After two years of planning and organization, renovations will begin on Feb. 6 for the Cesar Chavez Memorial Plaza. Since its construction 150 years ago, the park has been renovated many times to maintain it and adapt it to the new needs of the public. “It’s a prominent public space, and I’m looking forward to giving it a facelift,” said J. P. Tindell, park planning and development manager of the Sacramento Department of Parks and Recreation. Lisa Martinez, marketing director for the Downtown Sacramento Partnership (DSP), also said that she looks forward to the “beautification efforts” on the park. The DSP is known for holding many events in the park, including Friday Night Concerts in t

An array of designs submitted as part of the Catalyst Capitol Mall Design Competition in an effort to spark a “big idea” for future enhancement of the corridor from Tower Bridge to 10th Street were reviewed by a jury Oct. 7, and winners will be announced Nov. 9. While the winner can’t yet be revealed, Kris Barkley, competition adviser to the city on behalf of the American Institute of Architects, described some key assets of the winning proposal. “The first-place winner, I think, is really, really focused on what I think the people of Sacramento are feeling will work there,” he said. “It’s a tree-centered development that improves the urban canopy we have in Sacramento and brings it more

On Nov. 4, a festive Sacramento tradition will continue with the opening of the Downtown Plaza Ice Rink. 2011 marks the rink’s 20th anniversary of bringing locals together to celebrate the holidays on ice. “The rink will bring that New York City ice-skating feel (to) the heart of downtown Sacramento,” said Downtown Sacramento Partnership Marketing Director Lisa Martinez. The rink, located at 7th and K streets, provides locals with the feel of a big city winter. Martinez said that there is a painstaking process to turn St. Rose of Lima Park into a functional ice-skating rink. “It takes about three weeks, as long as the weather permits,” she said. The first step is to lay out a layer of

Sacramento’s St. Patrick’s Day party will be held downtown this year instead of on L Street so the event can accommodate the thousands of expected festivalgoers, according to Lisa Martinez, director of outreach and marketing for the Downtown Sacramento Partnership. The downtown organization and de Vere’s Irish Pub are organizing this year’s de Vere’s St. Patrick’s Day Party in the Park at Cesar Chavez Park from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Thursday, March 17. “Our goal is to create a bigger footprint for the event,” said Martinez, Downtown Sacramento Partnership’s director of outreach and marketing. From 5 a.m. to midnight on March 17, Ninth Street will be shut down between I and J streets for

Sacramento's holiday ice-skating rink opened downtown Friday with fanfare and free skating. About 120 screaming school kids joined Mayor Kevin Johnson, Assemblyman-elect Roger Dickinson and Downtown Sacramento Partnership Executive Director Michael Ault at a noon ceremony to welcome the Westfield Downtown Ice Rink back to St. Rose of Lima Park. The capital's outdoor winter skating rink was built in Midtown last year during a $4.5 million renovation of the park at Seventh and K streets, the 700 block of K Street and a light rail platform relocation. "I think the ice rink is back where it belongs," Dickinson told the crowd shortly before he, Johnson and Ault cut a big red ribbon at the ri

Downtown Sacramento will take the spotlight this week for the California Downtown Association's 2010 annual conference. The conference, which starts Wednesday and runs through Friday, marks the 15th anniversary of state legislation that allowed property-based improvement districts to finance improvements in business districts. The conference also marks the 15th anniversary of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, created in 1995 as the first such district and led by Michael Ault, said DSP spokeswoman Lisa Martinez. Local speakers will talk about successes in downtown Sacramento and other nearby districts. Several walking tours will highlight the city's architecture and other elements of i

Let's just say that you bought tickets to your favorite musical but had to sit in the back because those were the only seats available for a wheelchair user. Or you're a woman who needed to use the bathroom at intermission, but the lines were so long you had to miss the first 10 minutes of the second act. If you've been to the Community Center Theatre since it opened in 1974, you could have experienced a problem of this sort, said Convention Center Manager Judy Goldbar. Luckily, those are two major issues that a proposed $40 million renovation seeks to address. The theater, run by the Sacramento Convention Center, hosts a number of local and touring productions, including Broadway Sacrame