/11 memorial

2010-09-13T18:01:38Z

Three hundred and forty three Sacramento area firefighters climbed 110 flights of stairs early Saturday morning in honor of the 343 firefighters who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001.

The second annual Sacramento 9/11 Memorial Climb was held at the 28-story Renaissance Tower on 8th and K. Fire departments representing cities including Sacramento, Davis, El Cerrito, Placerville and Vacaville participated.

Climbers made four ascents: three from the basement to the 26th floor, and a final ascent from the basement to the roof, bringing the total number of floors climbed to 110, the same number of floors in each of the towers of the World Trade Center.

Lloyd Ogden, operations deputy chief for the Sacramento Fire Department, gave opening remarks to the gathered climbers before the climb started.

An emotional Samuel Giamo, Jr., who joined the Fire Department of New York in 1979 and retired in 2002, took the podium next and shared some thoughts on his personal experiences with 9/11.

Firefighters then proceeded to start the climb, led by a firefighter carrying an American flag.

At minimum, all firefighters making the climb wore their department-issued turnout coats, the type of jacket typically worn by firefighters, and their helmets while climbing the stairs. Some elected to wear full gear, including turnout pants and boots, while others wore shorts and athletic shoes.

Each of the 343 climbers had a small, black banner with the name of one of the firefighters who died in the World Trade Center attacks pinned on the back of their coats, over their own name. This allowed each climber to symbolically carry each fallen firefighter 110 flights to the roof of the building.

As each climber reached the roof, each name banner was unpinned and hung inside two metal reproduction models of the World Trade Center towers. The names were saluted, and each firefighter then rang a red bell, which was embossed with each name of the FDNY firefighters.

Immediately following the climb, a tribute in the park event was held on Capitol Mall between Sixth and Seventh. The event gave families an opportunity to come together in a social environment and honor the families affected by the 9/11 tragedy by sharing the day with their loved ones. Those attending enjoyed food, drink, live music and children’s activities. All proceeds raised from the $5 entrance fee, food and beer sales, and donations went to the Sacramento Area Firefighters Widows and Orphans Fund.

Two-year-old Tyler, son of Vacaville firefighter Jeremy Sirois, joins his father during the climb preparation.

Firefighters prepare to climb 110 stories from the basement of Renaissance Tower.

Heading to the first flight of stairs.

A firefighter touches a piece of glass from the World Trade Center before starting his climb.

Climbing 110 stories in turnout gear.

Leading with the American flag, the first of 343 climbers makes it to the roof.

Hanging the name of a FDNY brother in the memorial.

Waiting to approach the memorial.

A firefighter pays his respects to his fire service brothers who died on 9/11.

Firefighters wait their turn to approach the memorial.

Each climber rang a bell which displayed the names of the 343 firefighters who died at the World Trade Center.

Bagpipes being played as climbers make it to the roof.

Honor Guard on Capitol Mall during Tribute in the Park.

The 9/11 Memorial on the roof of Renaissance Tower.

Photos: Steven Chea

Art complex gets new look

2010-09-08T02:49:16Z

The Sacramento Art Complex has gotten a major makeover.

New gallery owner Clare Bailey has transformed the artists' building at 2110 K St. since taking over the master lease with building owner Thomas A. Roth in May.

The colorful and eclectic two-story structure, which has always been packed for Second Saturday Art Walks, was reworked to draw more people into the many smaller studios at the heart of the complex. The building now has a sophisticated new look featuring a 1,200-square-foot anchor gallery, a parking lot that doubles as an art courtyard and an alley patio with a giant metal peacock sculpture.

Resident artists like sculptor Gary "Garley" Dudley and photographer Alister Oliver said the remodel has invigorated their work as well as the building.

"It motivates us more. Energizes the whole place," Dudley said recently as he sculpted a small figure in his studio.

The complex was closed for renovation for two months and reopened July 1. The public has two upcoming opportunities to see the changes. The grand opening for the next exhibit, Cars & Cigars, will be held from 6 - 8 p.m. Thursday and a Second Saturday Art Walk event will be held from 10 a.m. - 9 p.m. Saturday.

The 1950s-era building had long since been divided into single-room offices when Roth bought it eight to 10 years ago. About three years ago, he brought in downtown art gallery owner Barry Smith to create the Sacramento Art Complex. The building has consisted of single- and double-room artists' studios connected by hallways since then.

Bailey used her interior decorating skills and experience as owner of Blue Wing Art Gallery and Custom Framing in Woodland to create or redesign the building's common spaces to increase traffic to the building and individual artists' studios.

Seven studios were torn out of the front to build Gallery 2110, a new anchor gallery with rotating monthly shows to bring in foot traffic. The front gallery will feature art from resident and visitor artists.

New glass doors were added at the back of that gallery to allow visitors to flow easily to artists' studios on both floors. Previously, artists decorated the doors to their studios in a kaleidoscope of colors. Longtime visitors will notice a new, subdued color palette inside and out. Art that once filled the hallways has been removed to improve flow and give visitors more reasons to enter studios.

"It was just visual overload," Bailey said.

The parking lot also got a makeover so art shows could flow out into that space. Ten huge oleander bushes were ripped out to expose a wall and create space for new landscaping and metal sculptures.

Using the $75,000 renovation as a springboard, Bailey has begun launching events and encouraging artists to mingle with the public in new ways.

Thursday evening, Oliver will stage a live fashion shoot in the courtyard area using models and up to six cars, including a Lamborghini, Porsches and a Bentley. Inside, a cigar aficionado will hand-roll cigars, and a collector's Sunbeam Tiger muscle car will share center stage with art.

Bailey built a mezzanine loft on the second floor to feature the work of one or two resident artists each month.

She also turned a storage space at the back of the building into a patio. A 40-foot-wide peacock sculpture, its tail feathers made of rebar and sawblades, overlooks a lounge area and huge table from atop an iron gate blocking entrance from the alley. Metal artist Steve Cook made that and other assemblage sculptures at the complex.

Two bathrooms were remodeled, and a handicapped-accessible bathroom was added. Other touches include new lighting and fire sprinklers, plants and other landscaping. Resident artist Margaret Arnold painted an Art Deco sign across the front of the building and a mural door frame on the side.

Gallery hours are 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Saturday. The gallery is closed Sunday through Tuesday. The Sacramento Artists Council will hold its first Masquerade Gala at Gallery 2110 on Nov. 20.

The number of artists at the complex has more than doubled from 11 tenants in May to 26. Studios rent for $300 to $500 a month. Only three vacancies remain, Bailey said.

Artists said the changes have made it easier to showcase their work and bring in clients.

"I'm lovin' it," Dudley said. "We just hope the rest of the city loves it as we do."

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

Smashing Pumpkins at the Crest Theatre: Photo Album

2010-09-07T08:28:54Z

Photos by Tony Sheppard

Smashing Pumpkins
Crest Theatre
September 6, 2010

Cornerstone closes - for now

2010-09-01T02:55:28Z

A popular Midtown breakfast spot, Cornerstone Restaurant, closed Tuesday.

Cornerstone's owners Kwang "Joe" Jang and his brother-in-law, Danny Leung, along with family and employees, turned off the stoves and said goodbye to customers before shutting the doors at 1 p.m.

They were unable to extend their lease for the corner spot at 2330 J St., where they've operated the restaurant for 16 years. They hope to open a new restaurant location nearby within six months.

"We served our last meal," Leung said. "Our customers are sad. Our employees are out of jobs."

Four months ago, the property owners agreed in court to give them until Sept. 1 to move out. Jang and Leung recently offered to pay higher rent if the landlords would allow them to stay a few more months — long enough to renovate an old, Spanish-style church at 23rd and K streets. The property owners rejected the offer, Leung said.

Leung's sister and a family friend bought the vacant church for $450,000. They will finance the building's renovation and lease the space to Jang and Leung

But the remodel has stalled. Changing the building's use from a church to a restaurant and a parking waiver request are partly what's complicating the permit process, Leung said.

A hearing before the city zoning administrator originally set for Thursday may be postponed following confusion over the parking waiver request.

The church building has no parking lot, which was also the case at the original Cornerstone. A new restaurant would be required to have 20 or 21 spaces on-site. Because the church is an old building, the city requires only seven on-site parking spaces. Cornerstone's owners are requesting the seven-space requirement be waived, according to the city.

They plan to use a commercial valet parking service for customers and rent parking space for employees. They are not asking the city to allow the restaurant to reserve 20 on-street parking spaces for their use, Leung said.

The remodel can start as soon as permits are approved by the city. Cornerstone's owners will use Facebook posts and e-mail to let customers know when the new restaurant is ready for business, Leung said.

Rachel and Richard Hansen, owners of The Book Collector at 1008 24th St., are sad to lose neighbors they’ve enjoyed for the last 15 years. The restaurant’s closure will be especially hard on the used bookstore because there’s no retail on the other side of the store, Rachel Hansen said.

“We’ll miss Cornerstone, but it’s also a tragedy to have a vacant business there,” she said. “Midtown is always changing (yet) people seem to land on their feet.”

Leung, Jang and others spent Tuesday afternoon moving stoves, refrigerators, furniture and other items out of the restaurant and into temporary storage. They'll use as much as possible in the new location.

"Everything is gone by tomorrow," he said. "I think it will be better once we open in the new place."

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

Golden Bear gets its 15 minutes

2010-08-25T01:28:45Z

Sacramentans will be forgiven for not expecting to find fried green tomato sandwiches, house-made kettle chips and prosciutto and peach paninis at The Golden Bear.

Those who haven't yet discovered the neighborhood bar's new kitchen and chef, Billy Zoellin, may get their first "taste" on the Food Network's national television show "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" this fall.

Earlier this month, a camera crew spent a day capturing footage of Zoellin in action at The Golden Bear, located in a converted old house at 2326 K St. A camera crew will soon return with the show's host, Guy Fieri, for the second day of filming. The place will be closed for production.

Zoellin joined The Golden Bear in March at a grand reopening, following a major renovation by owners Kimio Bazett and Jon Modrow that doubled the size of the kitchen to about 230 square feet. Zoellin and his kitchen staff developed a new seasonal menu using ingredients that are as local as possible — such as the pizza dough made fresh each day at a local bakery.

"Part of our theory is farm to table at an affordable price and in a comfortable atmosphere," Zoellin said. "We sell $2 (Miller) High Life, and yet you can get a duck confit club to enjoy."

The 26-year-old red-haired Irish-American trained with locally renown chefs including Patrick Mulvaney, Roxanne O'Brien, Randall Selland and Noah Zonka. To get his first job in the industry — as a 19-year-old busboy — he shucked fava beans for free at Biba, Bazett said. He later studied culinary arts at American River College.

"He's had some of the best mentors anyone could have in this town," Bazett said.

Two to three months ago, a local food blogger told the Food Network about The Golden Bear. Once a producer contacted them, they sent in photos of The Golden Bear, the kitchen, the food and Zoellin. He also interviewed over the phone for four hours to win one of four spots on the hour-long show.

Fieri, who's from Santa Rosa, chose three menu items for the show: sausage and smoked slaw pizzetta, a French Vietnamese sandwich called a pork bahn mi, and "THE Taco." During the interviews, he discussed every step he takes to make those dishes, down to roasting and grinding dry California chili peppers to make a chili powder rub for the taco.

The Golden Bear had always been known for its tacos and especially its $5 deal for a glass of Miller beer and two tacos. Zoellin caused a minor ruckus with some regulars when he replaced the simple chicken taco with a new one featuring marinated chicken rubbed with the chili powder and pasilla créme made from roasted peppers, green onions, garlic, fresh herbs, lime and sour cream. The grumbling soon stopped, he said.

“It’s hard to beat a good taco that’s made right,” Zoellin said.

The biggest challenge encountered on the first day of filming was fitting a four-person production crew and their equipment — lights, camera, microphones — in the kitchen while Zoellin cooked. When Fieri arrives, the second day of filming will capture the two of them cooking together and the host sampling the food.

Zoellin said he's not nervous working in front of a camera or celebrities. He's appeared on TV a bunch of times, demonstrating cooking for local news shows and KVIE's California Heartland. He's also worked in front of crowds as the cook for an American Le Mans race car team and at the California State Fair, where he did an hour-long cooking demo.

Other interests include gardening and competitive sports like baseball, which built up his confidence — along with his culinary accomplishments and experience as a young father, Bazett said.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find someone more confident and more determined and able to back it all up," he said.

Bazett said Zoellin deserves all the credit for winning a spot on the show.

"It's bigtime," Bazett said. "It's validation for our food and our kitchen."

Zoellin said his biggest rewards are how proud his mom and 5-year-old son are of him. But he can't tell anyone except his mom the date of the second day of filming – for security reasons. The show will air this fall, but has not yet been scheduled.

More people than in the past seem to be coming to The Golden Bear just for the food. Building up regular clients can take chefs and new restaurants one to two years. Getting on the show is likely to bring them what may seem like “instant success,” said Zoellin, who said it feels like going "from 0 to 60 at about 100 miles per hour."

He and the owners know appearing on a national Food Network show is going to change the business and their clientele. Expecting the number of customers will boom, they more than doubled the kitchen staff from five to 11 the day they found out The Golden Bear would be on TV.

They just want to make sure they hit the ground running.

"There are a lot of people who want it to be just a bar," Zoellin said. "But we're more than that."

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

Downtown Plaza gets a facelift

2010-08-25T00:16:32Z

Those who have been avoiding Westfield Downtown Plaza might want to take another look.

After kicking off a multimillion-dollar remodeling project last October, the shopping center has a new look and upgraded security. New planters, improved lighting and a more open feel mark a noticeable change to the mall.

“We are going to continue to make as many positive features to this property as we can,” said General Manager Russell Dougherty, adding that there is no set timeline for when the mall will be “done.”

“We think of it as a bunch of small projects,” Dougherty said. “We want to keep it fresh so shoppers will keep coming back.”

Much of the remodel work has focused on making the shopping center feel more open, well-lit and inviting.

Older can lights and standing light fixtures are being replaced by energy-efficient LED lights that provide better lighting in addition to being a green feature.

Shoppers will also notice that the fountains have been removed and replaced with tiled planter boxes created by an artist, with faux turf laid down between them to add color...and have even been used by shoppers for impromptu picnics, Dougherty said.

“The fountains drew a lot of pigeons,” Dougherty said, “but now I haven’t seen a pigeon in the area for six months.”

The once-massive concrete columns supporting the rotunda are now gone – leaving only the steel beams, which have been integrated into the architecture. The bases of the columns are still there, but they now serve as planters.

“It gives improved sight lines for our stores,” Dougherty said. “It also helps with the lighting. We’re using the interesting architecture that makes this site unique, cleaning it up and enhancing it.”

In a move to become more family- and health-friendly, the mall is now smoke-free throughout, and a new kids’ play area is featured in the rotunda.

Dougherty said the remodel has made the space more appealing and increased foot traffic, which he hopes will draw more stores, as the site is currently only about 65 percent occupied.

Another feature to keep customers coming through the doors is a stage featuring live music and hosting a Third Saturday event with the Sacramento News and Review consisting of a fashion show, temporary vendors and live music.

New signage is going up to direct shoppers to the second level, which has the majority of the empty spaces but still boasts numerous stores.

When the 24 Hour Fitness center is finished with its expansion, Dougherty said it will help liven up the second floor, which will likely also host Santa Claus during the holidays.

Security has been addressed, Dougherty said, and the mall has video surveillance as well as other upgrades. He added that Westfield is working with the Downtown Sacramento Partnership and the Sacramento Police Department to ensure the mall is a safe place.

“I think overall this is a welcome addition to Downtown Plaza from our perspective, since it’s definitely an attraction point for lots of folks downtown,” said Lisa Martinez, director of marketing and outreach for DSP. “Overall, it makes for a stronger retail area.”

Martinez added that, as a shopper, she notices a lot of the smaller details.

“Some of those smaller details speak volumes that the people care about the center,” she said.

Dougherty said he can’t comment on anything Mayor Kevin Johnson says about possibly selling the shopping center, but he said Westfield manages it no differently than any of its other properties and plans to keep upgrading the mall to keep it fresh.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Tequila museum, restaurant and bar to open by end of year

2010-08-13T00:38:20Z

Tequila is to Mexico what wine is to France, and restaurateur Ernesto Delgado said he will use tequila to showcase Mexico’s rich culture when he opens Tequila Museo Mayahuel later this year.

The “tequila museum” will include a restaurant serving traditional Mexican dishes and a wide array of between 50 and 100 types of tequila with a museum and gift shop reminiscent of Napa Valley wineries.

“The concept is to showcase Mexican culture through tequila, its history and the process of making it,” Delgado said.

With so many Mexican restaurants and tacquerias in Sacramento already, Delgado said he knew he had to come up with something unique.

“My whole idea here is to create a new spin,” Delgado said. “What’s the next Mexican restaurant? A full tequila experience.”

Pete Andrew of Collier’s International, property manager of 1200 K St. the location, said Delgado’s concept will “kick-start this whole revitalization of K Street.”

Dave Herrera, vice president of the Sacramento branch of Collier’s International, agreed.

“It’s definitely going to bring another amenity with a tremendous amount of culture into the downtown area,” Herrera said. “I think it’s going to be an entirely new concept.”

When finished, the restaurant will feature a statue out front that serves to draw visitors and is the beginning of the story Delgado said he wants to tell through the experience.

The statue will be of a jimador – the name of the farmers who harvest the agave plant from which tequila is made.

Even the name evokes the spirit of tequila – Mayahuel is the Aztec goddess for the agave plant.

Once inside, visitors will see the restaurant portion of the establishment – Maya’s Kitchen – as well as the Coa Room, which can be rented out for private events and parties and is used to celebrate the tequila culture.

In order to cater to his customers, Delgado said that in addition to the traditional restaurant, he will have a “chef’s bar” area where customers can order their food directly from the kitchen and watch it made, an idea inspired by the way his mother takes care of him when he goes to visit her.

In ordering from the kitchen, local workers can get their lunch and quickly make it back to the office.

Chef Ramiro Alarcón, who was trained in Mexico City, will be cooking traditional Mexican dishes such as mole, of which Maya’s Kitchen will feature three types. Delgado said the focus is on fresh ingredients.

Javier Valdez and Mario Favila are also working with Delgado and Alarcón to open and run the establishment.

The price range is in the middle, Delgado said, with mole dishes running about $16 for a dinner-size portion and salads in the $7-$8 range.

But the tequila is where the establishment will truly shine, Delgado said.

Three of the featured brands will be Don Julio, Herradura and, yes, José Cuervo.

“José Cuervo is one of the oldest tequila makers,” Delgado said. “Most people think of it as the cheap stuff, but there is more to it.”

Delgado said that in addition to the standard Cuervo, he will carry José Cuervo’s family reserve, which runs about $100 per bottle and is a far cry from the cheaper products.

The establishment is set to open in three phases, with the restaurant opening first, followed by the museum and bar, then finishing up with the Coa Room.

“I want to make this a destination,” Delgado said. “K Street should be the heart of Sacramento.”

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Cornerstone remodel delayed

2010-08-10T00:27:22Z

The owners of Cornerstone Restaurant in Midtown may soon return to court to avoid eviction after the planned renovation of a nearby church has stalled.

Since December, Kwang "Joe" Jang and his brother-in-law, Danny Leung, have been fighting eviction at 2330 J St., where they've operated the restaurant for 16 years.

Four months ago, the property owners agreed in court to give them until Sept. 1 to move out.

But work has yet to begin to convert an old church at 23rd and K streets into a new home for the restaurant. Getting the necessary permits from the city has taken longer than expected, Leung said Monday.

"We're probably going back to court," he said. "We (will) try to stay longer, until our new place is ready to move into."

Four sisters — Janice Yenovkian, Kathy Khatoonian, Nancy Guenther, Dyann Yenovkian — owned the building at 2330 J St. Cornerstone’s owners said they were evicted after buying a quarter interest in the building from one of the sisters.

The three other sisters did not wish to comment at this time.

Leung's sister and a family friend bought the Spanish-style church on K for $450,000 and will lease the space back to Jang and Leung. The structure was built in the early 1900s but had been vacant for three or four years.

They first applied for a permit on April 30. Changing the building's use from a church to a restaurant and a parking waiver request are partly what's complicating the permit process, Leung added.

The building has no parking lot, which is also the case at Cornerstone. Normally, the restaurant would be required to have 21 spaces on-site. They're requesting city approval to use valet parking for customers and rent parking space for employees, he said.

The restaurant's owners also need city approval to repaint the terra cotta-colored church in beige with green trim and a burgundy awning. The city must also approve the design for a huge platform to support a mechanical unit on the roof for air conditioning, exhaust, heating and more.

Leung and Jang must still submit final drawings to the city. The design review application was submitted at the end of May. The process usually takes two and a half months. Reviews are being done concurrently by design review staff and the zoning administrator who considers parking waivers, said Maurice Chaney, spokesman for the Community Development Department.

Confusion over the eviction and relocation has cost Cornerstone some customers. There is a possibility the restaurant may close temporarily if a compromise can't be reached on the moving date, Leung said.

"We hope that won't happen," he said. "A lot of people think we're already closed."

Photos by Brandon Darnell. Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Specialty vinyl store to open in Midtown

2010-07-28T00:37:52Z

In an era dominated by MP3 players and downloaded music, two music lovers are confident other fans are hungry for the real thing: vinyl, and lots of it.

Dal Basi, a longtime Tower Records music buyer, and his partner, Nich Lujan, are banking on the importance of being able to touch your music collection. They are opening an independent vinyl specialty store, Phono Select Records, in Midtown in early September.

"Digital music is so soulless," said Basi, 42. "Fast food is kind of like an MP3. You're getting what you need for the moment, but it's not something special."

Basi and Lujan both use digital audio players. But the most devoted music fans are into the entire "organic" experience: owning a collection, pulling out an album or cassette tape, putting it on, listening to the recording and checking out the art and liner notes, Lujan said.

More than half the inventory will be vinyl records — about 5,000 to 6,000 will be 33s or "long-playing" records (LPs), and about 1,000 will be two-song 45s. The store at 2312 K St. will stock almost as many CDs and a smattering of cassettes, which are seeing a revival among indie rock labels. About 70 percent of the merchandise will be used.

A lot of LPs are being reissued now. Some of those have thicker, higher-quality vinyl and better sound, making this a good time to buy records, Basi said.

The roughly 1,200-square-foot store will contain listening stations with phonographs, cassette players and CD players. The store will sell more than music. Phono Select will carry old and new posters, books, magazines, T-shirts, band buttons and pop culture curios.

The focus will be on independent music: indie pop, punk rock, metal, hip hop, reggae, world music and old, avant-garde jazz — from The Clash and Bad Brains to Miles Davis and John Coltrane, Basi said.

The store will carry local bands and small, independent labels such as Burger Records of Los Angeles, and London's B-Music and Sing Sing Records of New York.

The interior will be somewhat spare and stylized to spotlight the selective inventory.

"Record stores have the reputation for being a place where you just pack stuff in. People have to sort through the madness to find the
jewels," Lujan said. "We want the jewels to be right there when you walk in."

Basi has worked in the music business for more than 20 years. He was just 18 or 19 when he went to work for Tower Records in Stockton in 1986 or 1987. He quickly became the buyer for independent music.

"I was the kid who read all the magazines and went to the shows," he said. Basi later did a brief stint managing Tower Records on Broadway. He also worked at a music wholesaler, Valley Media, and for R5 Records, opened on Broadway by Tower founder Russ Solomon.

In that time, he's amassed a huge collection of music. Half of the store's inventory will come from that collection.

Lujan, 28, was working in computer-based graphic and print design at the Academy of Art in San Francisco until Basi called, saying he wanted to open the record store the two had talked about for the last few years.

A mutual friend introduced them because they like many of the same bands and are both open-minded enough to listen to anything at least once, they said.

Lujan and Basi, who will be the only ones staffing the store, said they want to share that same kind of experimental, collaborative, interactive experience with customers. With the store's eclectic focus and only 30 percent new inventory, they won't be able to carry everything. They hope to engage customers in conversation to find out what they like, then either find that or introduce them to someone similar they might not have heard of.

"There's so much music that flies under the radar and doesn't get promoted every day," Basi said. "That's what we want to champion."

Hours will be Tuesdays through Thursdays, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; and Sundays noon-5 p.m.

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

Fall opening expected for Dive Bar

2010-07-23T05:43:33Z

Dive Bar and two sister nightlife venues are expected to open within three months on K Street, breathing new life into the struggling pedestrian mall well ahead of other developments.

San Francisco nightclub operator George Karpaty's trio of nightlife venues has been seen as competition by some at a time when local businesses continue to struggle and even close. Karpaty said he was lured to Sacramento partly by the success of nearby venues such as Social Nightclub, Ella, Grange and the Citizen Hotel.

But Karpaty said he's developed concepts — a "mermaid bar," a gourmet pizza restaurant with acrobatic pizza tossers and a high-end, over-30 dance club — to further develop K Street Mall into an entertainment district and to bring people from as far away as the Sierra Nevada foothills. He's using expertise gained from opening places like Ruby Skye and Slide, popular bars that draw Sacramentans to San Francisco.

"We're going to blow K Street up," said Karpaty, owner of Inner Circle Entertainment. "We're not bad guys. We're going to promote downtown."

Karpaty and his crews were working Thursday at the site, one week after the Sacramento City Council chose developer David Taylor and another development team to redevelop vacant properties for two nearby blocks. While those mixed-use projects are expected to bring much-needed retail and housing to the street, they aren't expected to open for at least two years.

Karpaty's concepts will be new to Sacramento. He's also pioneering some nightclub operations in this city that he'll then use at his other establishments.

Dive Bar, at 1016 K St., will feature a 40-foot-long, 7,500-gallon saltwater tank with fish and costumed mermaids, both male and female, set over the bar in a room just 18 feet across. Structural steel beams have been installed on the ground floor and in the basement to hold up the tank and reinforce the floor underneath.

"It's the most insane thing I ever took on," Karpaty said. “If a massive earthquake hits Sacramento, this aquarium will be the only thing left standing.”

The front of the bar is being built to evoke a classic Sacramento dive bar, complete with worn-looking couches. But beyond a giant “hole” in the back wall, the club opens into a main room topped by the aquarium, which is being fabricated from a single piece of Plexiglas by a former Monterey Bay Aquarium builder.

"The fish tank won't look like anything else in the world," Karpaty said. "I'm not into starfish and treasure chests."

Next door, Pizza Rock will feature a DJ playing classic to modern and funky rock from a California-made Peterbilt truck breaking through the ceiling 15 feet in the air and surrounded by chain-link fencing and barbed wire.

World pizza-throwing champ Tony Gemignani, a partner at the restaurant, will train the staff to juggle dough, while bartenders will juggle bottles and glasses.

The ceiling will be covered with a mural that mimics Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam" — but the hand of God will be holding an electric guitar. The men's bathroom will feature exterior piping and graffiti to make it appear that guys are “peeing in the alley,” Karpaty said.

But the food will still steal the show, Karpaty said. Four types of pizzas will be made in four different custom-built pizza ovens imported from Italy. One of the ovens, positioned near the sidewalk for high visibility, will cook pizzas at 900 degrees - in 90 seconds.

"It comes down to food," he said. "I guarantee our food will exceed any theme."

The third venue, District 30, at 1022 K St., will be the most modern of the venues. An artistic glass facade will use movable photos of art, flowers and people, set behind 4-x-4-foot glass panels to create the front exterior. A covered patio in front will open onto a sidewalk seating area.

Inside, a 600-square-foot dance floor will share space with a 30-foot bar, "ultra" VIP areas and "peek-a-boo" booths with small cutouts in the backs so customers can interact and people watch. The club will hold up to 300. Finishes will be created with exotic materials including woods from Japan and France and ostrich skin.

The bar will use music to attract a crowd of mature, experienced clientele aged 30 to 50. The idea was to create a place for people who want to have fun and socialize, and who know how to have a good time without causing trouble, he said, adding that people shouldn't have to stop going to dance clubs just because they may no longer be in their 20s.

"Why is it that, when you turn 30, you can't go to a dance club? That's just nutty," he said. "People will look at this and go — 'Oh, finally: Something for grownups.’ "

Last February, Karpaty said he expected all three venues to be open by late summer. They are now expected to open in October. Work by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District to add an electrical transformer to power the buildings in an underground vault under the sidewalk in front is delaying the opening by a few weeks, Karpaty said.

SMUD is waiting for the customer to finish work on the vault and then will install the transformer, said SMUD spokeswoman Dace Udris.

Karpaty will be leasing three spaces at 1016, 1020 and 1022 K St. from developer David Taylor. Taylor is redeveloping the long-vacant building, as well as one next door at 1012 K St., with $5.7 million in city subsidies tied to the sale of the Sheraton Hotel. Karpaty plans to invest up to $2 million on the venues, he said Thursday.

In 2008, the city agreed to split $50 million in profits from the sale of the $130 million hotel with Taylor and CIM for development in the J, K and L streets corridor. The developers are still pursuing tenants for 1012 K St. Taylor also turned an old Woolworth's into the Cosmopolitan next door.

Karpaty and a friend, Adam Goldstein — a Los Angeles DJ and musician known as DJ AM — began looking for opportunities to open an entertainment venue here three years ago. Their idea was to open a megaclub. They toured dozens of Sacramento clubs and bars for six months while searching for the right spot.

"We saw opportunities other people didn't," Karpaty said.

Goldstein died of a drug overdose last summer. But Karpaty didn't give up. The broker who originally helped them in their quest called back to suggest Taylor's project on K Street. The ability of nearby venues to thrive — even though they were the first few to open on and around the long-troubled pedestrian mall — told him Sacramento had "an appetite for high-end (even) in a horrible economy," Karpaty said.

"We didn't want to wait to be the last one on the island," he said.

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

Karpaty's vision is nearly reality

2010-07-23T05:38:10Z

OK, now I'm really excited.

After the decision by the Sacramento City Council to choose the D&S Development and David Taylor Interests’ Promenade on K project for the 700 and 800 blocks of K Street, I feel good. Finally, there seems to be a plan in place for projects that will bring more life to K Street.

But I also want to celebrate the fact that there is already lots of life on K Street - and not just of the undesirable kind.

I live near K Street, and most nights, I can ride my bike down the street and see people walking from all manner of venues within the four blocks between Ninth and 13th streets: Marilyn's on K, the Crest, Cosmopolitan Cafe and Cabaret, Social, Ella, Cabana, the Esquire Imax and the Community Center Theatre all draw crowds. Throw in Parlare Euro Lounge and The Citizen Hotel and Grange restaurant, and you've got a number of folks out on the town.

Suburbanites with city fear may feel uncomfortable at times, but despite its name, the K Street Mall is not a mall. It's an urban street. And no matter how many establishments are on it, some won't feel safe. That's not the city's problem, really. The suburbs exist for a reason. The city's not for everyone.

But it is definitely for George Karpaty. The Bay area club developer's Dive Bar/Pizza Rock/District 30 trifecta on K between 10th and 11th is more than two-thirds done and will open this October. And it is going to be spectacular.

I use the word "spectacular" advisedly. Karpaty was up here Thursday to check out his crew's progress, and was generous enough to give Sacramento Press reporter Suzanne Hurt and me an hour-long tour of the construction. Suzanne goes into great detail elsewhere in today's Sacramento Press.

I'll let Suzanne give you the details, which are amazing, and instead focus on my overall impression.

Wow.

This project has been trash-talked since it was first announced. It's been denounced by naysayers and some competitors as corrupt (there was public money involved), and by others as the wrong development in the wrong place. And I have to admit that I had my doubts. Development in Sacramento, as everywhere, can be shady, and when city funds are involved, some people assume the worst.

One friend has even complained that it will bring the wrong kind of people - "bridge and tunnel" types - as though only those deemed "cool" are entitled to enjoy Sacramento. Early media reports made it sound cheesy and over-the-top, and the original name Frisky Rhythm for the over-30 bar got lots of mocking commentary. And like many, I'm not one to think that Sacramento (or anywhere else) needs another theme bar or pizza parlor.

But having seen it with my own eyes, and having spent an hour with Karpaty, my opinion has changed. Spectacularly.

This is going to be something else. If you don't like bars or pizza parlors, if you like things low-key and modest, if you like K Street the way it is, this is not going to appeal. But one hour's tour gave me ample evidence that Karpaty is doing it right. He speaks with great passion and much sophistication about design, lighting, materials, sound, different types of crowds, economics and urban design. He's a substantial guy.

And the retrofitting of these old buildings - to accommodate a 7,500-gallon saltwater aquarium and so much electricity that an entire SMUD mini-substation is being built under the street in front - is nothing short of dazzling. Karpaty aims to serve a wide audience, and when it is all done - wait until you see the building facade, let alone inside - people are going to come from many miles around to check it out.

As I said, spectacular. As in, a spectacle.

But more deeply, what I came away feeling after this hour with Karpaty is a deep sense of inspiration and possibility. If Karpaty, who owns six clubs in the Bay area and knows his business, is going to invest so much in our town - a town not his own - why can't we?

We as individuals don't have to invest huge amounts of money, but what we DO need to do, IMHO, is get behind the people who are doing the work, taking the risks and spending their time on making K Street even more worth visiting. It's important to be critical and look at the details, and to be skeptical as well. But we also need to embrace change and take chances - yes, even with public money - and we need to have some faith that businessmen who are trying to make things happen, who are spending their lives creating jobs and bring life to areas that have been neglected, are not, as Karpaty says, "the bad guys."

Karpaty is about to open a group of venues that are going to take us a couple of big steps closer to creating a place where people will come from many miles around to walk, drink, eat, talk and celebrate the urban life. And I just don't see, as a citizen, as a tax payer and as a neighbor, how that is going to be anything but a good thing. And even if I find out that I am dead wrong, I am happy to take that chance.

So, I invite everyone to join me as I sit back and savor this moment: Not only can it happen here, it is happening here. Just wait till you see it.

Capitol Clothing to close

2010-07-22T01:04:54Z

Downtown Sacramento will lose another small merchant when Guy Hungerford closes Capitol Clothing Co. next month.

The loss is already being mourned by men who've bought suits from him over the last 30 years. To them, Hungerford is an institution known for dispensing one-liners even quicker than his fashion advice.

On a recent afternoon, customer Kevin Woodruff stood among racks of sale-priced suits and bemoaned the store's impending closure.

"Where will we go when you're gone?" asked Woodruff, who wore a Hawaiian-type print shirt and slacks. "The problem is I don't buy that many suits. I haven't bought a suit in 11 years."

"Murder. MURDER," Hungerford said. "You're killing me with that, you know. I need you guys in suits every day."

Hungerford got into the business selling suits at a store called Vaughn’s in 1980. In 1983, he became a partner in another store, Planteen and Krogh, on K Street. The store closed after the city acquired the property using eminent domain.

He opened his own store, Capitol Clothing Co., in 1993. Since then, the store has operated at six spots within a block of 11th and K streets. Hungerford opened in his present location across from the Capitol at 1107 L St. two years ago.

The recession and a continued trend toward more casual clothing has hurt suit sellers like Hungerford. But the state's money problems and cuts in state workers' pay have killed business, he said.

"A year ago, somebody over there brought up the possibility of a fourth furlough day," he said, pointing to the state Capitol. "On that day, (business) stopped."

"I've seen it slow plenty of times in the last 30 years," he said. "It's never stopped. On that day, it stopped."

Hungerford's clients don't include Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ("His suits are custom-made in Thailand or something"), who ordered state workers to take unpaid furloughs three times a month and, now that furlough Fridays ended in June, is seeking to pay them minimum wage. Hungerford doesn't blame the governor.

"It's not Arnold," he said. "It's the Legislature. Those boys run the show."

His name is painted in gold right on the front window, which reads, "Capitol Clothing Co. Guy Hungerford." Now, big purple letters on the store's display windows also read, "Everything MUST GO! Store Closing LIQUIDATION. Permanent Furlough!"

The walls of the shop are lined with business suits, many from Montreal suitmaker S. Cohen. Every suit is now on sale. The store also carries ties, socks, dress shirts and a few casual shirts.

Hungerford usually avoids talking politics with customers, who are primarily state agency staff, city workers, lobbyists and attorneys. He knows most of them by name. Hungerford has found they'd rather talk about baseball or anything but work. He stays away from high-pressure sales tactics.

“We try to keep things simple here,” he said. “When I go out to shop, I don’t want somebody to jump on me.”

A few local and state politicians also frequent his shop, although most state legislators do business in their districts, he said.

Sacramento City Councilman Kevin McCarty, who stopped by the shop Friday, has been a customer of Hungerford's for about 10 years.

"He's been an institution in the downtown area for quite a while," McCarty said. "He's always given me an opinion on what's going on at City Hall. When I go in, I usually get more than a suit, a sports coat or new shirt.”

State workers make up about 20 percent of the city's workforce, and businesses like Hungerford's are being impacted by the pay cuts, McCarty said.

"Even in the best of times, it's not like we're getting rich selling suits on K Street," Hungerford said. "The furlough thing has just puckered everybody up."

Hungerford won't be the only one losing a means of income when the store closes. He's had the same tailor for 27 years. Now, she'll be losing business, too, he said.

"Business is kind of ugly for everybody down here these days," he said. "The problem is, I can't see an end. I can't see an end anytime soon."

Hungerford, 60, can't afford to retire. His youngest will enter high school next year.

McCarty said he's not sure what to make of the store closure. It's not the first time Hungerford has shuttered his store. The last time, four or five years ago, the store was closed for about two years. Then Hungerford reopened in his present location.

"He says it's time to get a real job," McCarty said. "I'm not sure what the past 25 years have been -- that hasn't been a real job?"

Ironically, Hungerford's goal is to get a job with the state. He's already taken the state job exam to become a business services officer.

But first, he's got to sell the rest of his merchandise. Suits that normally sell for $300 to $400 are currently selling at $99 to $199. Hungerford plans to close his shop in three to five weeks, after he sells as much inventory as possible.

"Until it comes time for me to stand around here trying to sell a $39 coat — then I'll lock the doors, paper over the windows and be done," he said. "Maybe I'll have a job by then. That'd be nice."

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

24 Hour Fitness to expand at Downtown Plaza

2010-07-16T23:39:45Z

The 24 Hour Fitness club in Downtown Plaza will soon be expanding to incorporate a full-size basketball court, racquetball court and other amenities.

The 30,000-square-foot-club will grow to 50,000 square feet by the fall of 2011 and also include an indoor lap pool and new group exercise and cardio areas, said Danny Cowan, spokesman for 24 Hour Fitness.

“It’s a great situation for the K Street Mall and the city of Sacramento,” said Club Manager Joel Bouchereau.

“We are looking forward to offering the Sacramento community an expanded state-of-the art club with the latest amenities and features to help them reach their fitness goals,” said Jim McPhail, 24 Hour Fitness chief development officer.

The gym will remain open during the expansion, Cowan said.

Other changes included in the expansion are locker room and pool area renovations. New exercise equipment will be brought in, and a dedicated spin room will be added for exercise cycles.

The new basketball court will share space with some of the other additions on an all-new second floor, Bouchereau said.

The project is good news for Westfield Downtown Plaza, which recently saw the closure of the Hard Rock Café. Mayor Kevin Johnson has also discussed selling the mall.

“Westfield Downtown Plaza is very excited to have 24 Hour Fitness committed to expanding their facility,” said General Manager Russell Dougherty. “We’re really excited to get construction under way. That will likely happen in October.”

Officials from 24 Hour Fitness could not confirm a specific date for the start of the construction, or go into detail on the cost, describing the expansion only as a “multi-million-dollar” project.

Bouchereau compared waiting for this fall’s construction to waiting for Christmas.

The first phase of the expansion will focus on the upstairs portion of the club, after which work will move to different sections in the current space.

“I’m excited and happy to be a part of this upgrade,” Bouchereau said.

He added that he is not aware of any rate changes, and current members’ rates will not be affected.

Dougherty said the project fits in with Downtown Plaza’s current construction projects to improve the shopping mall and showcase its unique architecture.

“I think it’s a good opportunity for them,” said gym member Jones Lee. “This is the closest gym for me, and it will be nice when it’s bigger.”

Lee said he is looking forward to playing basketball on the full-size court.

Gym member Richard Huizar said the extra two thirds of space will be a nice change to what can often be a crowded gym.

“More space means it will be easier to navigate,” Huizar said. “During peak times, like after work, it’s really crowded.”

Thank You Sacramento

2010-07-15T23:00:02Z

Sacramento-

Thank You for all the Outpouring of Support for The Boqueria and AuthentiCity over the last few months. Tuesday night’s 5-4 City Council vote was of course disappointing.

All the partners of The Sacramento Alliance Team are heavily vested in the success of the Downtown Central Core and share Great Aspirations for The City of Sacramento.

It will be good to have a project moving forward on the 700/800 Blocks of K Street as we support all positive K Street developments.

D+S Development and David Taylor Interests have a track record of delivering quality developments to the City of Sacramento and we wish them all the best. Congratulations and Good Luck.

Rubicon Partners

St Anton Partners

Preferred Capital Advisors

DWB from Downtown: A new community

2010-07-14T08:47:51Z

Right on.

Tuesday night's vote for the more balanced proposal for K Street redevelopment was very good news, and not just for those of us who supported the winning team. Our city moved decisively forward tonight, and congratulations are due to all who participated in the process, from city staff to city council, from members of the community who spoke at Tuesday's meeting to those who have participated in the many Conversations on the subject on The Sacramento Press.

The Conversations here about the K Street process have been wonderfully civil, constructive, and deeply informative. The community cared about this issue, and engaged with each other on it. There was a sense that, no matter which development team you backed, the goal was mutual: To fix Sactown's problem promenade.

The synergy of community, media and government worked today in a way I don't think I've ever seen here. Watching it has been encouraging.

And now, that synergistic engagement must continue for this project to work. People must be held accountable, from the developers and contractors to the city's many inspectors and bureaucrats. Let's do this well. This project must be completed the way it was proposed - or even better. Bay Miry, Cyrus Youssefi, Joe Zeiden and David Taylor have won, but now the onus is on them to deliver. They seem likely to do so, which is why they were chosen. But as they know better than we, they have a lot of work ahead. Expectations are rising. So is the need for success.

Let's watch them do this together, through The Sacramento Press. Let's continue to tell this story in all its details together, each of us contributing what he or she has learned. And let's show those who say we must depend solely on professional journalists that the hardworking community contributors and pro journalists who participate here can tell this story not just as well as the pros, but better. Together.

I believe that we already have. Many contributors to The Sacramento Press played a crucial part in affecting this vote. The readers and conversationalists on SacPress had the most complete, most in-depth coverage of more aspects of this debate than any other news source in town. And Tuesday night, it mattered.

I'd like to give special appreciation to SP staff writer Suzanne Hurt for her finely-detailed stories on the business and development aspects and to her colleague Kathleen Haley for the scrutiny she gives city hall and the political process every day.

And then there is community contributor William Burg. Special thanks to this trained historian with a love of Sacramento, who quickly grasped the spirit and possibility of what Sacramento Press can be, and used it particularly well to help lead the conversation on this complex topic.

And he was not alone. It was a group effort.

As we build our community with rebar and stucco and steel and glass and bricks, we are giving ourselves more ways to enjoy the great life that is singularly available in urban Sacramento. But we are also building a community online, at The Sacramento Press, in which we can talk to each other, share information, disagree occasionally, and move forward toward greater understanding - in mutual respect.

Building a community online, as well as on the streets, we reinforce both. Onward!

Council chooses two teams to revamp K Street

2010-07-14T06:16:58Z

In an upset vote, the Sacramento City Council on Tuesday chose two teams — one led by D & S Development, Inc. and CFY Development, Inc. and the other by Sacramento developer David Taylor — to revitalize two troubled blocks on K Street Mall.

In a split vote of 5 to 4, the council agreed to enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement with the teams endorsed by a selection committee to redevelop the 700 and 800 blocks of K Street. The majority of council members opted not to follow the recommendation of Mayor Kevin Johnson's ad hoc committee to give the entire project to the Sacramento Alliance Team, led by Rubicon Partners, St. Anton Partners and Preferred Capital Advisors.

"We need to be bold in our vision but also be realistic," said Councilman Kevin McCarty, who made the motion to approve those two teams.

Councilmembers Bonnie Pannell, Sandy Sheedy, Lauren Hammond and Robbie Waters mentioned developers' track records and the projects they thought could get done when they joined McCarty to approve D & S and CFY and their $35.5 million proposal to redevelop the 700 block. They also voted for Taylor and Z Gallerie owner Joe Zeiden to take on the 800 block with a proposed $46 million project.

The vote may have hinged on Waters and his detailed questions to all three development teams about construction schedules, public subsidies and other financing. Under Water's’ questioning, Taylor said he has nine months to a year to use roughly $20 million in redevelopment funds remaining from the city's $130 million sale of the Sheraton Hotel to Taylor.

"I supported every ambitious project downtown," Pannell said, referring to her time on the council. "Tonight, I can only support the project I think is gonna get done."

The council's decision followed an hour of public comment from about 30 people on the issue. Residents, preservationists, local business owners and labor union representatives overwhelmingly spoke out in favor of the two teams and their proposals, which were described as "safe" and "financially realistic" plans to build housing and primarily homegrown live music venues and retail by restoring historic buildings on $40 million in city-owned land.

Bill Burg, preservation chair of the Sacramento Old City Association, pushed for the two teams and their proposals to preserve the city's "existing urban fabric" rather than demolishing landmarks to build something else.

"Instead of revinventing K Street again, we can reconnect K Street to downtown Sacramento," he said.

Waters and other council members said they were concerned about the financing for the Sacramento Alliance Team's $210 million proposal. That plan was built around a 32,500-square-foot public market, tentatively called the California Boqueria, an adjacent office building, 213 artist live/work units and 75,000 square feet.

The negotiating phase is expected to take up to six months, according to city staff.

Just before the vote, Johnson said he may have made a mistake in asking the council in May to approve an ad hoc committee after the city's selection committee had already recommended developers for K Street Mall.

"I think the process feels a little fishy. And I need to acknowledge that," he said. "The intent was not to create this dynamic. I would agree that I think we could do this much better."

Johnson recommended the council reevaluate how it uses ad hoc committees in the future. But he said he appreciated the way the council and the community respectfully debated the issue and the proposals.

"This to me was a great discussion," he said.

Photos by Brandon Darnell. Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Editorial: Choosing reality over dreams on K Street

2010-07-13T06:25:28Z

K Street. The very mention of this once-thriving street-turned-derelict-pedestrian mall sends people who’ve watched downtown’s progress, or lack thereof, into fits. Everyone has an opinion, an accusation, a conspiracy theory or a pet peeve about it.

And everyone has got a cure-all, that one big project that will change EVERYTHING.

Tuesday night, the City Council will meet to vote on which of the two teams of developers proposing projects for the 700 and 800 blocks of K Street should be given an exclusive right to negotiate. This is a big deal, with tens of millions of dollars in one case, or, in the other case, hundreds of millions of dollars involved.

More important, it is a test of whether city leaders are going to come through with at least one of the big projects that have been hanging fire for what seems like an eternity. The railyards, the Riverfront Promenade, the R Street Corridor...can they get at least ONE of these projects done? Or, perhaps, started?

But there is another, deeper question to be answered Tuesday night: Will the opinions of architects, of city planners, of business people and city staff, considering all the factors - cost, especially - be what wins out? Or will the decision be made by powerful interests with the ear of select politicians?

This latter question was raised anew last week, when Mayor Kevin Johnson, seeing that the grand project he was backing - the awkwardly-named “AuthentiCity,” aka the Boqueria - was losing out to the much more modest (and also poorly named) K Street Promenade, decided to add another step to the process: a committee comprised of himself and the three central city Council members: Ray Thretheway, Robert King Fong and Steve Cohn.

The latter project, by local developers who between them have done the very popular “Shady Lady” block of R Street, the Cosmopolitan complex on K Street, the Sheraton Hotel, the Sterling Hotel and Esquire development, and who have nearly all of their financing locked down, was favored by a committee of professionals. It was also approved by the Sacramento Old City Association and just yesterday, the Environmental Council of Sacramento.

Even more significantly, the K Street Promenade was also backed by the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, which represents the businesses of the downtown area of which K Street is the heart. Not only was it backed by the DSP, it was backed by the DSP at a time when that body’s chairman, Kipp Blewett, was head of the competing “AuthentiCity/Boqueria” project. Clearly, for a group to vote against its leader’s own project, the other proposal must be the superior choice.

And so it is. The K Street Promenade has new housing, parking, retail space and a slate of businesses - local businesses - signed up to bring new life to this blighted block: The guys from the Shady Lady are suggesting a 500-seat music venue, the man behind Kru and Red Lotus is talking about another Asian restaurant, Old Soul Coffee Roasters are engaged in the idea, and even the Top This yogurt shop folks are on board.

It is also remarkably cheaper, with a shortfall of only about $8 million that may need public financing, while the AuthentiCity project will need at least $80 million, and probably $100 million - or more - in public financing. Just where that money will come from even they are not sure. They’ve got some ideas, but...we’ll see.

The AuthentiCity project, which is said to feature an outpost of the Knitting Factory nightclub chain, is coming to be known by one feature of the project, the Sacramento Boqueria, a big farmers market with dining and educational options that is going to show the world that Sacramento is - you’ve heard this before - a “world class city.”

Haven’t we outgrown this whole notion yet?

One sign of a world class city is that its citizens don’t sit around dreaming up ways to hit that one grand slam that is going to instantly vault it into the status of “world class” cities. Ideas like the Saca twin towers. Like Aura. Like the Sacramento Boqueria. Big projects that promise much but ultimately come to nothing.

I believe in dreaming big. But right now, in this town, we need a success. And success isn’t going to come in one fell swoop, with one grand gesture. It is going to come with something that is already happening on K Street: critical mass. The Promenade on K project offers just that.

With the existing establishments in and around K Street - the Community Center Theatre, the Cosmopolitan Cafe and Cabaret, The Crest Theatre, Esquire Grill, Marilyn’s on K nightclub, Pyramid Brewing, Parlare Eurolounge, Temple Coffee, Grange, the IMAX, and the still-to-open trio of nightclubs (Dive Bar, etc.) on K Street between 10th and 11th streets - critical mass is growing. What is needed now is simply MORE establishments to draw more people. We don’t need a “game-changer.” We just need more players in the game. The game will take care of itself.

This is the free market in action. This is the essence of good business, and of a healthy ecosystem. Diversity. Sustainability. Critical mass. I live five blocks from 10th and K, and K Street isn’t nearly as desolate as many would have you believe. On any given night, there are many people going to the above establishments. Add more establishments and there will be more people. This is not a zero-sum game.

The right idea is NOT to create one make-or-break grand gesture that “changes everything.” The right idea is to add more of what is already working, until K Street is a place to go because you want to be where the fun is, NOT because you want to go study California’s agricultural plenty or to take your friends visiting from Phoenix for one day a year to admire our Hall of Fame.

If nothing else, the money should guide us. This city is broke. We don’t have enough money to keep fire stations open, and we are cutting services at every level. City staff has clearly said, in its report, that the $14 million parking bond that the AuthentiCity folks want is not going to happen. But Mayor Johnson - and if they are to be believed, Tretheway, Cohn and Fong - want to spend $100 million we don’t have for a project that will take at least six years to complete, with uncertain results.

We’ve been down this path before. The Big Fix. The Grand Scheme. The Big Dream. And it hasn’t worked. And it won’t work this time.

It would be nice if the City Council members who are aligned in this case with our Dream Big Mayor would wake up and smell the reality. K Street has long been a street of broken dreams, and this Boqueria dream would be the biggest dream yet - and the biggest come-down when it fails.

By the way, the Boqueria project is an interesting idea, and one that would fit quite nicely into the project in which it was originally proposed: The revitalized railyards. It was long ago suggested for the gorgeous old railroad shops in the railyards, which is a marvelous fit. And that is where it should stay, a showcase of California that serves as a tourist magnet anchor for that enormous development. Then again, even there it may not work: Copia, a similar project started in Napa’s wine region with tens of millions of dollars of support from the Mondavi family, opened in 2001 to great fanfare but closed in 2008 after the tourists failed to materialize. And that was in “world class” Napa. During a real estate boom. That ain’t now.

Supporters of the Rubicon proposal speak in grandiose terms of “boldness” and “vision.” But looking at the whole proposal - not just the Boqueria, which is the LAST phase of the project, nearly six years out, and thus may never even be built - does what they’re proposing really look visionary? The drawings are not great, but they do give us a pretty good view of the “vision” - and it looks like something that could just as easily be in Roseville. A high-rise hotel. High-rise offices. High-rise housing units. Is that the vision we want for our historic downtown?

Supporters on both sides have been inundating council members with their opinions about this. One executive member of city staff told me he’d never had so many calls on a topic. This is good. The more people involved in this process, the better. And the better people understand this, the more likely they are to support the more modest, but more doable project that could continue to grow K Street as the vital core of Sacramento’s downtown.

Or we could go for big dreams and wait for years until it all comes crumbling down, taking tens of millions of our dollars with it.

And speaking of dreamers: On what did Johnson, Tretheway, Fong and Cohn base their ad hoc decision of last week? Do they know something city staff, the Old City Association, city planners and others with actual expertise don’t? Or were they dazzled and looking for something to put a little shine on their otherwise tarnished reputations? These four council members need to be held accountable for their votes, because if they choose to saddle the city with more debt and more bond issues, and a project that ultimately gets done, or worse, a project that doesn’t change K Street except to tear down some old buildings and bring in a bunch of tourists, while offering nothing to the residents of our city - they need to be held accountable.

Downtown Sacramento needs K Street work to start NOW. Sacramento doesn’t need better dreams; it needs a better reality. The Promenade’s development teams - D&S Development, CFY Development and David Taylor Interests - have said that they have financing that will allow them to start this fall, and that the project could be COMPLETED by sometime in 2012. At that point, the AuthentiCity/Boqueria project will still just be getting going - assuming they’ve gotten adequate funding, mostly from taxpayers - and the Boqueria itself, which is what has grabbed the public imagination, would still be three or four years off.

We need a success now! Besides, the Promenade project, with new housing, parking, retail and a host of local entrepreneurs involved, is by no means a small dream. It is, in my mind - and I speak only for myself here - the preferable dream. The fact that it is the dream that can actually be achieved means that it could be something better than a Big Dream that never gets done. It could be a better reality for downtown Sacramento.

As one poster on SacPress noted, “the most extraordinary project doesn’t matter if it never gets built.” If you want to focus on bold dreams, go look at the hole in the ground at 3rd and L streets, site of the “bold” Saca Towers, and contemplate the vanity of man. And recall that that project failed even when money was available for big dreams.

Dear members of the City Council, don’t believe the hype. Let’s get something good done. We are through being dazzled with promises. We just want some places to go on K Street Mall. We’re tired of big, “world class” dreams. We will be quite happy with a modest, Sacramento-class reality.

Council to choose K Street developers

2010-07-13T02:13:00Z

The Sacramento City Council is set to vote Tuesday night on the developers who will tackle the blighted K Street Mall.

The question before the council is whether to support the recommendation of Mayor Kevin Johnson's ad hoc committee to go with the biggest proposal, which has a "Boqueria" public market as its centerpiece, or to back two other proposals to redevelop the troubled 700 and 800 blocks of K Street on $40 million in city-owned land.

Only one selection committee had been identified in the city's request for qualifications. Last month, that committee recommended the 700 block be redeveloped by D & S Development and CFY Development, with their Promenade on K project estimated at $35.5 million. The committee also recommended the 800 block be redeveloped for an estimated $46 million by Sacramento developer David Taylor and Z Gallerie owner Joe Zeiden. Downtown Sacramento Partnership endorsed those selections.

Johnson's committee, which included City Council members Steve Cohn, Rob Fong and Ray Tretheway, on Thursday announced its preference for the $210 million project by the Sacramento Alliance Team, led by Rubicon Partners, St. Anton Partners and Preferred Capital Advisors. The ad hoc committee was formed to study the proposals in more depth and bring the council members more detail than what they would get at a council meeting, Cohn said.

"The ad hoc commitee of the council went with the more exciting proposal that seemed to have more promise to turn around not just that portion of K Street, but also to rejuvenate downtown with a unique concept," Cohn said. "I think the screening committee was going for the safety of what they thought could get done."

The council will have a challenge making a selection and providing direction to staff and developers Tuesday night, he said.

"It's going to be incumbent on the council to give guidance on tight time frames, and if this thing's not financeable, that we don't let too much time go by before figuring out if it can't be done," he said. "If it can't, then we'll need to fall back to one of the other two that were recommended."

The City Council was initially scheduled to make its selection in May.

The nine-member council must choose between three out of four teams that submitted proposals in March. At least two of those teams have been intensely lobbying the City Council, city staff and the community in the days and weeks prior to the vote.

The D & S and CFY development team — led by D & S partners David Miry and Steve Lebastchi, Miry's son Bay, CFY owner Cyrus Youssefi and his son Ali Youssefi — has sent more than 500 e-mailed petition signatures to the City Council.

On Saturday, they held an online petition drive at Shady Lady, at 1409 R St. So many signatures flooded City Council e-mail boxes that they closed down their project’s website Monday at the city’s request, Miry said.

Representatives from the Sacramento Old City Association, the Environmental Council of Sacramento and local construction trade unions have thrown their support behind the project and are expected at the council meeting. At least eight local business owners with ideas for the 700 block's spaces have voiced support as well, he said.

The D&S team is requesting $16 million in existing city Redevelopment Assistance funds and would invest $1.5 million in cash equity and $18 million in conventional debt to develop the 700 block, Miry said.

That team was "surprised" when the mayor appointed an ad hoc committee to take a second look at the proposals, said D & S official Bay Miry.

"It certainly caught us off guard," he said. "We thought it was a slam dunk once we received the recommendation of the selection committee."

The Mayor's office did not return a phone call seeking comment.

The Rubicon team — the same developers behind the creation of the Citizen Hotel — on Monday provided last-minute information to council members and city staff on numbers contained in the city staff report posted Thursday. Two weeks ago, they held a reception to present the community with more details about their proposal. Representatives from organizations including the California State Board of Food and Agriculture and the California Travel and Tourism Commission have thrown their support behind the team, and individuals have e-mailed through the team's website.

That team's proposal would require $99 million in public subsidies, according to the city staff report, which also identified an $80 million funding gap.

However, the team said the funding gap is $50 million, but sources to fill that gap have been identified as coming from private investment by the food and agriculture industry, state funds and federal funds, and a $13.5 million parking bond. No money would come from the city's general fund, said Project Director J-E Paino of Rubicon Partners.

"The size of the gap is smaller than it appears," he said. "Funding has not been obtained, but funding sources have been identified. We know where we're going to go to get them. But we can't go get them until we get control of the land."

The team would invest more than $122 million in private debt and equity into the project, which calls for $19.6 million in RDA funds. Paino said they expect another $19.5 million to come from project-generated tax increment funds, permits and fees, according to information provided to the city.

The team also proposed a $25 million parking bond, according to the city staff report, which said the city can't undertake that debt. Paino said Monday the team withdrew a request for a $12 million parking bond for the 700 block.

Taylor could not be reached for comment.

Supporters of the development teams are expected to turn out at Tuesday night's council meeting.

SOCA supports the selection committee's recommendations partly because the teams would preserve the historic buildings on the 700 and 800 blocks, including Bel-Vue Apartments, rather than just their facades, said SOCA Board Member Kay Knepprath, past president.

"Both of those proposals are realistic and can happen soon," she said. "We are concerned that the city choose developers who have adequate financing and can make it happen."

The council's dilemma really stems from the existence of such strong proposals, Cohn said.

"What's reflected that you have three out of the four teams being recommended is that we really had excellent proposals," Cohn said. "It's a good problem to have in that it's a tough choice."

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter covering business and development for The Sacramento Press.

"Promenade on K" plan at Shady Lady

2010-07-09T14:56:29Z

On Saturday, July 10, D&S Development will host an event with information about the "Promenade on K," their proposed project for700 block of K Street. The event will take place at the Shady Lady, 1409 R Street, from 6 PM-8 PM. Complimentary food samplings from local retailers will be provided. The Shady Lady is one of several local businesses interested in joining the K Street project. They propose a mid-sized music venue to fill a much-needed niche in the local live entertainment scene, along with multiple restaurants and bars within the venue. This, along with other local businesses, will provide the retail component, while D&S provides mixed-income housing above and behind the retail stores.

According to Bay Miry of D&S, "The focus of our proposal is for it to be a balance between boldnessand doability. The proposal consists of 136 workforce apartments above unique predominantly locally operated retail. All while historically preserving the existing buildings. Think our 14&R project but albeit on a grander scale. Evidence of equity and financing has been given to the City. The amount of subsidy our proposal requests per unit is significantly lower when compared apples to apples with the other proposals. All ground floor retail tenants have already been identified!"

On Tuesday July 13, the Sacramento City Council will assign an Exclusive Right to Negotiate for the K Street project. The city's selection committee chose the D&S project and David Taylor's 700/800K, LLC, to share the project. An ad-hoc committee of City Council members chose the Rubicon Partners project. The City Council meeting will select a proposal for further work by city staff, an important step towards revitalizing K Street.

D&S has also set up a website where the public can show their support for the project to the city council, mayor, and city manager: www.700block.com

Saturday July 10, 6-8 PM

The Shady Lady, 1409 K Street

The K Street Plan: Local, Green, Historic and Affordable

2010-07-02T06:09:33Z

Disclaimer: This article is my opinion, given as a central city resident and board member of the Sacramento Old City Association. I am not an employee of any of the firms involved, nor the city of Sacramento. I am enthusiastic about this project because it represents the best combination of historic preservation, new development, downtown infill, fiscal responsibility, and promotion of local business, culture, and heritage.

In December 2009, the city of Sacramento asked local developers for plans to revitalize the 700 and 800 blocks of K Street. The project area occupies about one city block, around 2.5 acres, on two half-block lots. Four teams submitted proposals, and a five-member committee met three times to review the responses and select a recommendation to the city council. Their recommendation was based on experience, quality of vision and concept, relationship to local goals, proposed tenants, financial feasibility and delivery schedule. Based on these criteria, the committee chose elements of two proposals: the Promenade on K, proposed by D&S and CFY Development, for the 700 block, and a proposal by David Taylor, CIM, Zeiden Properties and Domus Development for the 800 block.

The Recommended Plan

The proposal for the 700 block includes 136 apartments along the alley side of K Street in a new mid-rise structure, with underground parking at Sacramento’s original street level. The apartments range from 450 to 1200 square feet, studios to 2-bedrooms. 37,840 feet of retail will occupy the ground floor of the existing structures on K Street. The front 90 feet of each building will be retained, and the two landmark buildings on the block retained entirely. The second floor of the historic buildings will also become apartments, and the building basements will be retained for storage or retail use. Because the 700 block has abundant street space, outdoor patios and kiosks will surround the walkway on K Street, creating an expansive outdoor room adjacent to the newly-remodeled St. Rose of Lima Park.

The 800 block will include new buildings on the corner of 8th & K and 8th & L, and the historic Bel-Vue Apartments will be restored and returned to residential use, a total of 110 market rate and mixed-income units, including three-bedroom units intended for families. Parking will be accessed via the alley and L Street, and will not be visible from the street. All buildings will have ground-floor retail, totaling 32,530 square feet. This project team is also considering acquiring the historic Kress and Montgomery Ward buildings, for conversion to mixed-use residential, but because these buildings were outside the project scope (the city does not own them) they were not included in the proposal.

Keep It Local

The proposal for the 700 block includes Letters of Intent from retailers interested in participation. Rather than seeking chain or out-of-town tenants, the D&S proposal sought local businesses. These include popular local eateries, like Old Soul Coffee, who plans a French bistro and wine bar, or Kru, who plans a ramen/yakitori restaurant and sake bar. Three of these potential tenants (Crepeville, Shady Lady and and Burgers & Brew) each plan live music venues in addition to a restaurant and bar. The Shady Lady letter points out Sacramento’s lack of mid-sized music venues, and suggests that this project could fill the glaring need for venues larger than small Midtown bars but smaller than the Memorial Auditorium or Crest Theatre. But it’s not all about music and drinks; the owner of “Top This” Frozen Yogurt wants to create a late-night dessert diner, adding cakes, pies and sundaes to their product mix. Rima Boutique and Muse Salon want to open boutiques selling clothing, accessories and artwork. Specifics on the 800 block’s retail mix were not available, but their team includes Z Gallerie’s Joe Zeiden, who has extensive experience bringing retail to downtowns throughout the state. Because all of these businesses can also operate during daytime business hours, they are useful to the tens of thousands of downtown commuters for lunch, daytime shopping, or after-work dining and entertainment.

Local business is complemented by the local residences included in the project. Affordable housing means employees of a yogurt shop or boutique can live in a nearby unit instead of commuting to work from the suburbs, and downtown office workers can walk from office to home, utilizing local retail options in their own neighborhood. Housing directly above K Street on the second floor, and along the alley, means greater safety through “eyes on the street,” complemented by evening activity in restaurant patios and street vendor kiosks. Many of K Street’s problems take place on vacant, disused properties where there are no residents or tenants. Bringing more housing and late-night business back to K Street means more safety by design. In many ways, this plan is a larger, more ambitious version of D&S’s recent success at 14th and R Street, where a dark, unused warehouse was turned into 12 residential units and a row of eateries and mixed retail, using a historic building, local businesses, and green design.

Keeping it Green on K Street

“Green” is a word that gets used a lot, so much that the meaning is sometimes obscured. This proposal for K Street is green in several important ways. It proposes using green and sustainable methods, plus solar and wind power generation on rooftops. Both blocks include green roofs as inner courtyards for tenant use. Adding downtown housing and the units’ proximity to transit means less driving and consumption of gasoline. Restoration of the existing buildings, instead of demolition, saves those buildings’ embodied energy, uses less energy than new construction, and reduces the load on our landfills.

This project is located at the nexus of both existing Light Rail lines and the Green Line to Richards Boulevard now under construction, with local bus access on both side streets. Recent changes allowing bikes on K Street, and proposed additional bike parking on the street and in the buildings, encourages biking to and from the project. Enhancing the streetscape, adding dense residential and greater security by design promotes walking and transit use. Project residents who work nearby, instead of in distant suburbs, won’t have to drive to work, and won’t have to go far for entertainment or dining.

“The greenest building is one that’s already built” is an old adage of the preservation community. Construction of a new building requires tremendous energy, an amount equal to decades’ worth of the building’s annual energy consumption. Old buildings, especially those built prior to 1940, were built when energy was more expensive, and were designed for more efficient use of energy. They are generally built of durable materials like brick, stone, and old-growth timber. They required less energy to create than high-energy materials like concrete and steel. Their energy cost has long since been paid. Demolition of old buildings is also energy-intensive, and sends most of those irreplaceable building materials to landfills, where they are joined by new buildings’ construction wastes (which makes up about half the contents of our landfills!) Saving old buildings is about more than aesthetics; it is the greener, cleaner and less wasteful choice.

Restoring K Street’s Legacy

K Street has been the heart of Sacramento since the Gold Rush, and it has played many roles over time. Younger people know it as the home of Light Rail and the Downtown Plaza mall, those in middle age remember the old pedestrian mall with its “tank traps” and fountains, and the older generation recalls the era of cruising K Street in hot rods in the 1950s and 60s. But all of these eras took place while K Street was in decline, and represent desperate efforts to bring suburban visitors back downtown. The era of K Street’s greatest vitality was during the early 20th century through the 1940s.

American downtowns boomed during this time, and Sacramento was no exception. K Street was a shopping street, home to every department store in town, with small specialty shops ranging from herbalists to bookstores. It was also a place for entertainment, including theater, vaudeville, movies, dining, live music, and dancing, although even then it was not Sacramento’s only entertainment district. It was also a place that thousands of Sacramentans called home, living in apartments above retail storefronts. These included modest rooms with a bath down the hall for working people, efficiency apartments for middle-class professionals, and elegant “palace hotels” for wealthy businessmen and legislators who wanted close access to the capital and the city’s financial district. Public transit reached through the city and the region, bringing visitors to K Street, but many called it home.

Teenagers and adults walked downtown on summer evenings, enjoying the respite from the heat, knowing that even at midnight, something was happening on K Street. Because people were always there, it was a safe place to visit. In the mid-20th century, this changed as suburbs grew, shopping centers and malls appeared, and redevelopment emptied the central city. Highways intended to bring people back downtown only made the central city easier to leave, and expensive redevelopment plans brought a few visitors during the day but the city still emptied at night. Sacramento’s legacy as an urban place was ignored, suppressed, and almost forgotten.

This project brings K Street back using a proven method: provide an experience and a place that cannot be duplicated anywhere else in the region. Residential options and transit means that the automobile takes a back seat—you can have a car and live here, but you don’t need one. Unique entertainment and local retail means that shopping and dining and music is different than what you find in any suburban shopping center. Preservation of historic buildings means that K Street’s true history as a vibrant, urban place is apparent to visitor and resident alike, not simulating the past in Disney style, but using the lessons of the past to shape Sacramento’s urban future.

Putting the “Fun” in Funding Sources

In these cost-conscious times, many criticize the use of public subsidy for downtown reinvestment. However, when compared to the costs of subsidized suburban sprawl, subsidizing downtown infill levels the playing field. The “free-market” solution would mean allowing downtown Sacramento to decay entirely, until property values became lower than undeveloped rural land—a nightmare scenario. However, those calling for frugality have a valid point. City resources are limited, and any project on K Street must make the best use of public funds.

For this project, the city provides the land and existing buildings on the site. The recommended project utilizes the buildings, instead of demolishing them, making use of these valuable resources. For the 800 block, the project team has asked to use $16 million in funds that were set aside for a future redevelopment project by David Taylor’s company, and about $6 million in local, state and federal funds for the south half of the 800 block, including rehabilitation of the Bel-Vue. On the 700 block, the project team asks for two $8 million loans, one forgivable upon completion of the project, and one that would be repaid with interest.

One consideration when cities fund public projects is local benefit. Construction projects create jobs, but not all construction projects create the same number of jobs. New construction projects spend about half on materials and half on labor. Rehab of existing buildings spends closer to two-thirds on labor and one-third on materials, because fewer materials are needed and rehab is more labor-intensive. This means more local jobs per public dollar spent. Those dollars directly benefit the local economy, because workers spend the money they earn in their community. Materials for preservation rehab also tend to come from local sources, rather than materials from outside the community, so more of the construction costs also benefit the local economy.

Really Good, But Not Perfect

While the project has many strengths, there are some weaknesses. Downtown Sacramento lacks a grocery store. Existing corner markets and drugstores have limited options, and farmer’s markets do not operate in winter, creating “food deserts” for downtown residents. The closest market is Safeway, accessible by light rail, but downtown needs a more complete neighborhood market offering fresh meat and produce. The development team should consider a market as part of this project.

While transit is close by, service ends after 9 PM, making transit useless for late-night visitors. While transit budgets are outside the scope of the project, better public transportation would complement a transit-oriented project like this.

Finally, while developer David Taylor is well-known for his ability to complete a project, his projects are often criticized as being architecturally conservative and plain. The 800 block plan includes only volume sketches, not detailed renderings, so we do not know how it will look. Similarly, the 700 block’s new residential units must measure up architecturally to the historic buildings they will complement. The eclectic existing architecture of K Street, from Gold Rush brick to Art Deco terra cotta to 21st century high-rise steel and glass, means an unlimited palette for a talented architect.

On July 13, Sacramento’s City Council is scheduled to select a project for K Street. The recommended project is an excellent choice for Sacramento. It embodies and builds upon our city’s history and culture, promotes local business, and brings more housing across all income levels to K Street at a reasonable cost.

For more details about each of the four proposals for K Street, check the city of Sacramento's website:

www.cityofsacramento.org/econdev/development-projects/700KStDevelopmentProjectConcepts.cfm

Downtown announces call for artists

2010-06-24T23:56:58Z

Downtown is home to the region’s oldest and most recognized public art. From sculpture to large-scale murals, these works enhance public space and foster Sacramento’s identity as an arts-friendly city. The Downtown Sacramento Partnership (DSP) recently announced an opportunity for local artists to participate in a temporary public art exhibit of original paintings and drawings, titled K Street: The moment is NOW, that celebrates this pivotal moment in Downtown Sacramento’s revitalization efforts, in a medium befitting the subject – street banners. Artists are invited to visually express their distinct interpretation of K Street’s rich history as a vaudeville and entertainment hotspot or look toward the future with an imaginative concept for Downtown’s potential.

The goal of the project is to provide pedestrians with a new perspective of an otherwise familiar environment, broaden the outlook on the role public art plays in civic identity and encourage conversation on the relationship between urban revitalization and public spaces. “This exhibit was inspired by the ongoing buzz about the future of K Street and recent development activity,” said DSP Programming Manager Julia Beckner. “We want to know how the creative community relates to K Street. From the Renaissance-style Cathedral to the Crest Theatre’s neon marquee, there is a wealth of visual inspiration to draw upon.”

Last month, the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission and Crocker Art Museum launched West of 16th, East of the River, a summertime schedule of arts-related programming and special events throughout Downtown that aims to bridge the gap between permanent and temporary public art by installing hand painted street banners, temporary chalk murals on vacant building facades and phantom galleries in vacant retail spaces throughout Downtown.

The competition is open to local artists of all ages. All entries will be judged from digital images, thumbnail drawings or sketches and a short artist statement. DSP will select 15 local artists to execute their ideas onto a blank street banner. The finished works will be displayed on K Street between 9th and 13th streets this summer. Deadline to submit concepts by 5:00 p.m. on July 5, 2010. Winners will be announced on July 12, 2010. For full details, download entry form.

Jobs, city deficit highlight Community Partnership Meeting

2010-05-14T03:07:37Z

"Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs," said Kunal Merchant, Mayor Kevin Johnson's chief of staff. "One issue everyone is focused on is jobs."

Merchant, speaking to the group of 20 at the new Valley Hi - North Laguna Library Wednesday night, gave an update on the mayor's top four priorities, which included central city revitalization, specifically on K Street; the city's new green initiative; a new sports arena and charter reform of City Hall.

Each priority comes with the intention of creating jobs and creating a stronger city, Merchant said. He spoke of the need to make the downtown mall stronger to attract and retain business and help local businesses on K Street thrive. He also explained the holdup on a new stadium venue.

"If this is done wrong," he said, "then it's a huge waste of taxpayer money." He likened the process to a basketball game, saying, "We're in the second quarter of a four-quarter game." The mayor hopes a new stadium will create a multitude of jobs and push the city further into green opportunities, he added. The stadium, housed near the railyards, ideally will be a transit-oriented venue.

As for charter reform, Merchant explained the mayor's push for a strong mayor initiative is due to a lack of accountability and efficiency in City Hall. The initiative is set to be on the November ballot, but will first be reviewed by the City Council in June.

Also speaking at the Community Partnership Meeting was Interim City Manager Gus Vina, on hand to discuss the current city budget. Vina told the group about the process by which the city has looked to reduce expenses and battle the rising unemployment rate.

"We're looking at services in every department, getting a sense of priority," Vina said. After the department-specific reductions, Vina said, "then we can plan to fix the $43 million deficit and get to a budget we know we can afford."

Vina gave a few examples of unforeseen impacts on the current deficit, noting real estate and the state of California's deficit as major sources. In times of mass foreclosures, the city sees no property tax, he said. The city took a second hit when homes sold at lesser values, further impacting the city through lower property tax. On Monday, the city began making payments on the $20 million the state will be collecting.

"As we reduce staff, the service impact will be there," Vina warned. "It's going to take a while to get out of this mess, especially without a state budget." The majority of the money going to the state comes from redevelopment.

For the city of Sacramento, this means no new development and no borrowing. Vina said projects under way are still scheduled to be completed.

The panel of Vina, Merchant, Khaalid Muttaqi of the Neighborhood Services Department, and Susan McKee, district director for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg fielded questions from attendees throughout the meeting. Residents asked about currently untaxed oil drilling off the coast of California, property tax redistribution and early prisoner release.

McKee, answering the majority of questions, had no answer for why California does not tax oil drilling, but speculated California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will likely re-consider after the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill. McKee also said the talk of privatization of prisons has not gained traction, and pointed out the money saved on prisoners released only a few months in advance remains in the Department of Corrections' control, shifting from use inside the prison system to outside.

The next Community Partnership Meeting is scheduled for 7-8:30 p.m. May 19 at the Coloma Community Center located at 4623 T Street.

Council will address cars on K Street Tuesday, 6 p.m.

2010-04-27T04:57:43Z

Sacramentans may eventually see Hondas, Fords and Volkswagens on K Street if the City Council likes the idea of cars there.

The City Council will decide Tuesday whether to dedicate funding to an effort to bring cars to K Street. Cars would be OK'd for the area of K Street bordered by Eighth and 12th streets.

The City Council meeting begins at 6 p.m., Tuesday, at 915 I St.

Read a report on the issue by the city’s Economic Development and Transportation Departments.

Photo by Suzanne Hurt.

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Local Astronaut Promotes Launch of IMAX'S "Hubble 3D"

2010-04-10T05:44:21Z

About 250 people showed up Thursday evening to meet astronaut and Sacramento native Stephen K. Robinson at the Sacramento premiere of IMAX film "Hubble 3D" at the Esquire IMAX Theatre. The film opens April 23.

It chronicles the 2009 Atlantis shuttle mission that repaired and upgraded the Hubble telescope. Leonardo DiCaprio narrates.

"This event is exciting because it allows everybody to get a taste of what it's like to be in space, not just to be in space but to work in space," Robinson said. "And to do useful work, in this case, to upgrade the Hubble telescope. The Hubble has given us all eyes that we all wish we had. To see out into the universe, and when you look far out into the universe it's like looking back in time because that light is very old. So, here's the space and time machine that is Hubble, and everybody gets a chance to go work on it in this movie."

Robinson answered questions and narrated a slideshow about his space mission in February aboard the shuttle Endeavour.

The purpose of the mission was to construct the final permanent modules of the International Space Station. They included a life-support hub called Tranquility that contained exercise, water recycling and environmental control systems. Robinson directed three spacewalks from inside Endeavour and was chief mechanic in preparing Tranquility.

After his presentation and a question-and-answer session, the audience members donned their 3D glasses.

The film documented the history of Hubble, life on the shuttle, preparation of crew members and their spacewalks. Sounds of awe were heard when Hubble's photographs came on the screen.

Seven astronauts aboard Atlantis worked to extend the lifespan of the 20-year-old telescope. Two instruments were installed, and two others received new batteries and gyroscopes. New thermal insulation panels were attached to protect Hubble from the intense temperature changes in space. It is hoped that the work will extend Hubble's life to at least 2014.

The two new instruments included a camera that allows Hubble to photograph in ultraviolet and infrared spectrums.

"It was awesome," audience member Ellen Savage said of the film. "What I liked best was seeing the image of the astronauts on the spacewalk and repairing the Hubble. As a kid you imagine what it must feel like, but to actually see their perspective looking up at the Hubble and down at the Earth is amazing."

Hubble's images illustrated the immensity of space, from the deep reaches of neighboring galaxies back to planet Earth.

"I think if you're really curious about getting some perspective on our Earth itself, all this talk about global warming and all these things going wrong, it really gives you a sense of respect for what we have," said IMAX's Heather Atherton. "And it's so unique and so special that we really do need to preserve it. All these space films always brings that message home, that this is a really precious resource and we're unique, and if we don't take care of it, who knows what will happen? Seeing all of that out there, well, we don't know what's out there, but we know what we have here."

The Hubble was launched in 1990. It took more than 10 years and 10,000 people to build it, according to the film. It travels 320 miles above Earth at a rate of 17,500 miles per hour. The film documents the fifth and final servicing mission. The first, and probably most famous, occurred in 1993 when it was discovered that the telescope's primary mirror was not shaped correctly.

Doug Link, senior consultant of theater resources and marketing and operations, said that IMAX has a history of working with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

"We have a history of space films and a great relationship with NASA. When we came out with 'Space Station 3D' in 2002, NASA was very good about providing astronauts to come out and talk about the film," Link said. "We had 'Magnificent Desolation' and Steve Robinson at that point had already done his big famous spacewalk, and we knew he was from Sacramento. So we called NASA and requested him. He jumped on it and came out and helped us promote and launch the film."

Three space films are in the Esquire IMAX Theatre's library, but Link states that "Hubble 3D" is completely different:

"We've had films about the space shuttles, we've had films about the space station, we've had films about the moon, but this one is about the Hubble space telescope. It's also about what the telescope is seeing. People have seen some of the nebula images on TV or on their computer, but the thing about the IMAX screen is the detail and how immersing it is. It's going to be like being in those nebulas because there's a significant portion of the film that's showing the pictures Hubble has taken. Those are high definition photos and it'll transfer very uniquely onto the IMAX screen in 3D."

Robinson signed autographs after the film.

"I thought the movie was inspiring," he said. "I learned a whole lot about the reaches of the universe. I did not know that the Hubble could look far to the edges of the universe, or as far as we know, at least. It's like looking back in time. Who doesn't want to do that?"

When asked what the greatest thing the audience may take away from this film was, Robinson replied:

"Faith in humanity and what we all can do. Those people that you see in those movies, I know them, they're regular people. They're very fortunate people, very hardworking, rather stubborn people. But they're like you and I. It just goes to show that as audacious an idea it is for humans to go up into space, to go outside, and fix and repair a very delicate telescope with their hands, as crazy as that sounds, it takes regular people like us with our motivation and our intelligence and our curiosity and our irrepressible spirit to actually do things like that. And I think when people walk out of the theater, they'll have more of a feeling like that. I want them to think that it's not those guys, it's us."

The G-rated 43-minute film will run through the summer, according to Link.
Tickets are $10 general admission, $9 for seniors and $8 for children 12 years old and younger. Active military members receive a $2 discount.
Esquire IMAX Theatre is at 1211 K St.. (916) 443-IMAX.
For more information, visit here.

Photos:

1) "Hubble 3D" poster details

2) The Esquire IMAX Theatre located at 1211 K St.

3) "Hubble 3D" poster

4) Astronaut Stephen K. Robinson

5) Robinson being interviewed before the premiere

K Street Projects Will Be Heard at Preservation Commission

2010-04-07T04:55:45Z

On Wednesday, April 7 at 5:30 PM, Sacramento's Preservation Commission will meet at City Hall, 915 I Street, in the main council chambers. In addition to other agenda items, they will hear staff reports and provide direction regarding the four projects proposed for the 700 and 800 blocks of K Street.

Due to changes in the way the Preservation Commission reviews projects, and due to the relatively low number of hearings in recent months, the Preservation Commission does not meet every month. The April 7 meeting will be the first held in 2010; the others were canceled because there were no scheduled hearings.

The general public first viewed the projects proposed for the 700/800 blocks of K Street on March 22: one by D&S Development and CFY Properties, one by David Taylor, CIM and Joe Zeiden, one by John Saca, John Bagatelos and Bridge Housing, and one by Rubicon Partners, St. Anton Partners and Preferred Capitol Advisors. The Preservation Commission will add their review and comment, since the properties in the project area include several historic landmark buildings, in addition to some potentially historic buildings not currently on the city register. Several of the proposals also involve other historic buildings not in the project areas.

Other projects to be reviewed at the Preservation Commission include a presentation about the Powerhouse Science Center, a museum planned for a riverfront site and another historic buildng, the old PG&E powerhouse, and a plan for structural and life safety upgrade to the Sacramento Valley Station, another Sacramento landmark, as part of the overall rehab and expansion of the intermodal depot.

In addition to these projects, the Preservation Commission will discuss policy. The Minimum Maintenance Sub-Committee, which deals with how the city addresses historic properties allowed to fall into disrepair, will provide a report. The Historic/Cultural Resources Survey Committee will report on historic building surveys performed for the city, some of which could result in new historic districts. There will also be opportunity for the public to comment on each of these projects and policy items, and to present items not on the agenda.

The full agenda can be found here:

www.cityofsacramento.org/dsd/meetings/commissions/preservation/2010/pc_agenda_4-07-10.cfm

City of Sacramento Preservation Commission April Meeting

Wednesday April 7

New City Hall
915 I Street- 1st Floor, Council Chambers
April 7, 2010- 5:30 P.M.

William Burg is a board member of the Sacramento Old City Association

Cornerstone to move late summer

2010-04-06T04:21:29Z

Cornerstone Restaurant will have until Sept. 1 to move to its new location at a nearby vacant church.

The family-run restaurant's owners, Kwang "Joe" Jang and brother-in-law Danny Leung, reached an agreement with their landlords in court Friday.

The landlords agreed to let them keep operating at 2330 J St. while Jang and Leung remodel a Spanish-style church just a block away at 23rd and K streets, said Jang, who sounded relieved.

"I'm excited about it," Jang, 42, said Monday. "I think it will be a better place: newer and nicer."

That also means Midtown residents won't lose an establishment that's been a neighborhood fixture for at least 20 to 30 years.

Cornerstone has served affordable breakfast and lunch every day at the corner of J and 24th streets for nearly 20 years, after Jang and Leung took over the location and name from its previous owner in 1994. Another restaurant had served breakfast and lunch at the same spot since the 1970s, Jang said.

Leung's sister and a family friend bought the church for $450,000 and will lease the space back to Jang and Leung, 41. The pair pitches in with cooking and waiting tables, and Jang's wife, Amy, regularly serves customers.

The new location will be about the size of the old: seating nearly 100 people in about 2,600 square feet inside, and sidewalk tables and a patio landscaped with palms and fenced for privacy.

The church's roof will be replaced, and skylights may be added. The exterior will be painted a brighter color. The owners plan to continue the American diner ambiance, even carrying over the same interior paint colors of cream with green trim. Fans, heat lamps, new air conditioning and more lights will be added.

"People who are coming will recognize this as the old Cornerstone — the one they've been coming to for 16 years," Jang said, "but with some upgrades to make them more comfortable."

Cornerstone's owners had been fighting eviction since December after buying a quarter interest in their current building. Four sisters had inherited the building from their parents, and one sister agreed to sell her share. The other three then decided not to continue the restaurant's lease, which was valid through the end of February, Jang said.

The building was constructed in the early 1900s and housed a Seventh-day Adventist church at least as far back as 1920. Several other churches went on to own it.

Vacant for three or four years, the building had been in escrow with several buyers. But the economy, a lack of available financing and the building's condition kept it from selling, said Colliers International Real Estate Broker Dave Herrera, who handled the sale.

The sellers had sought a higher price for some time, he added.

Cornerstone's owners will now turn their attention to preparing the new restaurant. Five months isn't a lot of time, Jang said.

"We really have to get the place going," he said. "And our customers have a definite answer on whether we're staying or leaving, and where we're going to go. So they will not think that we closed."

Cornerstone is open from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. weekends.

Photos by Suzanne Hurt, a staff reporter covering business and development for The Sacramento Press.

Sugar Plum Vegan Opens

2010-04-01T03:55:36Z

The organic purist, eco-conscious, thigh-conscious and dietary trendy may rejoice that Rick's Dessert Diner on K Street has a new neighbor with a new selection of baked treats.

Sugar Plum Vegan, a vegan and wholesale bakery that offers fair-trade coffee and organic ingredients, has opened its doors for service.

The cozy spot, situated below what was True Love Coffeehouse, has just enough capacity to hold five small tables and a very friendly staff, unfazed by transition issues with the ATM and continuous stream of customers placing to-go orders.

"We want those that are hard core vegans as well as those who are just curious to feel comfortable here" said Owner and Chef, Melissa Sugar.

The menu, which is available online, boasts a host of creative 100 percent vegan entrees, employing soy and garbanzo-based alternatives in generous, heaping portions.

The nachos come with black beans, meatless chicken, dairy and gluten-free cheese, vegan sour cream and guacamole. The Midtown Club sandwich tastes like a genuine BLT with crispy tempeh and veganaise in place of the "B."

"We are dedicated to bringing the public a cruelty free and loving experience" said Sugar. "We offer items that are for the die hard vegans that focus on whole foods as well as the transitional foods, like Gardien faux meat and Daiya gluten and soy-free cheese".

While the menu is small, it's also reasonably priced, with house-made burgers (garbanzo and veggie-based) ranging from $7 to $11.

Baked goods, Sugar Plum's specialty, are not only delicious but also beautiful. Their creators seem to have found a way to circumvent the droopy look that vegan treats often wear to remind you that what you're eating is a bastardized health alternative.

Sugar Plum also offers custom-designed cakes, seasonally appropriate pies and wedding/party catering menus.

Raw foodists and gluten-free eaters will find something to enjoy here, as will people who are into sunny patios, free WI-FI and don't mind smelling like incense.

Sugar intends to open the back patio for performances by live music and local poets.

Stay tuned to the eatery's website, as it is rumored that a weekend All-You-Can-Eat Brunch Buffet is in the works.

Vive Cocina open on K Street

2010-03-25T04:25:28Z

Vive Cocina Mexicana and Ultra Lounge has replaced Three Monkeys on K Street.

Vive Cocina opened last month at 723 K St., next to St. Rose of Lima Park, according to a restaurant manager. The opening had been scheduled for December, then January, said Felipe Olvera, one of the owners.

Juan Ayalagarcia, who operated Playa Azul Night Club on Auburn Blvd., is partnering with Olvera and four or five others in the venture, according to Olvera and records from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

A Franchise Tax Hold was issued against the liquor license March 8. However, Vive Cocina has had an active license since Nov. 23, said Lori Ajax, administrator of the Sacramento ABC office.

City considering K Street developers

2010-03-23T06:04:32Z

Not everyone can agree on what the future K Street should look like when it comes to putting hammer to nail.

Four development teams vying for work and the chance to make their mark on this key piece of downtown real estate have at least one thing in common: they all recognize the possibility of using federal low-income housing tax credits and historic tax credits to create a mixed-use neighborhood integrating the street's historic architecture.

"That's a major opportunity," said Sacramento developer David Taylor, a team leader for the group 700-800 K Street, LLC, at a presentation hearing scheduled by the city of Sacramento Monday night. "It's a major headache as well."

Each team wants to build housing, retail and office space. But plan details and team philosophies differ.

For instance, Rubicon Partners Inc., St. Anton Partners and Preferred Capital Advisors want to build a neighborhood around a 35,000-square-foot farmer's market, 2,000-seat entertainment venue, a 22,000-square-foot grocery store and an artisan alley with artists' apartments over their ground-floor work spaces. The plan calls for 100,000 square feet of retail — far larger than the three other plans.

"We're looking for a game-changer on K Street," said Kipp Blewett, co-founder of Rubicon Partners and chairman of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership. The team believes the project will draw people downtown again after other plans have failed.

The farmer's market and sizeable entertainment venue would not be located far from a mixed-use redevelopment under way in the railyards downtown, where the city appears likely to build a future sports and entertainment arena. Thomas Enterprises is in the midst of a $5 million cleanup of the railyards' historic "Central Shops" and restoration of a 56,000-square-foot historic building that will house an open-air public market at the heart of the 244-acre development.

The K Street development team members see themselves as supporters, rather than competitors with Thomas or the arena developer. However, this team's farmer's market could be built within three to five years, while Thomas' might not be built for seven to 10, Blewett said.

"We're ready to go on K Street," he added. "We're ready to go now."

Thomas Enterprises could not be reached for comment.

Another team — Bridge Housing, Saca Development and Bagatelos Development LLC — wants to build "sustainable" market rate and low-income housing that blend into one another, interspersed with 34,000 square feet of open-space terraces and courtyards. The plan would incorporate such things as photovoltaic roof canopies and healthy building materials.

The team is excited about integrating new housing and existing historical properties, including the Bel-Vue Apartments, to create "more of a neighborhood," said Brad Wiblin, vice president of Bridge Housing.

"We're in a situation which really calls for a change in dynamics on the ground," he added.

Following models that have worked in San Diego and Old Pasadena, Taylor's group — which includes Z Gallerie owner Joe Zeiden — wants to start with retail and finish construction within two years, constructing a mixed-use project that is needed in this economy while allowing room for future growth.

Zeiden helped revive Old Pasadena by building one of his stores there, before there was housing. That started the district's redevelopment, said Zieiden. He now plans to move his store out of Westfield Downtown Plaza and onto the 700 block of K Street in an effort to kick-start a similar revival in Sacramento.

"I've been doing this for 30 years now. I've seen what works. I've seen what doesn't," he said. "I think the street has amazing potential."

D&S Development, Inc., and CFY Development Inc. — led by Cyrus Youssefi — want to reduce the size of 160-foot-deep retail spaces on the 700 block of K Street and use the 66-foot-deep leftover space to create alley-fronting housing and a garage.

They envision a flower shop, restaurants and sidewalk cafes and vendors' sidewalk kiosks in a block of mainly restored historic storefront. They also plan to restore the mural on the original Tower Records storefront and commission other murals from local artists. The goal is to draw retail energy out of storefronts and create the kind of vitality found on Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade or Berkeley's Fourth Street, said architect Bob Kuchman.

"We're really trying to reinvigorate the street and create a real energy out here," he said.

The city will hold development team interviews March 25 at a time and location not yet disclosed. The Sacramento City Council is expected to choose a development team by mid-May. For more information about the proposals, click on this link.

4 Proposals for K Street

2010-03-21T19:25:18Z

On Monday, March 22, the city of Sacramento will host presentations by the four development groups interested in building a project on the 700 and 800 blocks of K Street. This meeting will be held at Old City Hall, 915 I Street, in the 2nd floor hearing room, at 5:30 PM.

The four groups who responded to the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) include:

* Bridge Housing, Saca Development and Bagatelos Development

They propose 360 units of housing, a renovated Bel-Vue, 48,000 square feet of office not on Agency property, and 33,000 square feet of retail.

* David Taylor, CIM Development, Domus, and Zeiden Properties

They propose 110 housing units, including a renovated Bel-Vue, 60,000 square feet of retail and 57,000 square feet of office.

* CFY Development and D&S Development

Their project for the 700 blocks includes retaining the facades on the 700 block, building new units to the alley including 136 residential units and 37,000 feet of retail space.

* Rubicon Partners, St. Anton Partners, and Preferred Capitol Advisors (Sacramento Alliance Team)

This proposal requires the entirety of the 700 and 800 blocks, including properties not under Agency control, to create 400 residential units, a 2000 seat entertainment venue, 175,000 square feet of retail including a grocery and farmer's market, 150 high-end luxury condos, and a 375 room four-star hotel.

This presentation will allow the public to learn more about the development groups and the proposals. More information about the proposals can be found here:

www.cityofsacramento.org/econdev/news/documents/700800LK_RFQ_Update.pdf

This meeting will be followed by interviews between the developers and a city-appointed selection committee (at this time, the makeup of the selection committee is unknown to this writer, but the city created the committee on March 15) on March 25. The City Council is expected to decide on a development proposal in April or May of this year.

To learn more, come to the meeting and meet the developers and city staff, who will present the four project proposals.

Monday March 22, 5:30 PM-7:00 PM

Old City Hall (915 I Street)

2nd Floor Hearing Room

Disclosure: William Burg is a board member of the Sacramento Old City Association (SOCA)

Golden Bear renovation soon complete

2010-03-12T05:18:54Z

With its remodel nearly finished, The Golden Bear is expected to host a grand unveiling as early as St. Patrick's Day on Wednesday.

Owners Jon Modrow and Kimio Bazett said they hope to have the work done by Monday. But the bar in the converted house at 2326 K St. must still undergo final inspections from the city and county, so the exact date for a reopening party has not been set.

Crews were busy Thursday completing renovation of the kitchen, bathrooms and an enclosed, covered back patio. Aqua couches, white tables and modern light fixtures with dimmers have been installed in the back room to create a clean, light ambiance, free of artwork. The idea is to showcase people "at their best," Modrow said.

"You're not going to be looking at art. You're going to be looking at people," he said. "It's all intended to be very social."

The room also serves as the smoking area. Vents were built in the back wall near the ceiling, and two powered exhaust fans will recirculate air every four minutes, he added.

The kitchen and bathrooms have doubled in size. The kitchen now has a range stove. Billy Zoellin, who worked previously at The Grange, Biba and Mulvaney's B&L, will create small-plate appetizers, an expanded weekend brunch and lunch Monday through Friday.

"We're becoming more of a gastro-pub," Modrow said.

The beer is also improving. A new draft beer system will pour Guinness with nitrogen and cool beers to about 35 degrees. It's a much higher-end system than what you'd find "in a frat boy's garage," he added.

The bathrooms now feature glass sinks, ceramic tile floors and waterfall faucets, where water pours from a fixture about a foot above the sink.

The front of the bar will be cleaned up, but no changes are expected there. The renovation, which had been slated for completion by the end of January, took longer after the county health department required a change in the water heaters, Modrow said, adding that he and Bazett then added other changes as well.

The staff is expected to grow from 20 to nearly 30. The bar has been open during the remodel. Food will start being served once the reopening party is held.

Photos by Suzanne Hurt.

K Street Renovation Progress

2010-02-19T22:04:16Z

After months of delay, officials say the K Street renovation project is on course for completion.

The streetscape renovation includes the installation of intersection and gateway elements, lighting, landscaping and benches through the 700 block of K Street.

According to project details posted by the city's Economic Development Department, the project is aimed to enhance the aesthetics and safety of the block, as well as provide for better pedestrian accessibility and increased connectivity.

The makeover, a joint undertaking of the city and Sacramento Regional Transit, was projected to be completed in November, in time for the holidays. However, construction delays forced the Midtown Business Association to relocate Sacramento's seasonal ice-skating rink from its traditional spot at the park to a new location on 20th and J Streets.

"The lengthened construction period has been a result of unanticipated construction delays and weather," said project representative Denise Malvetti. "The park was substantially completed in November prior to the Downtown Sacramento Partnership's Carnival."

The recent weather shift is good news for Downtown pedestrians anxious to see the project completed.

"We have had great weather for over a week and are on track to complete the job in the next couple of months," Malvetti said.

8th & K Street Hotel Proposal Update

2009-12-04T03:15:04Z

A revised proposal by USA Hospitality, Inc. and their equity partners Consus Asset Management and Industrial General has been submitted for building a Marriott Renaissance Hotel at the corner of 8th & K Street. The new proposal includes a decrease in the number of hotel rooms from 409 to 300, and a decrease in the number of parking spaces from 372 to 350 while adding 100 condominiums on top of the parking garage as a second phase of the project. The total cost to build the project went up from $137 million to $162 million along with the needed city subsidy to build from $31.5 million to $33 million. The developer has asked that the city give them the land which is city-owned for free, and to forgive taxes on the hotel for the first few years of its operation as part of their needed subsidy deal.

The property has been tied up for 14 months in an "Exclusive Right to Negotiate" with USA Hospitality, Inc., but on December 8th the city staff will recommend releasing the Request for Qualifications for the 700 and 800 blocks of K Street with a due date of February 12, 2010. It’s anticipated that the city staff could return to the Redevelopment Agency by early April with several other proposals for the 8th & K Street site. In that time USA Hospitality must do three things.

1) Obtain stronger financial commitments from all equity financial partners.
2) Developer conduct an assessment of the Bel-Vue to determine the costs associated with preserving the façade.
3) Complete negotiated business terms for inclusion in Disposition and Development Agreement.

I still don’t see the value in the city giving away $33 million in land and future taxes when just two blocks up the street at 10th and K Street Toni Giannoni is asking for $10 million to build a 165-room hotel that better fits our market. Toni also has an excellent record of finishing projects downtown where there are more development regulations that can tie up a proposal. In the case of the 8th and K Street design, the developer has a half block to work with, so instead of a massive parking garage the parking should be spread out over the entire half block above the lobby and ground floor retail but below the hotel rooms like has been done with ten other high-rises in downtown. If the city can nudge the developer to do this sort of design instead, the proposal would actually be shorter but the curb appearance would be far nicer. We don’t need another 6 story car garage at the corner of 8th & L Street; car garages have a history of deadening side walk activity for entire blocks and devaluing distinctive corners in our city. I hope both our City Council and planners consider the consequences, there is no need to repeat mistakes of the past again.

(The photo above is a city owned parking garage across from City Hall at 10th & I Street)

Report to the Redevelopment Agency of the City of Sacramento

A 10-Step Plan To Fix K Street, Or: The Legend of the Skyscraper Fairy

2009-10-12T03:55:54Z

As a Sacramento resident keenly interested in the history of K Street from the gold rush to the present, I have read many opinions regarding the best ways to fix the ongoing problems of K Street. Some have been proposed recently, ideas that I view with a mixture of amusement and horror. Most involve returning to the mistakes of the past while clearly avoiding its successes. In order to take the best from the past while avoiding some of its mistakes, I have selected some favorites. I can take credit for none of them, as they are all ideas that have been suggested at other times and places, but they seem like the best of the lot to me. This ten-point plan varies in scope from the very simple and inexpensive to the rather complex and expensive, some are short-term solutions while others are longer-term solutions for better times, but all of them are practical. I can provide more detail about most of these points if requested.

1. Accept that the Skyscraper Fairy does not exist.

Many landlords along K Street have no apparent interest in maintaining or improving their properties. Some are convinced that as long as they own the land, the magical Skyscraper Fairy will give them uncountable millions for the land where their decaying buildings sit, and will replace them with shiny new skyscrapers. Thus, they have little interest in maintaining or tenanting their buildings. The result is under-utilized or vacant buildings whose facades continue to crumble. Despite the Downtown Partnership’s efforts to power-wash streets and alleys, buildings allowed to fall into disrepair, inhabited only by bats and squatters, make our historic buildings into eyesores. Ideally, the city’s code enforcement division would issue stiff fines to property owners who allow their buildings to fall into disrepair, in order to prevent demolition by neglect. Unfortunately, the city of Sacramento is also one of the guilty parties, and one of the strongest believers in the Skyscraper Fairy. City-owned properties currently sit vacant, awaiting their own savior in the form of a deep-pocketed developer who will brush aside the old building and provide badly-needed money to build something else. Given K Street’s current state, this is unlikely—the only propositions so far are dependent on generous subsidies from the city of Sacramento. Until both the city and K Street property owners can be dispelled of their belief in the magical skyscraper fairy, their properties will continue to rot.

2. It’s time to leave the shopping mall in the past.

K Street was a bustling place until the 1950s, when most of Sacramento’s population moved out of the central city, the residential neighborhoods adjacent to downtown Sacramento were demolished, and the city streetcar system was replaced by highways and automobiles. Suburban malls were closer to the new suburban neighborhoods and had plentiful parking, while K Street was far away and none of the stores had parking lots. The K Street pedestrian mall of the 1960s and 1970s was a desperate move to woo suburban shoppers by simulating a suburban mall, including demolition of nearby buildings to provide parking. But the suburban malls were still more convenient, and their parking lots bigger and more obvious, so K Street’s rebirth as a mall of the 1970s failed. A 1990s re-vamp that enclosed the section from 4th to 7th Street has become another failure, due to its failure to move beyond the idea of a suburban mall downtown.

A new generation of city planners has noted that shopping centers of the 2000s look a lot like old downtowns, with stores that copy historic styles and a mixture of pedestrian paths and driveways. These planners have decided that this is the future of K Street, and call for a return of cars to K Street so they can pretend K Street is a new suburban "power center," the 2010s equivalent of a shopping mall. But those suburban “power centers” are still closer to suburban shoppers, and their parking lots are still bigger. If K Street is simply opened to cars and its facades remodeled to emulate new suburban shopping centers in North Natomas, how can the result be any different from the last two attempts to disguise downtown Sacramento as a suburban mall?

3. Cars, no. Bikes, yes.

The simplest change to energize K Street will cost very little: permit bicycle riding on K Street. Bike riding is already on the rise, and the freedom to bike on K Street would turn it into the main cycling corridor of the central city, free from the vehicular mayhem of J and L Street. Provide a few bike racks so bike riders can stop and shop as well as ride through, and the numbers strolling past store windows will dramatically increase.

4. Shrink light rail to streetcar size.

Until the 1940s, K Street had transit in all sizes. On K Street itself, streetcars ran from the heart of downtown to Midtown, Southside and nearby suburbs like Land Park, Oak Park and East Sacramento. These cars were small, typically 30-40 feet long, about the size of a modern bus, and operated at speeds up to 25-30 miles per hour. Like a bus, they worked reasonably well with traffic, but because they had fixed rails they had a smoother ride and a predictable path, making them more comfortable for riders. Trains ran every ten minutes during the day, and “owl” runs carried late-night travelers all night.

On the corner of 8th and K Street, interurban trains ran in both directions. Passengers from Woodland, Chico, Stockton and even Oakland could hop on the train and get off on K Street. These trains were bigger, 60-80 feet long, and operated in trains as long as 6-8 cars. They were taller and wider than streetcars, and could reach 60-70 miles per hour going flat-out through the countryside. They ran on 8th Street because K Street was far too busy to handle the big trains.

Today, modern Light Rail trains are more like the interurbans than streetcars. With 80 foot long bodies and operating in four-car trains, they are not well-suited to playing the role of a streetcar. By through-routing Blue Line trains north via the upcoming 7th Street extension and connecting to North 12th Street via Richards Boulevard, light rail trains could bring passengers from Folsom, Rancho Cordova, South Sacramento and North Highlands to K Street without crowding pedestrians off the street.

Meanwhile, the streetcars can return to K Street. Some of Sacramento’s historic streetcars exist in unrestored condition in private collections, but modern streetcars offer amenities like air conditioning and ADA-accessible low-floor entryways. They can run on the existing K Street tracks while leaving more room for pedestrians and bikes. Using existing light rail lines and sharing their tracks, these streetcars can link nearby neighborhoods and connect with light rail. Extending streetcar lines into existing neighborhoods and new development areas costs less than one-third the price of light rail extensions and drives population density, economic investment and reduces the need for cars and parking. Run them until after 2:00 AM to give downtown visitors an option to leave their cars at home—especially if they plan on drinking.

5. Legalize street life.

This is another cheap and easy solution. Part of Second Saturday’s success is its prolific use of street music, performers, and vendors, but its monthly status creates a feast-or-famine condition. A permit program to allow music, performance and vending at any time means that visitors to K Street won’t need to check their calendars before going downtown. Street music and vending also gives local entertainers and small businesspeople a stepping stone to a retail storefront or a musical career. Musicians and vendors will promote activity, give walkers a reason to stick around, and attract visitors to enjoy the street life. This also does not rule out special street festivals and special events above and beyond the day-to-day activity, and maintaining K Street as a pedestrian walk maintains this valuable civic amenity for more public festivals. Both everyday street life and special events will draw visitors from within Sacramento, the surrounding region, and tourists from out of town.

6. Tours bring tourists.

Despite the demolition of the past few decades, K Street still retains a remarkable number of historic buildings, proud evidence of our architectural heritage in stone, terra cotta and concrete. Many cities use local tourism programs to bring visitors into the heart of the city, but to most visitors, Sacramento’s history ends at the edge of Old Sacramento. Efforts to alter this perception have been minimal. The Downtown Sacramento Partnership has a guided tour program, but it is minimally staffed, minimally funded, and minimally advertised. Downtown visitors looking for local history information are likely to come up empty-handed. Sacramento needs a full-strength tourism program worthy of a city with such a rich and diverse history. K Street, the walking street at the heart of the city, can be the center of such a tour program, with more tours branching out into nearby downtown streets and our architecturally rich residential neighborhoods. History tours appeal both to visiting tourists and to locals interested in learning more about their city's past.

On K Street, the potential star attraction of local tourism is right under your feet. Sacramento’s underground sidewalks, the result of a street-raising measure intended to keep the city above flood waters, run the length of K Street from the river to about 12th Street. Many are demolished, but enough material remains to allow a tour to weave in and out of underground sidewalk spaces, sunken alleys, basements, and even below-surface businesses. Combined with the dramatic story of the raised streets, and some entertaining and colorful stories from Sacramento’s history, the potential of an underground sidewalks tour is unlimited. In Seattle, local booster Bill Speidel turned a walk through clammy underground sidewalks in a notoriously bad part of town into a million-dollar tourist attraction that is known worldwide, drawing as many as 300,000 visitors a year and employing as many as 50 full-time staff. There is no reason that Sacramento can’t do the same.

7. Bring on the nightlife.

If a suburban mall isn’t the answer, what will bring suburban residents downtown? The answer is simple: Give them something the suburbs don’t have. Sacramento is best known for its quiet suburbs, the result of a decades-long whitewashing operation to conceal our party-animal past. The rowdy days of the Gold Rush, the proliferation of local breweries and wineries, our almost total refusal to acknowledge Prohibition, the legendary jazz and blues clubs of Sacramento’s West End, and even last year’s New Year’s Eve party (2,000 expected, 12,000 attended) burst through the “town where nothing happens” façade. It’s time to face the truth, and bring more nightlife down the length of K Street. This doesn’t just mean bars, it also means late-night restaurants, theaters, live music venues, dance clubs, movies, spas and salons, comedy clubs, coffee shops, and other imaginative options for entertainment. Cooperative parking agreements with state parking lots can provide tens of thousands of parking spaces, and better public transit can carry revelers home in safety.

8. Shop local, even if you’re from out of town.

The shopping-mall consultants are half right about K Street—it does need more than nightlife to survive. Daytime and early evening traffic means retail stores and services in between the state-employee lunch rush and the arrival of the dinner, drinks and dancing crowd. However, national chain stores are hesitant to expand, even if bribed into doing so. And again, suburban visitors won’t drive downtown to a store in their local mall. The answer is, again, to give them something the mall doesn’t have: unique, local stores. Local businesses keep money in the local economy, stimulate local employment and provide a unique character that chain stores simply can’t match. Encouraging local businesspeople to rent storefronts on K Street should be a city priority. Matched with neighborhood-serving retail like food markets, cleaners, drugstores and small department stores, locally-based retail on K Street should appeal to suburban shoppers, out-of-town visitors, and central city residents. As stores fill and crowds start to appear, instead of having to beg national chains to locate on K Street, they will appear on their own, smelling money to be made.

One idea we might lift from San Francisco: the much-adored Metreon, high-tech consumer wonderland, is falling on hard economic times, with many vacancies. Earlier this year, a full-time farmer’s market moved into the Metreon, and has already proved a popular destination. A permanent farmer’s market on K Street, instead of the current sporadic weekly markets, would provide fresh foods to a neighborhood where none are sold. Downtown workers, visitors and residents would all benefit from a convenient source for the Sacramento Valley’s agricultural bounty.

9. Living on K Street shouldn’t mean sleeping directly on it.

The destruction of the downtown neighborhoods near K Street was followed by the destruction of thousands of inexpensive rental rooms, commonly known as SRO hotels, where thousands of workers lived. As inexpensive housing disappeared, the poorest people did not. Out of necessity, they made their home on the streets. Many are still there, and as existing SRO stock is phased out of service and homeless services disappear, their numbers grow. They will not vanish and they will not simply move away, because they have nowhere to go and no alternative. The only way to reverse this trend is to replace the housing that was lost. This replacement housing need not be here on K Street, but it needs to be somewhere. Our only alternative is to accept the presence of people sleeping on the streets as an unalterable condition, and tell them that their suffering is necessary and unavoidable—or to simply remain in denial of the problem, which amounts to the same thing. As a people, as a city and as a nation, I think we are capable of better than that.

But it isn’t just the poorest that need housing in the central city. Housing for all income levels should be included in new development projects, but putting it into existing buildings would be even easier. Many formerly residential buildings were converted to office use in the 1960s and 1970s, so why not convert the abundance of vacant upper-story office space back into residential units? This housing should cross the economic spectrum: SRO units for the disabled and seniors, low-income units for service employees, workforce housing for office employees, and high-end, high-up housing for the high rollers. A truly urban life results when you can see all the way across the economic spectrum just walking down the street. That can’t happen unless the street has places for all of them to live, dine, work and shop. Again, not all of these places have to be directly on K Street, but they should be close enough to walk there in a few minutes. Restoration of residential buildings will preserve their architectural value, bring life back to the neighborhood, fill a great social need, and jobs restoring and maintaining the buildings will create more employment than comparable levels of new construction.

10. Have faith, be good, and the Skyscraper Fairy will come.

Part of the current mentality of property owners on K Street is based on outdated models of how downtown development should happen. For decades, cities were assumed to be teeming pits of an imaginary disease called “blight” that could only be cured with wrecking balls and a liberal application of public-funded redevelopment dollars, designed to push out “undesirable” tenants and solicit only the coveted suburban émigré to return to the central business district, and then only to spend money and leave, never to live. Today’s cities don’t work like that anymore. People want to live in cities because they want the amenities of urban life unavailable in the suburbs. If K Street can offer those amenities, not a sanitized Disneyland version and certainly not a copy of a suburban mall, they will grow interested in K Street. If they are interested, they will come to visit. If there are places to live, and things to see and do, they will want to move downtown. Once enough people have moved downtown that there is no longer room in existing buildings, and people feel safe and secure in neighborhoods that are well-maintained, high-rise developers who understand how cities work will look at K Street and see dollar signs. Instead of developers seeking handouts to build on K Street, they will come with money in hand where they think they can make even more.

And when they do, the Skyscraper Fairy will visit the property owners and civic leaders who took care of their buildings, who encouraged vitality and street life instead of a tax write-off, who promoted transit and walkability, and drew people back downtown to share in K Street’s uniqueness, character and history. She will shower them with money and riches and blessings, and cranes will rise on K Street, filling the gaps between the last century’s architectural gems with bright, tall new buildings. Yes, Sacramento, there is a Skyscraper Fairy, but she has very high standards.

William Burg is a board member of the Sacramento Old City Association. This story is a guest editorial opinion, and does not represent the opinion of Sacramento Press or its editors.

Crest relit Monday night

2009-09-21T03:26:49Z

Nights on K Street will be lit up once again by the colossal Crest Theatre marquee.

A four-month restoration of the landmark neon sign wrapped up Friday when the last neon tubes were installed. Theater operators have invited the public to a relighting ceremony at 7:15 p.m. Monday -- just two weeks shy of the Crest's 60th anniversary celebration.

"When I saw the first coats of paint, my first reaction was, 'That's really bright,' " said Sid Garcia Heberger, one of four people who operate the Crest. "But once I saw it in the larger context, I realized how well it works together and how right it looks."

In May, Heberger and her partners hired YESCO sign company to perform a $213,000 restoration of the marquee. The work is part of a $360,000 renovation project on the building, which is on a list of the city's essential historic sites. Interior work is expected to be completed by year's end.

As a Sacramento landmark, the Crest Theatre's art deco sign can be found in most promotional material used by the city and the Sacramento Convention and Visitors Bureau. The theater sits at the center of K Street Mall, where redevelopment efforts are underway. The city's Economic Development Department is footing the bill for the restoration.

The sign's restoration was undertaken with the blessing of the family which that has owned the theater building for nearly 100 years.

Dr. Briggs, who owned a physicians' building at 10th and K streets, bought the 1013 K St. property in 1910. He leased it to Sullivan and Considine, men who managed vaudeville acts, and in 1913, they completed the Empress Theatre. Today, the building is held in the Briggs family trust.

New operators renamed the theatre the Hippodrome in 1918 and converted that into a movie theater in the late 1920s. The theatre was remodeled and reopened as the Crest on Oct. 6, 1949. The theater closed in 1979 after the decline of K Street Mall and dwindling ticket sales.

Over the next few years, several people tried to operate the theater. The Crest was rescued by Linda McDonagh, owner of The Palms playhouse in Davis, and Bill Heberger, Andy Field and Gary Schroeder, who were involved with the Palms, Sid Garcia Heberger said.

McDonaugh brought the trio to do the Crest's stage lighting, sound and other work so the Crest could reopen in 1986. Heberger, Field and Schroeder later took over as sole operators, said Heberger, who joined the theater in 1986 as a candy girl and became the fourth operator after marrying Bill Heberger.

YESCO workers repaired or replaced more than 45 neon light units on the marquee, which includes a 90-foot blade and reader board. They also recaptured the sign's original paint colors. The sign had been painted in pastels during its first restoration 17 years ago, said Sean Ward, YESCO's service sales representative on the project.

YESCO also built a deck and a rappelling system on the sign to make future maintenance easier. Scaffolding was removed Wednesday and the paint on the marquee received final touches Friday morning, Ward said.

After the relighting ceremony Monday night, there will be a private showing of Michael Moore's new film, "Capitalism: A Love Story."

The public is invited to return on Oct. 6 to celebrate the Crest's 60th anniversary. The theater, which seats 975, will charge filmgoers 60 cents to see Warner Bros.' only print of "That Midnight Kiss," which opened the Crest in 1949, Sid Garcia Heberger said.

"They said it's in good shape. So we're really excited to be able to present it," she said.

A digital copy of screechy 1949 newsreel footage from the Crest's opening also will be shown — for the first time in decades.

"It's really something," Heberger said. "It makes me get goosebumps whenever I look at it."

The former candy girl said the refreshment stand will be stocked with 1940s candy such as Black Crows, Jujubes and Snow Caps.

"We promise it will all be fresh candy — it won't actually be from the 1940s," she said.

Doors open at 6 p.m. The show starts at 7 p.m.

"We're not selling tickets in advance, and we're not taking credit cards," Heberger said. "We wanted to do something that was kind of a give-back to the community, just as a thank-you that the community has been supportive of the Crest."

Photo of restored Crest Theatre sign provided by YESCO sign company. Historic Crest Theatre photo used with permission from the theater. Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Status Report: 800 K/L Hotel Proposal

2009-08-26T23:14:45Z

Last night the Sacramento City Council discussed the future of the proposed 23 story hotel and parking garage at 8th & K/L St. by developer Bob Leach/USA Hospitality. The last time Mr. Leach was to appear before the Council two weeks ago he asked for a delay because his proposal was going to be slammed over the financing for the proposal. This time they came back to the council offering 40% of cash flow instead of 10% over 10 years and asking for 50% of the Transient Occupancy Tax rebate over 14 years instead of 100% over 10 years. USA Hospitality’s now asking for $31.5 million subsidy from the city in an effort to make this project feasible. After a few council members made their opinions known about keeping the façade of the Bel-Vue by incorporating it into the hotel project, the council agreed to a 90 day extension to see if USA Hospitality can pull things together and make this project work.

It looks as though the 90 day extension may have ended Tony Giannoni hopes to also build a 165-room hotel at 10th & K Street. A spokesman on behalf of Mr. Giannoni told the council that if they gave a 90 day extension to the 8th & K St. hotel proposal, they would see that as a sign to drop their project because the market could not support both projects. If after 90 days the USA Hospitality’s bid get rejected by the council and the other proposal at 10th & K has already withdrawn their proposal… we could be left with no new hotels on K Street.

This project still has to go through the Design Review Commission and Planning Commission as a part of the entitlement process. If this current design with the separate parking garage manages to be approved by both the Planning Commission and Design Review Commission, it will demonstrate in my opinion that neither the Commissions or the City Council really understand their roll in helping both designers and developers comprehend the rich context of this unique place in our city.

Street Interview

2009-08-20T03:11:56Z

The Sacramento Press provides an outlet for everyone in the community. We hit the street recently to get people's opinions about downtown's K Street Mall.

This week's question: What would it take to get you to shop, dine or drink regularly on K Street Mall?

Matt Gilliam, 34
Aspiring Filmmaker
Downtown Resident

"K Street, I don't go to that often at nighttime because there are unsavory-type people, scary people. There are more shops and things to do down there than there have been in the past, but it's still sketchy. I think they could put a police station there permanently, even a little kiosk-deal, so they're always there. I also think police on the light rail trains has something to do with it, because the light rail carries baddies to K Street."

Diane Sousa, 32
Analyst
Mather Resident

"At some point, K Street was exciting. But it's empty now. I guess a variety of dining options. Affordable is always attractive. I'm thinking more upscale, but affordable — something trendy and fun."

Robbie LaCasse, 25
State Worker/Bass Player for the [The] New Humans
Midtown Resident

"We have a rehearsal space down there. When I go down to the area, I just go to rehearse. I feel like if there was more going on down there or more things to do, I would spend more time down there. K Street is lacking attractions. At night, it's a little questionable. It needs more nighttime-foot traffic. There's no one down there at night.

Valinda Roberts, Declined to Give Age
Fiscal Manager
South Sacramento Resident

"When I worked down there, I did shop and eat there regularly. Now I'm working in Midtown. K Street — they do have two or three blocks there that are a little seedy, in which you do feel a little uncomfortable. One thing I noticed when I stayed to go to a movie at IMAX: A lot of the restaurants on that end were closed. It was a Thursday. It was pretty much dead. I could only find a Blimpie's or a Subway; that's all that was open."

Jeff Farley, 28
Art Foundry Artist/Welder
McKinley Park Resident

"I like to eat more organic foods, so: organic restaurants. Better-quality restaurants. I guess if they had more things to see, more artistic venues."

Debbie Tellez, 40
Sacramento County Department of Human Assistance Employee
Elk Grove Resident

"I haven't been over there in a long time. I used to go all the time. I think there are too many kids — young kids running around. They need to open up more shops, maybe not have so many young children hanging around. There are no shops, so you know it's like their little hangout. Maybe have more variety of fast food. When I went recently, it just looked like a little ghost town."

John Harris, 55
State Controller's Office Budget Analyst
Antelope Resident

"I'm interested in smooth jazz. If they had that type of venue, with meals — something like that would be pretty nice. They probably need a few more eating spots. As far as clothing, they don't have enough for middle-aged people. They have more clothing stores for young people. They need something to pull in the middle-aged crowd."

We welcome your suggestions for future "Street Interview" questions. Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. She can be reached at suzanne@sacramentopress.com or 804-2856.