Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "sacramento railyards"

Railyards Birdseye View

2011-08-11T02:16:12Z

Here's an elevated view for another perspective to Big things underway at Sacramento Railyards by Carlos Eliason:

Big things underway at Sacramento Railyards

2011-08-03T19:31:40Z

The Railyards is currently abuzz with activity. I recently had the chance take a short tour of the construction as part of my work with the City and it is a sight to behold. Seeing the massive excavation of dirt is am impressive far cry from what the site looked like only two months earlier, when construction started in May. The progress of the 245 plot of land is a welcome sight.

The earth directly in front of the main shop buildings, north of the Sacramento Amtrak Station, takes a large dip, perhaps twenty feet deep now. Before, this area was a flat expanse of dusty land, reaching to the rail station. Excavators pepper the site, clambering around their newly built depths of soil. Steam leaves the ground where crews have placed lye to evaporate moisture, making the soil more stable. Workers shovel clods of earth in their respective holes. The energy on-site is well into a positive nature.

More information about the Railyards project can be found at the City of Sacramento's Intermodal Transportation Facility webpage.

Disclosure: Carlos Eliason is a photographer, videographer, and designer working in Sacramento, CA. More photographs can be seen at www.flickr.com/photos/carloseliason

Big plans for River District

2011-02-16T06:21:01Z

Major changes are in store for the city’s River District, as the Sacramento City Council approved a set of future development plans Tuesday night.

The planning documents set a path for development of the area over the next 25 years, according to a report from city staff. The city’s plans for the River District, a 773-acre swath between the Sacramento Railyards and the American River, focus on ramping up residential, commercial, office and hotel development and moving away from industrial development.

Council members approved the plans in a 8-0 vote. Mayor Kevin Johnson did not attend the City Council meeting because he was out of town, said Johnson spokesman Joaquin McPeek.

The city wants to remodel the River District area into a “transit-oriented mixed use urban environment,” according to the Feb. 15 city staff report. The refashioned district would feature 8,144 homes, 3.9 million square feet of office space, 854,000 square feet of retail and wholesale, 1.4 million square feet of light industrial and thousands of hotel units, according to the report.

The plans would be a major change from the district’s current developments, which are mostly industrial.

City Councilwoman Angelique Ashby praised city staff’s development plans for the River District, noting that planned projects for the area would involve redevelopment funding. Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed disbanding redevelopment agencies and using redevelopment money on other local services. The city hopes to use $25 million in redevelopment funds on the River District in the future.

“One thing I do want to point out is that this is a really great example of why cities need to have control of ... redevelopment dollars,” Ashby said. “These are exactly the types of gems and pearls we’re trying to bring into our cities.”

Infrastructure upgrades, public resources and administrative costs for the River District remodel over the next 25 years will cost an estimated $323 million, according to the report. Fees paid by developers would cover $180 million of the amount.

If Brown throws out redevelopment agencies, work on the plans will slow, said Rachel Hazlewood, a senior project manager for the city’s Economic Development Department.

In addition to development, the city is also designating nine sites in the area as historical landmarks and setting up a North 16th Street Historic District. Sites that will be identified as historical landmarks include the PG&E Sacramento River Power Station at 400 Jibboom St. and Fire Station No. 14 at 1341 N. C St.

Read the city staff report here.

View River District Landmarks in a larger map

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Our Firm Has Been Transparent on The Railyard

2010-09-08T22:57:32Z

By: Stan Thomas
Thomas Enterprises, Inc.

When Thomas Enterprises first got involved in the Railyards in 2002, it was a massive toxic wasteland, fenced off with hazardous-waste signs with abandoned buildings and no infrastructure or zoning. The site had been isolated from the City for 150 years with numerous failed efforts to redevelop the site over decades. I poured tens of millions of dollars of my own money into this site before the purchase was even realized, all at significant risk. When the acquisition stalled due to toxics, many including the Bee, called for us to move aside and allow other developers to step in. We remained determined and closed the transaction in December of 2006 without a loan, pouring tens of millions of additional money of my own along with funds from the sale of property to the City. We closed on the acquisition even though the site was not zoned, primarily unremediated and we had no assurance of public funding.

After the closing, we borrowed private money secured in part by the Railyards. The Bee, for reasons I don’t understand, suggests that there was wrongdoing in replenishing the funds I had earlier advanced from my other projects. The Bee also curiously fails to mention that the loans were secured by other Thomas projects with substantial equity to support the loans. These loans were obtained with the knowledge of the City. Lastly, the Bee fails to point out that public funds coming into the project have gone directly to public infrastructure for which they are earmarked and for land to be dedicated to the public. There is no misappropriation of funds and none of the public dollars have gone into other Thomas projects.

We have been transparent with the community and our public partners. We hired local employees, union contractors and vendors creating significant jobs with thousands more on the way during unprecedented economic times. During the nearly four years since we have owned the property, we substantially completed the soil clean-up, worked extensively with the community to incorporate their vision for the development and entitled the property. In spite of tremendous state-wide competition and calls by the Bee and others to fund other projects, we secured significant infrastructure funding that is currently transforming the historic buildings and constructing the 5th - 6th Street bridges. Work will soon start on the intermodal facility and other roads which enhance the region’s transportation infrastructure irrespective of the Railyards development. All of this has occurred on one of the largest and most challenging urban infill projects in the nation during the worst recession since the Great Depression, while other less complex projects in the region and nationally sit stalled.

As we are working on a transaction with our lender that allows this transformative project to continue, I remain committed to deliver on my promise to the Sacramento community.

Railyard shops cleanup, preservation underway

2009-11-11T06:25:04Z

Piles are growing at the city's old railyard.

Inside the long-abandoned Southern Pacific railroad shops, there are piles of metal, wood, debris and contaminated junk. Up on roofs, white-suited, specially trained abatement workers are pulling up roofing material and roofing adhesive containing asbestos. Outside one of the shops lies a makeshift salvage yard.

Georgia developer Thomas Enterprises and a contractor, Allied Environmental of Placerville, are three months into a $5 million cleanup of the historic "Central Shops," which will form the centerpiece of a 244-acre mixed-used district dubbed the Railyards.

The developers envision the shops as the cultural heart of a district that will include the future a regional transportation center and retail, office and residential use. The centerpiece will be an open-air market and adjacent plaza. There also has been talk of a $500 million arena/entertainment center, a performing arts center and even a new $500 million county courthouse.

During a tour of the shops Tuesday, Railyards Development Director Richard Rich said workers are setting aside everything connected to Sacramento's railroad history to be recycled and used in the district.

"We want to save every single piece of this," Rich said as he pointed to old metal lockers and train parts inside the former Paint Shop. "Part of our job is to retell the story of the railyards as we rebuild this and bring it back."

Very little remains from the 1930s or earlier, when the shops were the center of the locomotive industry on the West Coast and that industry drove the city, he said. For more railyard photos, go here.

The railroad company took most items of value long ago. Then, squatters and vandals carried off everything they could.

Still, workers have already dug up tons of gnarled, rusted iron during soil remediation. Rich said he would like to hire an artist to create a large sculpture from the salvaged iron. The sculpture would go in the future Market Plaza.

"That's a dream at this point," Rich said. "I don't know where we'd find the money."

Hundreds of heavy locomotive drive wheels and axles were found on the site, which lies next to the Sacramento Valley Station train depot. California State Parks gathered up most of them, and two drive wheels left with the developers may become sculptures. Thomas Enterprises is talking with the parks department about placing drive wheel sculptures at intersections throughout the district.

"I would like every single intersection that we do to have some calling card of rail history there," Rich said.

Central Pacific established the Sacramento railyard during the steam locomotive era. The company, which later became Southern Pacific, built the first shop in 1868 — before Sacramento gained fame as the western start of the first transcontinental railroad with the driving of the last spike on May 10, 1869.

In the 1930s, Southern Pacific slowly began abandoning the railyards. Rail traffic was down because of the Depression.

The company set up maintenance shops for newer diesel locomotives in more rural areas as Sacramento grew, and the shops began falling into disrepair. The shops officially closed in 1999, four years after Union Pacific bought Southern Pacific.

Now, eight Central Shops — seven brick and one metal — are all that remain of what was once at least 243 buildings. The developers are giving the metal Boiler Shop and the Erecting Shop, the largest and grandest, to state parks for its future Railroad Technology Museum. State parks will handle abatement of those.

The buildings' exteriors will be preserved following the Secretary of the Interior's guidelines for rehabbing historic buildings. Abatement work, Phase 1 of shop restoration, is expected to be completed by March.

On Tuesday, 50 workers worked on various abatement projects including removing the badly peeling lead-based interior paint, junk contaminated with heavy metals and polychlorinated biphenyl or PCB, and asbestos sheetrock, floor tiles and pipe insulation. They're also removing extensive graffiti.

"Our job now is to clean these buildings so we can start to do the major work on the renovation," Rich said.

British Environmental Resources Management is providing construction management. The company initially was hired by Southern Pacific and has done all cleanup at the site for 20 years.

"Our primary challenge was to make sure we could abide by California environmental laws to take toxics out but not damage these historic buildings," Rich said. "It's something we have to watch very carefully."

Workers can't remove all the lead-based paint without damaging historic interior bricks. So remaining paint will be encapsulated in new paint, in a process created by the city's environmental office, he said.

The Railyards are the country's largest infill project. Most of the six shops are expected to be filled by restaurants, clubs, retail shops and small museums. Organizations have expressed interest in setting up museums for model railroads, carousels and blacksmithing in the 3,800-square-foot Blacksmith Shop.

The 56,000-square-foot Paint Shop will house an open-air market with Central Valley products including produce, cheese, wine, meat and fish -- similar to San Francisco's Ferry Building. It will be near the extended 5th Street.

An open space next to it, once a turntable that moved locomotives and train cars to the Paint Shop, will be turned into Market Plaza. Plans call for landscaping, water features, public art and a small outdoor performance area.

"That plaza is going to be the cultural living room of this region," Rich said.

On the other side of the plaza, clubs, restaurants and shops are expected to open in the Planing Mill, Car Shop and Machine Shop, where locomotives, passenger cars and flat cars once were built. The first building constructed on the site was a machine shop in 1868. Upper floors could contain art lofts and archive space.

Small shops and restaurants could go into the "Tower of Jewels," a three-story brick craphouse built in 1878. The plaster facade is peeling off the brick building, so the mortar on that and the rest of the brick buildings will be repointed.

The shops are expected to be ready for tenants in two or three years. The city has committed to building a 2,000-space parking garage east of the market. The garage will serve the regional transportation center and the Central Shops, said Suheil Totah, Thomas Enterprises vice president.

The county is considering the site for a new courthouse, said Totah, adding that Thomas Enterprises likes the idea of the city building an arena there as well.

Rich said he expects all electrical cables at the site will be underground. He said he hopes to use a line of old above-ground electrical poles to hold a 30-foot-high, 300-foot-long lighted landmark "Sacramento Railyards" sign.

That's just one of the efforts to preserve as much as possible. Restoring the historic buildings that once played such a large role in Sacramento is the key, Totah and Rich said.

"It would actually be cheaper to knock them down and rebuild them. But there's an ambiance you can't get with a new building," Rich said. "So they're priceless in that way."

Photos by Eric Whalen. Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Mayor Kevin Johnson introduces "Rules of the Game" for new arena

2009-10-30T03:14:16Z

At a news conference Thursday, Mayor Kevin Johnson introduced his "Rules of the Game" plan to build an arena and entertainment complex in Sacramento. It was held on the 25th floor of the US Bank building downtown, featuring panoramic views of the skyline with Cal Expo and the Sacramento Railyards in the background.

Johnson's "rules" include coming up with a plan that doesn't depend on taxes, making sure the city is not a "stalking horse" for a deal elsewhere and utilizing experienced community members. He also announced that a task force will be established and that there will be an open call for proposals, with guidelines coming in the next few days.

"I think it's time to reinvigorate an arena discussion," Johnson said. "If you look out over Sacramento, it's clear that rebuilding Cal Expo cannot be the only option. We need a new sports and entertainment center."

Two weeks ago, after the NCAA deemed ARCO Arena outdated for an NCAA tournament, Johnson declared finding a new arena a "front-burner issue." He also has called a new arena part of a larger plan to revitalize Sacramento's economy.

Johnson said Thursday that the arena, host to more than 190 events last year, was not about the Maloofs or even the Kings.

"We've got to prove that we can build major projects here in Sacramento," he said. "I'm talking about an entertainment complex that lights up the next six blocks right outside of its boundaries, something that works hand in hand with transit, smart growth and green ambitions."

When asked about the Railyards as a potential site, Johnson said, "I have said all along that I would have loved to see an arena downtown and my favorite site was the Railyards. At the end of the day, it all boils down to 'How are you going to pay for it?' "

Johnson said he wants public input, adding that there will be a monthly events to discuss the complex.

"I challenge everyone to think big, and think about what great cities have done over the last 3,000 years," the mayor said. "Think about how we can join that list of great cities."

Please view a transcript of the speech here.

Mayor Kevin Johnson: New arena is a "front-burner" issue

2009-09-30T04:53:15Z

Mayor Kevin Johnson brought up the possibility of a new sports arena in Sacramento at a press conference Tuesday.

Johnson announced his top-three priorities are public safety, education and economic development, the latter of which a new sports arena could positively impact.

Johnson reiterated that a new arena would be crucial not only in keeping the Kings in Sacramento, but also in terms of creating a "world-class" downtown. Currently, Arco Arena holds more than 200 spectator events each year.

"We got a wake up call with the NCAA when they said we are no longer going to hold big-time college basketball in Sacramento because [we] have an outdated arena," Johnson said.

Last week, after learning about the NCAA's decision, Johnson said he became worried that Sacramento might lose the Kings and wanted to see a new proposal for an arena at Cal Expo.

The National Basketball Association is now leading the effort to build a new arena at Cal Expo, according to a recent Sacramento Bee article. However, it has been difficult in the current economic climate to find a developer for the plan, said a Bee editorial.

Johnson, however, seems willing to change turn the conversation away from Cal Expo, still not ruling out downtown as a location for a possible arena.

"Before I was the mayor, I would have always liked to see an arena downtown; and now that I am mayor, I would still like to see an arena downtown," he said.

One possible location would be the Sacramento Railyards, one of the largest infill projects in the country, Johnson said. Though technically not downtown, the city is buying about 33 acres of the 244-acre site, enough room to fit both a planned transportation corridor as well as a new arena.

Johnson said it fits into a larger plan to revitalize Sacramento.

"Part of our overall strategy, [which includes] Westfield Plaza and the J, K and L corridors, is how we revitalize the mall, retail, offices and housing," he said.

Johnson also pointed to his time as an NBA player, which he said he doesn't talk about a whole lot.

"I lived in Phoenix when there was no arena downtown, and I was also part of a team that helped bring an arena downtown," Johnson said. "Phoenix was a ghost town, much worse than Sacramento. If you go to downtown Phoenix now, it's a whole new town because of the catalytic impact that the arena had [on] downtown. I think the year was 1993; if you look at what has transpired over the last 16 years, [it proves] that [an arena] can galvanize a downtown community."

Downtown arenas have a "multiplier effect" in boosting local economies, he added. However, Johnson said a downtown arena could just be "wishful thinking," and still has not mentioned how the project might be financed.

Maloof Sports and Entertainment was contacted for this article but declined to comment.

Railyards shops cleanup to start

2009-07-02T03:28:08Z

Cleanup of historic Southern Pacific railroad shops is expected to begin late this month as the next phase of the Sacramento Railyards project kicks into gear.

Hazardous materials including lead paint, asbestos, metals and other industrial toxins need to be removed from the shops, which were built starting in 1868. Georgia developer Thomas Enterprises has put the abatement project out to bid and expects to award the contract in the next few weeks, said Richard Rich, development director for the Railyards project.

In its heyday, Southern Pacific practically owned the town. The railyards drove Sacramento's economy, and nearly a third of all the city's residents worked there. The shops lay at the center of the railyards.

The Railyards project, the country's largest infill project, will not only double the size of downtown, but the mixed-use district is being designed to recapture the importance of the former railroad site. The Central Shops being redeveloped near the Sacramento Valley Rail Station depot are the key to that, Rich said.

"Right now, the depot is kind of in a forgotten corner of downtown," he said. ""That'll put enough urban fabric around the depot that it becomes the center of the city again."

On Monday, the city won $55.8 million in Proposition 1C infill redevelopment funds from the California Department of Housing and Community Development. About $30 million will go to the $6 billion Railyards project. The new funding brings the project's state public bond funding to $115-$120 million, although none of that has been received, said Thomas Enterprises Vice President Suheil Totah.

The Railyards project also won $20 million in federal stimulus money this year and another $8 million in federal funds for a freeway connection project. The city and developer are pursuing another $100 million in federal stimulus money to help fund the city's future intermodal transportation facility. Developments are expected soon on the city's bid to get National Enviromental Policy Act approval for the facility.

The city has committed funding to the project and promised to build a city parking garage there as well. Thomas Enterprises has invested $200 million in the project so far. Private investment is expected to total about $5 billion, Totah said.

Central Pacific originally established the railyards during the steam locomotive era. The company later became Southern Pacific. The 244-acre site grew to contain at least 243 buildings.

The shops and other buildings began falling into disrepair in the 1930s when the Depression brought reduced rail traffic.

About the same time, diesel locomotives began to gain favor over steam locomotives. The Sacramento Railyards had been set up to produce and repair steam locomotives. Some diesels were worked on there, but retooling the railyards for diesel proved too difficult.

In addition, Southern Pacific moved most of its maintenance work to rural areas like Roseville as Sacramento grew. The railyard shops officially closed in 1999, four years after Union Pacific bought Southern Pacific.

Seven brick shop buildings were all that remained when Thomas Enterprises bought the site for an undisclosed amount in December 2006. All seven will be preserved and rehabbed for adaptive reuse. The massive Boiler Shop and Erecting Shop will be used for the state's Railroad Technology Museum.

Thomas will rehab the other five shops. The 56,000 former Paint Shop will contain a public market selling Central Valley products including produce, cheese, wine, meat and fish — similar to San Francisco's Ferry Building — near an extended Fifth Street. Other former railyard shops will house restaurants, nightclubs and retail stores. In the center, a football field-sized plaza will be built to hold large city events, a farmers' market or small performances.

"These buildings, which will surround the public open space, will form the nucleus of the cultural district," Rich said.

Hazardous materials abatement work is the first step to rehabbing the shops. About 80 percent of the work will be to remove lead-based paint from interior brick. Ten percent will be to remove sheetrock, floor tiles and pipe insulation containing asbestos. The rest involves other contaminants including heavy metals and polychlorinated biphenyl or PCB, he said.

The "significant" cost of abatement won't be known until crews get into the work. Thomas Enterprises tested methods to remove the paint without damaging the hard, fired surface of the brick. Nothing worked, said Rich.

"That put us in a difficult position of how to do it without damaging the brick," he said.

Standards set by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior dictate that the interiors of historic buildings that were originally covered with paint must likewise be covered with paint during rehab. Workers will gently scrape as much lead paint off the walls as possible and the brick will be encapsulated with lead-free paint, he said.

Thomas Enterprises broke ground on the infrastructure phase last winter. Initial grading of Railyards Boulevard and northern portions of Fifth and Sixth streets has been done. Extending Fifth and Sixth streets into the site will help connect the railyards with downtown, said Totah, adding that more infrastructure work will start once the developer gets the state funding it's been awarded.

Building construction is expected to start next year on 5th, 7th and Camille streets. Construction may include housing, mixed-use and office.

New Jobs Coming to Sacramento Railyards

2008-12-04T17:38:59Z

Given the state of the local economy, I wanted to share a press release regarding some encouraging news about The Railyards project.

Sacramento, CA – (Dec 3, 2008) The developer of the 244-acre Sacramento Railyards project announced today that approximately 3,000 new jobs will be created in 2009 as a direct result of voter passage of Proposition 1C, the $2.8 billion Housing and Infrastructure Bond and Proposition1B, the $19.9 billion Transportation Bond as well as other local and federal infrastructure funds.

The announcement comes as the Obama administration considers a federal economic recovery plan with a national infrastructure investment component and the Sacramento region copes with an unemployment rate of 7.9% and one of the worst mortgage foreclosure rates in the nation.

To date, The Railyards has been the recipient of millions in Proposition 1C and 1B bond awards to build bridges, roads, overpasses, bikepaths and underground utilities at the historic location which is the largest urban infill site in the country.

According to Suheil Totah, vice president of development for Thomas Enterprises, surveyors, engineers, planners and architects are already at work and construction teams will be visible on the urban infill site within the coming months. “These jobs demonstrate that investing in infrastructure is an important and necessary step for our economic recovery,” said Totah. “We’re grateful for Governor Schwarzenegger’s leadership as an advocate for infrastructure investment to support continuing economic development,” he added.

“Governor Schwarzenegger has been leading the call on the federal government to increase infrastructure funding to not only help keep our state and nation competitive, but to help
stimulate the economy and create jobs,” said Business, Transportation and Housing Agency Secretary Dale E. Bonner. “The Railyards project demonstrates just how infrastructure investments translate into jobs.”

Two independent economic impact studies commissioned by the City of Sacramento by Economic and Planning Systems (EPS), project The Railyards will create 19,000 permanent jobs over 20 years, and an additional 2,800 construction jobs annually over the life of the project. The redevelopment will have an ongoing annual positive economic impact of $2.7 billion and an overall regional impact of $33 billion over a 20 year period.

“The Railyards will be the region’s economic engine for the next decade and these new jobs will help stem the rising tide of unemployment,” added newly-elected Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. “It’s important to invest in infrastructure to create jobs especially at a time when our economy is in turmoil.”

As a large, multi-phased, brownfield infill project within walking distance from the State Capitol, The Railyards development will complement, integrate and connect to the existing downtown. The Railyards will create a vibrant new neighborhood of mixed-use, high density housing in the heart of Sacramento, with entertainment and retail venues, a transportation hub, offices, a public market, open space and cultural offerings in a setting that celebrates the connection to Sacramento’s historic past. The development will be anchored by a new state-of-the-art intermodal transportation facility to be built by the City of Sacramento.

Visit http://www.sacramentorailyards.com

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