Sacramento Railyards - The New Downtown

[travis bickle]

Originally Posted by ozone

w.b whatever the Union prints will have zero effect on anything -including the Railyards development.

That much I can agree with.

[wburg]

I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of the Union--however, Fox 40 disagreed. They picked up the story and ran a segment, interviewing the Union reporter who wrote the story.

[ozone]

well wb ...birds of a feather and all that. The Union and Fox "news" have the same audience.

Does anyone know what's the first thing going in at the railyards and when? I read somewhere that construction would begin in 2008.

[wburg]

The first phase, according to the last set of plans, is the track reorientation and the Bass Pro shop, which will be on the northwestern end near the freeway. Currently they're pulling out all the dirt that needs to get pulled out.

A link to the staff report, which includes build-out phases:

http://www.cityofsacramento.org/dsd/...07_Revised.pdf

[ltsmotorsport]

Well, at least the Bass Pro Shop is going in close to the freeway, where it's more appropriate.

[innov8]

Okay, could someone please explain to me why so many of you are
anti-Pro Bass Shop in the rail yards… what about diversity that so many of
you like to champion? Have any of you ever been to a Pro Bass Shop or is
outside rural activities nobody’s thing here? Remember, they are the only big
store who has signed on to the rail yard plan that we know of and they see
the potential future of that area as $$$. No other stores have made
the same kind of commitment. Anyway, ten years from now when it’s finally
built it will be great, I and other Sacramentan’s who live down here won’t
have to drive to the Arden area to buy fishing, camping, or other and
outdoor gear.. Also, it beats losing another retailer to West Sac or Roseville.

[BrianSac]

I dont have a problem with it. Even though I dont hunt or fish. I hike, bike, and wear short pants and hiking shoes.

Bring it on!

[ltsmotorsport]

I was thinking it was better suited to be next to the freeway because of the amount of auto traffic a huge store like that would bring in. And I guess one could argue that with it going where it is, it'll be closer to the river and bike trail for those outdoor enthusiasts.

[wburg]

I don't have a huge problem with it. I am told they would have the typical big-box effect on local hunting/fishing/sporting goods type stores, but I know that the idea of an "anchor tenant" is an important enough concept to developers that they'd need one--and I'd rather see a sporting-goods superstore there than a Wal-Mart. I suppose they're also hoping that their placement near the river will help spur increased river-sports activities--it's a big enough store to sell things like small watercraft. Plus, while I get sick of the whole "two hours from the mountains" thing, it does help bring attention to our proximity to outdoor recreation options.

I suppose I'd be pretty miffed if their coming spelled the end for, say, Old Sacramento Armory, but I don't think they would serve the same market anyhow.

[travis bickle]

Originally Posted by ozone

well wb ...birds of a feather and all that. The Union and Fox "news" have the same audience.

Does anyone know what's the first thing going in at the railyards and when? I read somewhere that construction would begin in 2008.

Hmmmm... What about someone who watches Fox News, listens to All Things Considered and remembers when Chris Matthews wrote for the Chron.and read him regularly.

No one loves stereotyping more than liberals... Oops... is that a stereotype?

One thing we can all agree on, the Union is worthless. Now, what does this all have to do with the railyards again?

[wburg]

Originally Posted by travis bickle

Hmmmm... What about someone who watches
One thing we can all agree on, the Union is worthless. Now, what does this all have to do with the railyards again?

Well, for starters, the Union followed up the last article with another one that seemed even more vague--in this one they claim that Thomas Enterprises is downplaying the toxics in the railyards, and mentioning 20-30 foot deep pits in the railyards with "sludge" at the bottom, without mentioning that the pits are there because Thomas is making good on their promise and clearing out some dirt. The writer made much of the fact that one of the board members at the Planning meeting (the article was ostensibly about the same Planning meeting I wrote about here) was upset that the canals had been taken out of the plan. Oh, yes, the writer also mentioned in the article that Fox 40 had picked up their previous story.

[travis bickle]

Originally Posted by wburg

Well, for starters, the Union followed up the last article with another one that seemed even more vague--in this one they claim that Thomas Enterprises is downplaying the toxics in the railyards, and mentioning 20-30 foot deep pits in the railyards with "sludge" at the bottom, without mentioning that the pits are there because Thomas is making good on their promise and clearing out some dirt. The writer made much of the fact that one of the board members at the Planning meeting (the article was ostensibly about the same Planning meeting I wrote about here) was upset that the canals had been taken out of the plan. Oh, yes, the writer also mentioned in the article that Fox 40 had picked up their previous story.

Well wburg, as has been noted here before, whatever is written in the Union will have no affect whatsoever over what is built in the railyards. So relax and try not to make your own biases so apparent.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by travis bickle

Well wburg, as has been noted here before, whatever is written in the Union will have no affect whatsoever over what is built in the railyards. So relax and try not to make your own biases so apparent.

Well, strictly speaking, nothing anyone says here has any effect whatsoever on any development, but it doesn't seem to stop people from talking.

I suppose I'm just offended, as a historian and a journalist, by the articles and editorials the Union has printed about the railyards. They're bad journalism and worse history.

[travis bickle]

Originally Posted by wburg

Well, strictly speaking, nothing anyone says here has any effect whatsoever on any development, but it doesn't seem to stop people from talking.

I suppose I'm just offended, as a historian and a journalist, by the articles and editorials the Union has printed about the railyards. They're bad journalism and worse history.

Point taken wburg and I can understand how that kind of crap can tick you off. But the Union is about as worthless a paper as you can find and I wouldn't worry too much about anything you find on its pages.

Obviously, I haven't seen this latest edition and don 't really know the extent of the criticism, but I don't know anyone who considers the paper anything other than a throw-away. It's free and its worth every penney...

[TowerDistrict]

Speaking of bad journalism - the new Prosper Magazine has a big section on the Railyards. The cover shot features Mayor Fargo standing in front of the old shops, and the designers saw fit to photoshop some fake electrical sparks in the power lines above her. If that's not any indication of where they're planning to steer their feature, don't worry, there's a lot more pictures and precious little copy to bore you.

The whole thing is written in a typical suburban sacramento cynicism, and attempts to illustrate the hopelessness of downtown and the folly of our city leadership. If that's your bag, then be sure to buy a copy. If you actually have an optimistic outlook and enjoy participating in the creation of a whole new downtown, then steal a copy from an office lobby and check out the pretty pictures.

Just remember, it's the one with Mayor Fargo on the cover - not the one with Anna Kournikova's crotch.



EDIT: I retract my statement. Chalk it up to early morning inattentiveness or my general short attention span - but the majority of the article is quite interesting, and actually features a section on Stan Thomas himself - who has been pretty far behind the scenes so far. The portion of the article worth skipping is at the end, with the headline "...A Cranky History of the Railyards". Even the authors give a disclaimer that these are their opinions and shouldn't reflect on the publication.

[wburg]

More fishwrap this week from the Union: a follow-up story with a picture of the "smoking gun" of the Chinese cemetery, a tombstone with "Chinese lettering" found 35 years ago. Interestingly enough, the text of the article states that a local Chinese person identified the tombstone as Japanese, but written in Chinese (although Japanese and Chinese use the same basic system of ideograms.)

The writer makes the assumption that Japanese and Chinese must have used the same cemetery, since they were both Asian--so now this isn't just a Chinese cemetery, but a Japanese/Chinese one. Never mind that the Japanese and Chinese lived in separate neighborhoods, spoke different languages, and traditionally get along somewhat like England and France (in good times) or Jews and Moslems (in not-so-good times.)

The archaeologist, oops, I'm sorry, the retired water filtration station employee, estimates the gravestone to be from the late 1800s. Of course, the construction of the Shops started in 1863 and most of the surrounding area was swampland, not providing many ways to dig graves.

The article also states that the tombstone was found uphill from the railyards, near the PG&E building, but claims that during Sacramento's frequent floods it might have floated upstream. The fact that Sacramento's railyards were built up from the 1860s onwards, or exactly how a granite slab floated upstream, are not mentioned.

The other bit of comedy was when the author claimed the Chinese settlement was in North Sacramento (North Sacramento used to be a separate city, on the other side of the American River, which most people know these days as the North Sacramento/Del Paso Heights area.)

The same writer also wrote a nice piece on the Alhambra Theater, which I haven't really checked over for accuracy yet, although I did notice that he claims there were 805,000 people in the city of Sacramento in 1973...

[SacRising]

Originally Posted by TowerDistrict

Speaking of bad journalism - the new Prosper Magazine has a big section on the Railyards.

Is anyone able to upload the images from this issue of Prosper? I tried but to no avail. And since this forum has turned into a journalism review, what do you think about Prosper. I've only seen a few issues, but it seems more modern and fresh, as compared to Comstock's. Prosper is to Comstock as SacTown is to Sacramento Magazine.

Images of Anna Kournikova's crotch can be sent directly to me via PM.

[snufalufugus]

Went to Prosper's online site and watched a video clip about the Railyards project. They had this slide in the video that shows the proposed build-out of the Railyards site. The slide also showed two 2 towers that are on the other side of the freeway. (I placed a red box around the towers) Does anyone know what these are? Are they part of the Railyards project? Since the colored buildings in this slide are railyards releated and those 2 towers are also colored, I figure it's part of the Railyards project?

[kryptos]

Originally Posted by snufalufugus

kinda looks like tetris

[TowerDistrict]

Oh cool that's all new stuff there that they showed at the June 7th meeting.

What you circled there is the Riverfront District. They plan to have very large hotel towers facing the river in that area. I would say that the mock-ups there would be in the 500' - 700' foot range. As a point of comparison, most of those shorter buildings in the residential area surrounding the "Boxcar Parks" are probably between 60' - 90'.

And now that I checked the official site again, they've updated a couple slides there too - check it out.

and check out a much larger version of the above pic right here.