Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "mall"

Downtown 24 Hour Fitness partially reopens

2011-07-20T06:41:45Z

The downtown 24 Hour Fitness location reopened Friday after a remodel that added approximately 31,000 square feet of floor space, a basketball court and new exercise machines.

“(We have) brand-new cardio (machines), strength training machines and free weights,” said downtown Club Manager Ben Ragsac.

He added that full-size basketball court and expanded kids’ club have been added, and a raquetball court is coming, which will be open by October.

The gym was closed from 8 p.m., June 17 until Friday at 6 a.m., when the second floor reopened. The full gym, including a lap pool, steam room, sauna, cycle room and other amenities will reopen around October, and more than 200 strength training and cardio machines will be available.

Ragasac said he is most excited about the increased square footage in the facility, located at 1020 Seventh St.

Samantha King, 25, works as a trainer at the club and said the equipment additions give a lot more space and opportunity to work out.

“We added a lot. (With) some of my favorite cardio equipment, we only had five (machines), and now we have 20,” she said, referring to a specific type of elliptical cardio machine.

Another addition was incline training machines, which she said are like treadmills, but mimick walking or running uphill.

“The Hoist (Fitness Systems) equipment is a big addition too,” she said. “On their Roc-It series, you’re moving your body weight and the weight you put on the machine. It’s really nice stuff.”

She added that the workout from that type of equipment is a better workout than more conventional equipment.

Response from members and staff has been positive, Ragasac said.

“Word was spread about the opening,” he said. “Existing members love it. The staff really loves it. It’s been overall pretty amazing.”

Frank Mecca, 46, said he is impressed with the expansion.

“It’s really nice,” he said. “The cardio and weight machines roughly doubled, and the facility itself is brighter and cleaner overall.”

Ruben Lopez, 24, said he is happy there is a basketball court on-site now, since it is more convenient to play at the gym than at a park in West Sacramento where he previously played.

“It’s brand-new, and it’s one of my best workouts,” he said. “There’s more space (at the gym), and now you can come anytime. Before, I used to have to wait until like 7 (p.m.) if I wanted to be able to work out, but now there’s space for everyone.”

The club expanded from an existing location and includes part of what used to be Hard Rock Café.

The intersection has seen a lot of activity lately, as the City Council approved plans by D & S Development, Inc., t o redevelop the 700 block of K Street into mixed-use housing and entertainment.

A new coffee bar and cafe scheduled to open next month on the corner of Seventh and K streets fronting Saint Rose of Lima Park will benefit from the opening of the club, according to its owners.

“With the (24 Hour Fitness) club open, we’re going to see a lot of people in the area,” Plaza Cafe Lounge co-owner Zack Alemi told The Sacramento Press last week.

The fitness club’s expansion was a benefit to the Westfield Downtown Plaza space, which has been plagued by lackluster tenancy and repeated talks of selling over the past few years.

“We at Westfield Downtown Plaza along with local health and fitness buffs look forward to the opening of the brand new expanded 24 Hour Fitness featuring state-of-the art facilities and amenities,” Downtown Plaza Marketing Director Raelene Trumm said in a prepared statement.

24 Hour Fitness officials declined to comment on the cost of the expansion, but Ragasac said he is happy to see it.

“I was born and raised in Sacramento,” he said. “I take a lot of pride in the city of Sacramento. I’m glad I’m part of an organization that during these times is able to invest in downtown Sacramento.”

The club is open 24 Hours per day, seven days per week. A free visitor pass can be downloaded from the company website.

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

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.

Roseville Police Don't Sing Hallelujah

2010-12-21T05:59:18Z

Police ejected a flash mob of hundreds of choral singers tonight from the Roseville Galleria mall. The choral singers, many clad in their Christmas clothes, had been anticipating singing an “impromptu” rendition of the “Hallelujah Chorus” in the food court.

The performance was conceived of by the Sacramento Choral Society and over the last few weeks, word quickly spread via email, Twitter and good old-fashioned word of mouth. As the 7:30 performance time neared, dense traffic in the food court came to a near standstill while singers clutched their sheet music for the 4-minute song.

When mall security was unable to redirect the crowd, the Fire Department closed the mall and ushered everyone outside. Denied their chance to sing inside, the crowd collected in the outdoor courtyard and began singing Christmas carols.

Despite repeated Police orders to leave the vicinity, the determined carolers of all ages stayed and at the appointed time, the “Hallelujah Chorus began”. With such a large group, the song was somewhat disjointed but the soprano voices soared above it all and the crowd got what it came for.

As the song finished, a Police helicopter arrived with bright searchlights and bullhorns ordering the crowd to disperse. But, by this time the chorus had been sung and people were leaving on their own, singing “Jingle Bells” and waving merrily at the helicopter overhead.

On a serious note, the impact of closing the mall must have been particularly hard for store-owners who were just recently able to re-open after the Galleria fire.

Shedding convenience for military families

2010-12-17T02:25:16Z

Rodney Stanhope is living in a shed at Arden Fair Mall, and he isn’t there to shop.

The shed lacks running water or kitchen facilities, and he “showers” with baby wipes. His living space is just big enough for a cot, a couple of camp chairs and a small shelf for his computer.

Stanhope, a Navy veteran and small business owner who normally lives in Placerville, has one mission this holiday season: collecting toys for military families with one or both parents deployed overseas.

“We can’t bring mom or dad home, but we can make sure they have a happy Christmas,” Stanhope said. “Their parents are out there fighting for our freedom and putting their lives on the line.”

Though he partners with the National Guard, he said toys go to children from all branches of the military, and they’re used all across California, distributed through military personnel tasked with helping families of deployed service members.

Stanhope said that after doing this annually for six years, he was ready to call it quits last year, but something changed his mind.

“Travis Air Force Base had a whole division coming home, 1,200 men,” he said. “(A program called Welcome Home Warrior) had Santa, and he had a sack, and the kids each got a toy. Then, when it was all done, they said, ‘And now there’s one more gift,’ and doors rolled up and their parents came out.”

After only being able to collect 300 toys, Welcome Home Warrior turned to Stanhope for the rest.

Witnessing the surprise Christmas gift for the children made Stanhope vow to keep doing it.

“It still gives me goosebumps just thinking about it,” he said.

Last year, he and other volunteers collected 15,000 toys and enough money to purchase 10,000 more toys, but this year has been difficult.

He has been at the shed since Dec. 10, and will stay there until Dec. 22.

“We have a big hole to fill,” he said.

Last year, Stanhope received a lot of media attention after his generator was stolen, but he said he has had trouble getting the word out this year.

Most-needed are toys for toddlers and kids over 14, but everything helps.

To make it easy for people to donate, Stanhope said anyone can bring toys, money and gift cards to the shed, located in the Best Buy parking lot across from Cheesecake Factory, or make monetary donations online.

Stanhope works through Yellow Ribbon America, a national nonprofit organization, so donations are tax-deductible.

The shed is technically open from 8 a.m. - 10 p.m., with uniformed service members on-hand until 1 p.m., but Stanhope said it’s effectively available 24 hours per day.

“I’m used to lack of sleep,” he said with a laugh.

The hardest part, he said, is being away from his wife for 12 days, as they will celebrate their first anniversary at the end of the year. And the cold.

“But that’s nothing compared to the military,” he said. “Some of them are deployed for over a year without seeing each other.”

Jayma Valentine, who spent 20 years in the Air Force as a nurse, brought a gift card to the shed Thursday afternoon.

“I come every year,” she said. “I don’t have kids of my own, so I figure I can give to them and help them get some decent Christmas presents.”

In addition to donations, volunteers are needed.

Nicolas Brown of El Dorado Hills was helping man the shed Thursday afternoon, and he said he came down to support a good cause.

“I’m a big military supporter,” he said. “They’re protecting basically everything we hold dear.”

To contact Stanhope directly, e-mail him at yellowribbonamerica@yahoo.com.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

A One of a Kind in Sacramento

2010-11-23T03:25:34Z

Where do you go when you want to buy or shop for a car? A car dealership obviously. But that’s the point, you GO to the dealership. That’s not necessary anymore. Planet Automotive Group in partnership with Hyundai have opened a new type of store, a car store, THE car store. The Hyundai Store.
The only store of it’s kind in North America, not even the Mall of America with its roller coaster and such has a store where you can walk in, test drive and purchase a car. They will even accept a trade-in if you got one.
Starting Monday, Nov. 22, the Hyundai Store is officially open for business in the Westfield Downtown Plaza. Employees were still polishing up the store as the days first customers came through the doors. Located on the lower level, next to Forever 21, you will find this wide open showroom with all 11 of the available models in the Hyundai lineup. “Our thinking was why not bring the store to where the people are,” says Chris Schaffer, a partner in Planet Automotive Group. “We want people to think seriously about Hyundai when they are considering a new car.”
Tim Langston, Store Director of the new Hyundai Store, loves the idea. “I got out of the car selling business 15 years ago because I didn’t like the process of selling somebody a car.” This store is different, and it’s what brought him back.
It’s not unusual to see cars inside of a mall, but for the most part they are placed there as an advertisement. The Westfield Galleria at Roseville has cars placed in different locations throughout the mall, but there is no salesperson to answer any questions.
Southern California has a Lamborghini store, also owned by Planet Automotive Group, but it is primarily a clothing store, with some other small merchandise. Yes, there is a Lamborghini in the store and technically you could walk in and buy it, but that hasn’t happened yet.
“Our employees don’t work on commission. They are here to answer any questions that a shopper might have,” says Langston. “Hyundai has made a lot of improvements over the years and we want people to see that.”

New Downtown Plaza store sells gifts, rugs, toys

2010-11-20T09:05:01Z

The former Doubleday bookstore in Downtown Plaza has a new tenant in time for the holiday shopping season – JZ Toys & Gifts, which opened Nov. 12.

“We sell toys for kids ages 2 to 3 and everything up to decorative knives and swords,” said Ali Mohammad, who helps his friend, store owner Zeba Alemi, by managing it.

Mohammad said this is the first business venture for them, and he hopes it succeeds.

In addition to toys and decorative reproduction edged weapons, the store also sells an assortment of ball caps, lamps, dishes and collectible dolls.

About one quarter of the store is devoted to handmade Oriental rugs from Pakistan.

“A family of two to three people will spend eight or nine months making each rug,” Mohammad said. “These are all hand-made, and none of them are made in China.”

A friend from Pakistan helps find and select the rugs for sale in the first-floor store located near the children’s play area in the mall.

Mohammad said business has been decent so far, but he hopes that with the onset of the holiday shopping season and Black Friday next week, business will pick up.

“We always have at least one person in the store,” Mohammad said. “The response about the rugs has been really good.”

As the store continues to build its stock, Mohammad said shoppers can expect more gift items and toys to fill the shelves that used to be stocked with books.

“JZ Toys & Gifts is an example of an operator from the community that recognizes that Westfield Downtown Plaza offers a convenient and friendly shopping experience,” said Russell Dougherty, general manager of Westfield Downtown Plaza, in an e-mail.

Mohammad said the mall is the perfect location for the business.

“This is a unique mall,” he said. “In most malls, I think you see a lot of the same people, but here, with the Amtrak station and being downtown and having the hotels around here, we see new people every day.”

For now, the store is doing a three-month trial run, Mohammad said. If the business proves successful, he said the plan is to extend the lease and be a permanent fixture in the space.

“The timing right now is really perfect,” he said. “I love it here. I would love to stay.”

The store is open during the mall’s regular hours.

Brandon Darnell is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

500 Needed for Galleria cleanup

2010-10-24T00:41:58Z

A local company will take resumes on Sunday and Monday to find cleanup workers.

Details here.

Children's Health & Wellness Fair on Capitol Mall

2010-04-21T19:01:55Z

On Saturday April 24, 2010 from 2:00-5:00 PM, Capitol Mall will be home to the first annual Children's Health & Wellness fair located between 5th & 6th streets. This is a free event for children and families. There wil be carnival rides, fun activities promoting healthy lifestyles for children, free dental screenings, karate & fencing demonstrations, massages for the adults, great food provided by many vendors including House Kitchen & Bar located on the block at 555 Capitol Mall.

The event is put on by the Sacramento Active 20-30 Club, who have been providing assitance, service, guidance and monetary support to local children's charities since 1922.

Westfield will sell Downtown Plaza

2009-12-15T20:43:48Z

Westfield Group has agreed to sell Downtown Plaza, Mayor Kevin Johnson announced Tuesday morning.

The city has been pressing Westfield to invest in the plaza for nearly 12 years. Since August, Johnson has been pushing the shopping mall owner to make good on its promise to invest at least $120 million in the under-performing plaza.

The alternative, he said at the time, was for Westfield to sell the plaza. Unwilling to invest that much, Westfield decided to sell, Johnson said. But the mayor and city staff must now find a buyer who can agree on a price with Westfield.

"Westfield has agreed to step aside, and, if necessary, sell its interests in Downtown Plaza," Johnson said during his weekly press conference Tuesday morning.

Westfield has not gotten on board with the city's new vision to open up the plaza, creating an "outward-facing" mall open to the sky and street traffic, he said.

The company's decision makes it easier for potential arena developers to discuss buying the property from Westfield, Johnson said.

Westfield had proposed a $120 million plaza overhaul in 2006. But the company repeatedly stalled on putting those plans into action. In May, Westfield postponed those plans for at least the rest of the year, yet completed a $120 million reinvestment at Westfield Santa Anita in Southern California's Arcadia.

Johnson and other city leaders have been meeting with Westfield representatives for months to negotiate either investment or the sale of the mall to the city or developers.

The Downtown Plaza was built in the 1970s. Westfield bought the plaza in 1998. The company now has more than $47 billion in investments in 119 shopping centers throughout the world.

The plaza has been losing tenants for years, and stores like Banana Republic and Ann Taylor closed recently. The mayor said he planned to call the chief executive officer of the plaza's anchor store, Macy's, later Tuesday to assure the department store chain of the city's commitment to the plaza and its retailers.

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.