Home / Archive / Publisher's letter: Feb. 2007
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Publisher : February 2007
A cause for celebration
San Francisco’s Mission Bay, Salt Lake City’s Gateway District, Denver’s Stapleton development — all are urban infill projects that are transforming former industrial sites into vibrant neighborhoods. In each of these cities, civic leaders struggled for years to resolve the myriad, complex issues associated with developing such large parcels of urban real estate, not the least of which is dealing with toxic wastes accumulated over years of industrial use.
But they all finally succeeded and are seeing tremendous benefits to their cities. Take, for example, San Francisco’s Mission Bay, the 300-acre former site of Southern Pacific Railroad, located adjacent to AT&T Park. After six years of development, it has been transformed from an urban wasteland of empty lots, decrepit warehouses and torn-up streets to a bustling community of homes, shops, parks and restaurants, plus a biotech research office park; a campus of the University of California, San Francisco; and a new UCSF hospital soon to come.
Now Sacramento is poised to write a similar urban redevelopment success story at the site of its historic 240-acre railyard, the largest remaining undeveloped parcel of urban property in the country.
Once, the railyard was the largest industrial complex west of the Mississippi, where Central Pacific workers built virtually everything needed by the new railroad, from pencil sharpeners to locomotives. Today, it too is an urban wasteland. But that wasteland is soon to be transformed, just as San Francisco’s Mission Bay has been, thanks to civic leaders and a far-sighted developer, Thomas Enterprises.
After nearly four years of negotiation, Thomas and the railroad (now Union Pacific) finally signed a purchase agreement in late December. Union Pacific has already hauled away about a half million tons of contaminated dirt and installed a cleaning system to deal with chemicals in the groundwater, and Thomas has been given the green light to begin development on a complex of homes, shops, offices and entertainment facilities. As part of the agreement, the city of Sacramento purchased a parcel of land, including the current historic train station, in order to create a central transit center combining rail service — long-distance, commuter and light-rail — and bus service.
This is a huge project, almost the same size as the existing downtown business district, that can’t help but have a major impact on downtown Sacramento and the region as a whole. Picture the city transformed by thousands of downtown residents, thanks to the railyard’s nearly 8,000 to 10,000 homes and other nearby residential projects already under way. Those city residents work, shop, eat at restaurants, go to concerts and museums — and in doing so, help to make the city vibrant.
This will not happen quickly: Thomas sees it as a 15-year project. Retail and entertainment facilities, including a railroad-technology museum housed in one of the old shops, will be built first to attract people to the area, with most housing not completed until at least year six. Nor will it be problem-free. Any project of this complexity is bound to hit a few bumps in the road. But neither fact should distract us from the overwhelmingly positive long-term impact the development represents for Sacramento and the region.
For that reason, I salute the mayor, City Council members, other civic leaders and the development teams for both the city and Thomas Enterprises. All held fast to a vision of what Sacramento can become; all deserve our thanks and applause.
