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Vibrant, Vibrant, Vibrant, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha, apparently, we have a new Sacramento Booster!
All that regurgitated "dis-language", a new Target and more people from Berkeley call Sacramento home, I can't wait to come back!
Midtown Sacramento is just beautiful, another sip of the Kool-Aid.
In Sacramento, you don't have to worry about hearing jazz on Sacramento streets, and nobody says "vibrant", except for me, how wonderful.
Wow, singling-out certain types of music and people that sounds entitled, exclusive, prejudicial, and discriminatory, I don't think that kind of talk is representational of Sacramento, nor of Santa Barbara.
I'm Not white, and I seem to have passed the vibe check in Santa Barbara. Also, I've been walking around with a LGBTQQIP2SAA flag all over Santa Barbara and people have been cheering me on, giving me high-five's, fist-bumps, no joke, but then again I'm just a "tourist" from Sacramento so maybe they are just being nice to the "tourists".
The Spanish-Mexican-Mediterranean Architecture of Santa Barbara is beautiful but if you don't like it, all you have to do is step outside the city limits. I don't hate art & architecture based on where it came from, or who created it.
Regarding the new Solidigm transplants, what percent will live in downtown/midtown, 1% perhaps.
I can't wait to go to that new "infusion" restaurant in Sacramento, what's it called, Arbys?
Seriously, though, Good for the new small businesses and restaurants in downtown/midtown, I support them as much as I can, but with inflation and the new minimum wages increases, labor shortages, supply-chain food shortages, the price increases that small businesses and restaurants have to charge means I really have to watch the budget, and I go out half the amount of time I used to go out, I think we can all relate to that. And, I've already seen some new businesses open and then close less than year after opening, so I try to give them my business at least once before they close.
Keep in mind, though, that the amount of new businesses opening have NOT replaced the amount of businesses that closed in 2020, 21, 22 in downtown/midtown Sacramento. At least it certainly does not look that way as you past a boarded up shop.
And no, I'm not afraid to walk around downtown, I do it all the time and I take elderly folks, usually family, & a few of my disabled friends out to city parks, cafes, bars, or restaurants who ARE AFRAID to go out alone into downtown/midtown.
The "infusion" place is a bar (Infused Bar), the Vietnamese restaurant next door is called "Red Beret." The central city has had a lot of restaurant churn even pre-2020; it happens, but there are always more folks willing to give it a try, and it seems like closed restaurants don't stay closed for long. As the central city population continues to increase, we'll continue to see greater viability for places that appeal to those who live nearby, and hopefully reduced viability for those that depend on people driving from elsewhere (frequently the suburbs) to party hearty in central city neighborhoods that they tend to treat like drunken theme parks (like Barwest, on the block where last weekend's shooting happened.) Not that the central city can't sustain visitors--but the kind of places that flourish when neighbors invite their friends to check out the cool new restaurant that opened down the street from their apartment tend to function differently than a venue that considers its neighborhood an inconvenience at best, or a parking lot for its customers, if it considers them at all, because they assume that nobody worth knowing about lives downtown, except low-income service workers (even though their staff often commute from other parts of the city because they can't afford Midtown rents>)
Jazz on Sacramento streets is definitely a thing sometimes, but it's just one musical form among many you'll hear on a central city stroll--there are a couple of local marching jazz bands that tend to just pop up at events, like the City of Trees Brass Band.
Regarding the Solidigm facility, we'll see how many people they end up hiring and where they end up living, but presumably they won't be the only game in town--my guess is that we'll continue to see small startups in the central city, where there's already a knowledge base and a huge number of employers, pretty much all of need some interaction with the tech industry (the recent Berkeley transplant I met was a tech worker, he moved to Curtis Park just outside the central city, and his brother lives in Mansion Flats) and the larger "corporate campus" facilities will go up along the Folsom Boulevard corridor. Tech workers tend to be attracted to cities where there are creative things happening even if they aren't super gentrified enclaves of wealth or gated suburbs; sure, the management class tends to prefer a nice beige McMansion with an HOA, but the bleeding edge folk tend to go in a different direction, which is why a lot of those Bay Area techies moved to neighborhoods like the Mission or even the Tenderloin in San Francisco. In that case, first the workers gained a toehold and then the city started accreting tech offices and hubs; we'll see what happens here.
It seems like some of you are convinced that cities have to be a zero-sum game: a new tech facility in Rancho Cordova is a loss for Sacramento instead of a win for the region that benefits both. I'm sure Santa Barbara is a very nice place, but it's a very different sort of environment than Sacramento and a very different scale of city, which is why comparisons like those made here just sound kind of silly. Obviously Santa Barbara isn't a "sundown town" and rainbow flag friendly, that's solidly Democrat country based on their voting record and elected representatives, not too different from Sacramento in that regard. But what does Santa Barbara's smooth-jazz scene have to do with the regional tech industry in Sacramento?
I suppose you could call me a Sacramento booster, but from a different direction than the traditional Sacramento booster, who focuses on the mythology of Sacramento as bucolic farm town with quiet suburbs, whose downtown is only suitable for visitation of its arena zone and otherwise best avoided by the gentry. And I'm also a booster of Sacramento as a region, I just happen to like living in some parts of that region more than others. But isn't that what many of us are doing on this forum? What was the point of making a thread about Solidigm on this forum than regional boosterism that somehow got turned into an excuse to bash Sacramento in general and downtown in particular?
You can blather all you want about it, but I am literally in that area everyday for work. It's sketchy as all hell. I get you want some mixed income paradise, where slum dweller and billionaire rub elbows at the same coffee shop. But that's just not how it works. When folks from the suburbs don't want to come downtown to take their kids to see Disney on Ice, because the walk from a nearby parking garage to DoCo is filled with homeless maniacs, the city is missing it's mark.
Downtowns are supposed to be a city's showpiece to the world. And downtown Sac looks like ****.
There has been zero permanent employment (excluding construction) at the Railyards since Southern Pacific started moving out...33-36 years ago.
In that amount of time at least one of the high-tech companies that moved to Austin/Phoenix could have moved into the Railyards, even for a short run, 5-10 years, moved-in, moved-out, and another tech company replacing them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wburg
Where would a tech company have moved into the Railyards 20 years ago? In one of the unrestored Shops buildings, which still don't have plumbing except for the one lavatory building? Into a tent in an open field under soil remediation? I mean, I don't know a whole lot about tech, not having done a lot of computer consulting or building PCs since the early 2000s, but I assume that they still prefer to locate their companies in, y'know, buildings.
But this is also completely missing the point, it has taken far too long to get anything done there and that has created huge missed opportunties.
As much as I hate to admit it, Santa Barbara is more vibrant, more exciting than Sacramento's midtown/downtown. Santa Barbara is certainly way cleaner, less vagrants, with much more beautiful architecture with the same size, density and scale. Basically 3.0 miles by 3.5 miles. Surprisingly, Santa Barbara has a lot of trees too, those fast-growing large evergreen ficus trees provide good shade.
The architecture is better in Santa Barbara because Santa Barbara has been this retreat for the wealthy /artist colony for most of its history while Sacramento is a government center where most of the growth of State of California government occurred post WWII and a lot of the buildings for the state agencies just weren't that attractive. The actual location of the city is also just much better, being located in one of the best climatic regions in the world is just a huge leg up. So I don't fault Sacramento for any of that. It is what it is.
But the unforced error with dowtown Sacramento is just how unnecessarily shabby and run down the area is. But the residents of the area intentionally want it to be that way and stay that way. The urine, the feces, the needles, if Starbucks pulls out of the area because of crime or if there is a shooting on 28th street, who cares, that is all a feature of living there because it helps to keep the neighborhood "janky" or "funky" or any of the other euphemisms for trying to rationalize why living in crime and filth is somehow desireable and if you acknowledge the elephant in the room somehow you are a white supremacist filled with hate, because the civic boosters can never acknowledge any problems.
The architecture is better in Santa Barbara because Santa Barbara has been this retreat for the wealthy /artist colony for most of its history while Sacramento is a government center where most of the growth of State of California government occurred post WWII and a lot of the buildings for the state agencies just weren't that attractive. The actual location of the city is also just much better, being located in one of the best climatic regions in the world is just a huge leg up. So I don't fault Sacramento for any of that. It is what it is.
Thanks for acknowledging that you can't really fault Sacramento for not being next to the ocean; Sacramento's location was selected as a site for logistics, transportation and trade, not aesthetics. Regarding architecture, I suppose some people consider "more consistent" to be equivalent to "better" in the same way that some people consistently have the same flavor of ice cream whenever they eat it, but others like a variety. While Spanish Colonial Revival and Mission Revival were very nice ways for Santa Barbara to embrace its Mission past, Sacramento's history is far more diverse, with a wide variety of historic architecture. In fact, nearly all of Sacramento's 30 or so historic districts, and most of its hundreds of individual landmarks, are located within the central city. There's the old Mexican adobe of the Sutter's Fort central building (and its later reconstructed perimeter wall) and the commercial red brick of Old Sacramento (part reconstructed, part original), the 19th Century residential architecture of Alkali Flat & Mansion Flats--Greek Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, Neoclassic & Colonial Revival predominate there. Farther south into Southside and east into Midtown's historic districts like Boulevard Park, Neoclassic row houses and foursquares, Craftsman bungalows and more Queen Annes are intermixed with small apartment buildings, bungalow courts, fourplexes and sixplexes, in a variety of early 20th Century styles--including some very nice Spanish Colonial Revival buildings. In our downtown historic districts there are Chicago Style early 20th Century high-rises like the Fruit Building (recently converted to a boutique hotel) and the beaux-arts Elks Tower on J Street, municipal buildings like the Southern Pacific depot, old main post office and library, historic City Hall and the decorative statues and fountains of Cesar Chavez Plaza. I could go off at length about other downtown architectural treasures, but to be honest there's actually some very nice and highly beloved state architecture in downtown Sacramento! The Capitol Building and its accompanying complex of early 20th Century buildings between 9th and 10th (with Capitol fountain in between) is the background for a whole lot of tourist photos and establishing shots, and it's rare to hang out downtown and not see at least a few people taking snaps of it, ranging from quick cell phone shots to professionals with expensive lenses and tripods. The Streamline Moderne office buildings on N Street get a lot of love from Art Deco enthusiasts, and Modernist architecture fans enjoy some of the Mid-century buildings of downtown Sacramento, state or otherwise, from some of the best names in Modernist architecture in the 1950s-1970s, but some of those might still be considered a bit too "edgy" to many architectural traditionalists.
And while some might scoff or downplay our architectural heritage, I've been too busy leading walking tours and organizing historic home tours to notice--people do pay to explore our architectural heritage! So while for the folks who enjoy nothing better than the same flavor of ice cream for every dessert, a city with only one architectural style is fine, but Sacramento's more of a smorgasbord of flavors with something to please every palate and price point--and, being perfectly office, some flavors that turned out kind of funky. It's not to everyone's tastes, but I'm big on variety!
I didn't hear anyone scoff or downplay Sacramento's architectural heritage. I certainly didn't. I love Sacramento's mix of styles. The only disdain and snoddy remark came of Santa Barbara's architecture.
Also, Sacramento's downtown/midtown was discussed because why not mooch onto and steal from the success that Rancho Cordova accomplished by attracting Solidigm, too bad Sacramento could not have done it.
In order for all that downtown subsidized-low-income-housing to work someone has to pay market rate, might as well be the folks from Solidigm, again, only time will tell if they are attracted to and willing to stay downtown. I truly hope they do-we need a more diverse crowd downtown. The powers that be, likely, will carry the sentiment, "we need folks who can pay market rate, but we can't have them buying anything downtown because they will push prices up too much".
I wonder if this is why more and more luxurious housing gets built in suburban Folsom and El Dorado Hills instead of downtown Sacramento.
Instead of another bourgeois-beige gated community in El Dorado Hills we could have one luxurious high-rise downtown- just to mix it up a little provide some diversity downtown; it will never happen as the folks that control Sacramento would never let that happen in Sacramento. The hypocrisy is mind-blowing. But what do I care I'd never be able to afford it.
I didn't hear anyone scoff or downplay Sacramento's architectural heritage. I certainly didn't. I love Sacramento's mix of styles. The only disdain and snoddy remark came of Santa Barbara's architecture.
Also, Sacramento's downtown/midtown was discussed because why not mooch onto and steal from the success that Rancho Cordova accomplished by attracting Solidigm, too bad Sacramento could not have done it.
In order for all that downtown subsidized-low-income-housing to work someone has to pay market rate, might as well be the folks from Solidigm, again, only time will tell if they are attracted to and willing to stay downtown. I truly hope they do-we need a more diverse crowd downtown. The powers that be, likely, will carry the sentiment, "we need folks who can pay market rate, but we can't have them buying anything downtown because they will push prices up too much".
I wonder if this is why more and more luxurious housing gets built in suburban Folsom and El Dorado Hills instead of downtown Sacramento.
Instead of another bourgeois-beige gated community in El Dorado Hills we could have one luxurious high-rise downtown- just to mix it up a little provide some diversity downtown; it will never happen as the folks that control Sacramento would never let that happen in Sacramento. The hypocrisy is mind-blowing. But what do I care I'd never be able to afford it.
There's no market for high rise high end housing in Sac, grid or elsewhere. The Capitol towers areais as good as it gets. And that area is DEAD at night. Because there is literally nothing to do in a several block radius. That's why things like that Yaminee building would be so huge. That is where the market is. People want mid ride living for midtown, the market is there. It's not in Downtown because outside of Doco and the 700 block of K street, downtown nightlife is spotty and in many cases sketchy. I haven't actually walked the block of the new buildings at the towers, but I'd there is no ground level retail space it will be dead there too.
I'm sure a few employees on the younger side might live in midtown. But I suspect most will just live in the area, similar to what you see in Silicon Valley.
Sac is not a techie destination. If they want tech with out the SF prices, there are several dozen places cities, more urban than Sac that they will wind up.
Most bay folks coming to Sac are not techies. They are back office ops. PR, HR, marketing, account, legal, and such. Jobs where it is possible to work from home, maybe commute into the office a half dozen times a month or so. Those are the bay area workers we attracted during Covid. And they pretty much all flocked to the burbs.
That's where Sac has it's value. Or perhaps had. For half the cost of the East Bay/LA Basin/SD you can land in a similar quality neighborhood, with similar quality schools.
Last edited by Valley Boy; 09-26-2022 at 10:23 PM..
There's no market for high rise high end housing in Sac, grid or elsewhere. The Capitol towers areais as good as it gets. And that area is DEAD at night. Because there is literally nothing to do in a several block radius. That's why things like that Yaminee building would be so huge. That is where the market is. People want mid ride living for midtown, the market is there. It's not in Downtown because outside of Doco and the 700 block of K street, downtown nightlife is spotty and in many cases sketchy. I haven't actually walked the block of the new buildings at the towers, but I'd there is no ground level retail space it will be dead there too.
There used to be. Some very very wealthy folks bought homes at The Residences at the Sawyer. There was a lot of promise and a new grocery store, the block between 7th and 8th on K Street, and folks actually already live in a few high rise buildings near there.
The folks who bought into the Riverfront area in West Sac are the same type of folks that would have also bought into a high-rise. The problem with Sac is there never has been an urgency nor synergy to bring all of it together downtown, look at the Railyards failure in terms of synergy and timing, same thing with the Waterfront. Yes, the Railyards seem to be slowly slowly coming together now but it should have happened 10-20 years ago.
Having said that, however, Downtown hotels seem to be doing well. The airport has rebounded dramatically, probably going to be 11-million passengers by years end, from a high of over 13 million in 2019 and a low of 5.8 million in covid year-2020. . Also, if you ever noticed how many people rent cars at Sacramento Int'l, you'd think we were a major tourist destination.
Sac is not a techie destination. If they want tech with out the SF prices, there are several dozen places cities, more urban than Sac that they will wind up.
Most bay folks coming to Sac are not techies. They are back office ops. PR, HR, marketing, account, legal, and such. Jobs where it is possible to work from home, maybe commute into the office a half dozen times a month or so. Those are the bay area workers we attracted during Covid. And they pretty much all flocked to the burbs.
Perhaps with the Solidigm campus opening in Rancho Cordova, that could potentially be a catalyst for Sacramento evolving into a tech cluster (at least on a minor scale). I certainly don't expect the Sacramento region to become another Silicon Valley or Austin. In addition, there has been a gradual return of employees to their workplaces. Even though it appears that remote work is hear to stay but IMHO things are moving towards a hybrid model.
Perhaps with the Solidigm campus opening in Rancho Cordova, that could potentially be a catalyst for Sacramento evolving into a tech cluster (at least on a minor scale). I certainly don't expect the Sacramento region to become another Silicon Valley or Austin. In addition, there has been a gradual return of employees to their workplaces. Even though it appears that remote work is hear to stay but IMHO things are moving towards a hybrid model.
So aren't we already a tech "cluster" given that we already have:
1. Intel's Research and Development facilities in Folsom - 6,000 employees
2. Apple's Original facility going strong in Ek Grove - 5,000 employees
3. Siemans Train Manufacturing facilities in South Sacramento - 2,100 employees
4. Micorn's 500 employees in Folsom
5. Several very small firms of 10 employees or less.
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