Exactly what the efforts to create a destination have seemed like since the 1970’s, though the efforts at both ends have had pretty good results, but the middle just keeps muddling along, same script, same results, only the players change.
Editorial: As downtown turns
Should city join or avoid the soap opera?
Published 12:00 am PST Saturday, January 20, 2007
It's a daytime drama with mystery, intrigue, high-stakes economic gambling. (As yet, fortunately, there's no sex or violence.) The scene: Sacramento's downtown, where key redevelopment projects are fading left and right, the truth is hard to find and the solution even harder.
Episode One: "We can feel the (progress)," says Mayor Heather (Fargo), speaking to the downtown faithful at a recent breakfast. "We can see it. We can even hear it with the pile driving." Fade quickly to Third and Capitol. There, the pile drivers have stopped. John (Saca), developer of the largest high-rise condominium project the Central Valley has ever seen, has run into financial trouble with his Towers project. The construction firms aren't getting paid and are slapping liens on the property. John turns to investors at the California Public Employees Retirement System and to the city (which has agreed to buy $11 million worth of hotel fixtures for the project if it gets built).
Nobody, it seems, wants to be the first to bail out the project. Who shall blink first?
Never fear, the snag is only "a short temporary regroup," a project spokesman tells The Bee. Is he to be believed?
