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Old Posted Jul 11, 2007, 4:33 PM
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wburg wburg is offline
Hindrance to Development
 
Join Date: May 2007
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Quote:
Originally Posted by greenmidtown View Post
I've actually never ventured into West Sac past IKEA but the other day we drove from downtown to IKEA through the I st. bridge. several observations. we definitely need more bridges. but more importantly. between the river and IKEA/Wal-Mart is a trashy low-income neighborhood. they need to do some serious rehab. it's pretty ugly. For now it seems like all the development is by the freeway or on the riverfront leaving the rest of the city in neglect. there aren't many trees either just a lot of burnt grass. coming from downtown/midtown you feel like you're entering another world.
If you made it to Ikea, that's most of the way through West Sacramento--the western city limits are a ways past the other side of the highway.

There are some nice old houses in that neighborhood, many of which have faced decades of neglect, but some are still pretty nice. There are a number of developments going in over there--I'm sure you noticed the cluster of new buildings just west of the bridge. LJ Urban is a big investor over there, and has something like a half-dozen different projects underway in West Sacramento. Part of the challenge they face is that the area is still very economically depressed. However, that's not so different from the way midtown Sacramento looked 20-30 years ago: in the 1980s, if you told people you were moving to midtown Sac people thought you were just crazy.

That being said, there is a lot of neat old architectural fabric in the area at the foot of the I Street Bridge (historically known as the Washington district), like the old firehouse (which is scheduled to become a restaurant and wine bar) and the buildings around it, including the little West Sacramento history museum. West of that things get looser--and a lot of those patches of "burnt grass" still flood every year.
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