Sacramento Preservation/Adaptive Reuse Projects

[wburg]

itsmotorsport: The DR Horton proposal is pretty much dead, a victim of the housing market etcetera. This would be re-use of the existing building, a lot cheaper than building a new one.

[sugit]

Originally Posted by ltsmotorsport

Yeah, can't say that I would like to keep the "newest BofA" building, and I agree that I would love to see RT on K street. Didn't somebody buy that building at 8th and I from DR Horton?

DR Horton actually never owned the building. They were to buy it from the county for the development once everything was ready to go, but since the project died a couple years ago, the site was never transfered to them.

CIM made a run at the site after, but nothing came of that either.

Bob Shallit: High-rise hopes fall short again at Eighth and I
Published 12:00 am PST Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Hopes for an office tower and high-rise housing at Eighth and I streets downtown have been dashed again.

The CIM Group, a Hollywood-based developer, has opted out of its plans to buy the parcel, raze the existing building and build a new one, says Rob Leonard, economic development director for Sacramento County, which owns the site.

CIM's move follows a similar decision last year by Texas home builder D.R. Horton to abandon its plans for a 21-story "Library Lofts" project at the same site.

Leonard says CIM's decision was a "sign of the (weakening real estate) market" and an indication that CIM is focusing on other local projects, including a joint venture with CalPERS at the former John Saca high-rise condo site at Third and Capitol Mall.

As for backing out of the Eighth and I streets project, CIM exec John Given says there were "some great ideas but it didn't come together."

What happens now at that location, where a three-story, former Bank of America building now sits vacant?

Leonard says the county likely will hold the land until the market improves.

Meanwhile, he adds, "we've heard from a couple of private and public (entities) that might want to lease the building."

[sugit]

Hopefully they can pull it together...it would be a shame if Sacramento losses that 13M in funding.

Clock ticking for Hotel Berry
Owners awarded tax credits but must find more funding
Sacramento Business Journal - by Michael Shaw Staff writer
Friday, July 25, 2008

An effort to renovate the aging Hotel Berry in downtown Sacramento received a boost when the project was awarded $13.6 million in federal tax credits toward a $20 million renovation.

The project would make the building safer and improve quality of life for its residents.

Its owners now have five months to secure the remaining funding from a patchwork of sources before the credits expire.

Hotel Berry, at 729 L St., is out of code and its units are in “poor” condition, according to a developer’s assessment provided to the Business Journal. The renovation will upgrade health and safety conditions, improve the hotel’s compliance with building codes, update access for disabled residents and reduce operating costs. City leaders say it also would help the larger strategy of revitalizing downtown.

The renovation is part of an overall effort to maintain at least 1,000 single-room occupancy units within the city, a policy adopted by the City Council in 2006, said Jim Hare, an assistant director at the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency. There are now about 700 such rooms.

The agency spent $5 million to help Trinity Housing Foundation acquire the property last year. Built in 1926, the Berry was once a functioning hotel but has been used as low-income housing for single occupants since the 1960s. At that time, there were about 2,300 single-room occupancy apartments in the city.

Trinity of Walnut Creek and Oakland-based AF Evans Co. Inc. are redeveloping the property under an expansive plan that would add small kitchens to each unit and replace drafty windows. One of the major goals is ensuring that the building is structurally sound. The building assessment states, “it’s expected to have the typical seismic concerns of the building type, requiring attachment of walls and floors and seismic bracing of the frame.”

The upgrades would make the building more efficient, allowing rents to decline for 90 percent of the occupants, though they would have to be temporarily relocated if the renovation happens, Hare said.

Rents average about $500 a unit now, he said.

The federal tax credits, which are distributed over 10 years for the investors who buy them, were awarded last week as part of a highly competitive process after a Los Angeles-area project was disqualified that initially had been awarded funding.

William Leone, executive director and co-founder of Trinity Housing Foundation, said the market for tax credits is about the worst it has been in 30 years. As a nonprofit, Trinity can’t make use of the credits itself but can sell them to investors to raise cash for the renovation.

“Normally, we’d be getting 95 cents on the dollar,” he said. “We’re hoping to get 90 cents.”

The real estate slump has reduced the number of firms competing for credits. Owners already received word that they were not selected to receive a $1 million grant from an affordable-housing program at the Federal Home Loan Bank, said Jaqui Braver, project manager at AF Evans.

“It takes a lot to get a project like this off the ground in this market,” she said. “It’s really challenging. It’s extremely different than even a year ago.”

The renovation is considered costly at $186,000 per unit, due to the extent of work that needs to be done, Braver said.

Hare said tearing down the building and starting from scratch would probably cost more, so that option wasn’t considered.

[Majin]

Tear that POS down and replace it.

[wburg]

http://www.sacbee.com/103/story/1149370.html

Bob Shallit: Old bakery project in Sacramento anything but Wonder bread, developer says
By Bob Shallit - bshallit@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Story appeared in OUR REGION section, Page B1


Bay Miry of D&S Development shows off a spiral staircase that's part of a downtown lofts / retail project.
Lezlie Sterling / lsterling@sacbee.com


There's a lot to like about the condo-retail complex rising inside a former Wonder Bread bakery warehouse in downtown Sacramento.

But Bay Miry, of the project's D&S Development team, is proudest of an unlikely element: the loft staircases.

Some are spiral, some cantilevered, some made of wood, others of concrete.

No two are alike. Same goes for the "true loft" housing units, which are under construction and range from 550 to 900 square feet. They're on the market for $215,000 to $390,000.

"One thing we've learned in this market," says Miry, while touring the 95-year-old brick complex at 14th and R streets, "is you can't do cookie-cutter."

Sales have been impressive, considering the slow pace elsewhere. Even though the condos won't be finished until next spring, Miry says deposits are in for seven of the 12 units, which will have brick walls, polished concrete floors, exposed beams and ceilings that rise as high as 22 feet.

The first-floor retail space also is getting interest, the 27-year-old Miry reports. One lease has been signed for a specialty grocery, he says. And deals with two eateries are pending.

What accounts for the relatively quick sales of the condo units? Primarily it's their R Street location in a hot neighborhood adjacent to light rail, says D&S principal David Miry, who is Bay's dad.

The area, he says, "is the city's future for mixed use (projects) and entertainment."

It's nice to see this project coming along.

[Cynikal]

Is that the project where they sandblasted the original structural brick? I sure as hell would buy one of those.

[wburg]

mmmyeah, that wasn't the wisest idea...there are ways to seal the brick after doing that, and hopefully they have done so or they will be wide open for some hearty lawsuits.

[Yogi916]

parts of the exterior were sandblasted due to graffiti and code enforcement notification

building is indeed re-sealed with some more in store for future preservation

building as a whole was also completely structurally upgraded prior to construction of loft units and ground floor restaurant/retail space.

wburg, would enjoy giving you a tour again of each of the unique lofts now that we have progressed so much on it! let me know.

[tronblue]

Why sandblast it? It's kinda like that guy you kinda know that uses aircraft paint remover on that pristine Peugeot px-10 he got because he thinks it would look cooler in a bright red rust, because he doesn't know any better.

Speaking of bricks, My grandmother's house has brick that her father in law put on during the early sixties. I had this envisionment that these bricks were from downtown buildings. Turns out, when i asked my dad, sure enough he remembers going downtown with my great-grandfather during the demolition period before I-5 was put in. My great grandfather ran a company that went in before and after demo to retrieve useable materials. Jealous Wburg that several, no that thousands of pieces of sacramento history are apart of a facade in front a house in Arden-Arcade?

[wburg]

Yogi916: Good to know that it got fixed. I'd love to have another look; I'll give you a call.

tronblue: Re-use of old brick is pretty common practice in building demolition: there is a market for used brick. While I'm all in favor of recovery and recycling of old building materials, vs. sending the stuff to the dump, generally I like it better if the building stays intact in the first place.

[tronblue]

I agree with you Wburg.

I've always personally wished that West Sac would have been the site of I-5's abuse. For the last few years I've been stock piling photos of what was there before I-5 in order to catalog a photographic essay. I tell my friends about this and they laugh at me, but I think for myself at least there is something symbolic about building history and why such things become destroyed when there could have been better alternatives.

[wburg]

tronblue: Really? What sort of things have you found? I have done quite a bit of reserach on the West End and the neighborhoods that were in I-5's path. If you're interested PM me and we can compare sources.

[Yogi916]

WBurg: Look forward to it
tronblue: it was pretty minimal sandblasting, a small amount of sand was used in the mix to remove the graffiti more effectively and clear the way to reseal. It was much more pressure washing than it was sand blasting.

[sugit]

I've had a chance to tour the building 3 times now as it has progressed, I personally love it. I'm sure I can't appreciate or criticize small details of a rehad project like this, but great project for R Street....now if Capitol Lofts would just get going.

As a resident in that area, I'm just as stoked to have a new small specialty type market. I have some high hopes for the remaining retail spaces as well. I think we are in for some cool stuff.

Here are some shots I took about a month ago: (Sorry, I'm no Innov8 or Steve)

[Darn Good City]

I don't know if anyone got a chance to see the one large loft that was in the building before these lofts , but it was beautiful, and Excentrique Gallery was in the space next to it in the same building. The loft had giant frosted glass sliding panels to separate spaces, modern sculptures and art, concrete kitchen, and a giant expanse of glossy wood floors, with the brick and the ceiling exposed as they are still, and the great steel frame windows. The pictures of the new divided up space look nice too.

[urban_encounter]

Good job Sugit.

That building is absoultely incredible.

[wburg]

Kinda makes you wonder what they could have done with the Crystal creamery buildings, they were very similar architecturally and structurally.

[snfenoc]

Would they have been able to build as dense, however?

[wburg]

snefnoc: Well, they're putting 12 units in an 80x160 space, roughly .3 acre, so about 40 dua, and that's with a first floor that is pretty much all retail. Assuming bigger units (for families etc.) than the R Street project, you could feasibly do 30-40 dua in a similar two-story building.

There was a bunch of open space in the middle of the project (truck parking etc) that would be a good place for a mid-rise building as the centerpiece of the project. Considering its proximity to Globe Mills, a building of similar height wouldn't be out of line.

But it's a moot point, the Crystal Creamery buildings are already demolished. I just hope that other developers looking at projects where there are existing industrial buildings (like Township 9, for example) see examples like this one succeed and follow suit. It's ridiculous to tear down industrial buildings and then build brand-new buildings designed to resemble the same buildings that were just torn down. It's like buying those bottles of knockoff perfume--who do they think they're fooling?

[wburg]

Sacramento Country Day School, currently located in the River Oaks neighborhood of Sacramento, is exploring moving their high school program to the site of the old Newton Booth school at 27th and V Street. The Newton Booth school last functioned as a school more than 30 years ago, and was most recently the offices for the Jones & Stokes environmental planning firm. Jones & Stokes moved out last year. Previous tenants reinforced the building to be earthquake-safe.

Country Day is a private, non-sectarian school: their website is here-- http://www.saccds.org/ . Their high school portion currently has about 140 students, and the Newton Booth building could feasibly handle a school of 300 or so students. They have signed a letter of intent to lease the property.

This could be very cool indeed: what better to go into a historic schoolhouse than a new school? It would also fill a need for better schools in the central city: there are already some small private elementary schools downtown.