Projects not rising - but city still is
By Marcos Bretón - Bee Columnist
Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B1
Is Sacramento "The City that Can't?"
A city that can't shed its "Cowtown" image? One that can't build anything beyond the functional office space or single-family homes that appear like specks on the horizon -- a depressed city skyline when viewed from the Yolo Causeway or from a more sophisticated world at large?
That is certainly a widely held -- and unfair -- view of Sacramento. That it can't rise beyond its limited view of itself. That it has plenty of big-city problems but not enough big-city amenities. We already have the random homicides, the traffic, the bad air. Your sleepy old town is gone. So why can't we build 53-story skyscrapers at Third Street and Capitol Mall? Where is that downtown arena to house the Kings and big-name concerts?
Taken together, those are two colossal civic setbacks in less than a year, a losing streak that could give Sacramento a complex. The City That Can't? Is that us?
Certainly, in the two boldest, most controversial projects considered in Sacramento, the city was linked with Mr. Wrong and the Wrong Brothers -- developer John Saca and Kings owners Joe and Gavin Maloof. Saca, bless his heart, had never built a skyscraper before and then suddenly he was going to erect one of the biggest residential projects in the West?
It sounds nutty, but Saca's vision of monstrous buildings tapped into a vein of civic longing for a grander cityscape, tempting us to suspend disbelief. Tell me you didn't drive by the big hole at Capitol Mall and dream of something big? I did.
"He really hit on what people wanted," said Tony Giannoni, himself one of downtown's premier developers. "This particular project was an attempt to break out of that inferiority complex."
But wait a minute? Was this really Sacramento's failure? It was a private project, ruled by market forces, increased construction costs, a depressed housing market, all conspiring at once. All the city could do was mass behind Saca, which it did to the tune of $11 million and a project approved on a fast track. That's hardly a city failure.
And last year, the city -- and the county -- picked up a stick of dynamite called a sales tax increase, lit it and told the Maloofs they would carry it for them. They would wage an election campaign to try to pass the tax increase to erect that arena. All at no construction cost to the Maloofs. Yet they walked away before the campaign even started, dooming a $500 million arena project at the polls.
Strip away all the words and study the actions behind these two failed projects -- analyze who showed a commitment to Sacramento and who simply mouthed the words -- and a clear picture emerges. Saca appears like a man who desperately wanted to build something big in Sacramento but couldn't. The Maloofs appear like men who could have built something big in Sacramento but wouldn't.
Is that a failure of Sacramento? No.
Meantime, if you look around town, you'll see a city of burgeoning restaurants, theaters, condo towers, wine bars, lofts, museums in the offing, energy being created and distributed.
"There is a deliberate plan that is in the works here," said John Dangberg, assistant city manager. "It's part of the evolution of the city."
And what now? Something else will go in Saca's big hole and he gets a mulligan for trying. But as for getting a new arena? Here's a prediction:
This city can -- and it will -- but not with the Maloofs.
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