One piece of reality that seems to keep getting lost in the long-running debate and drama of K Street, is that Sacramento is a government town and almost all of the jobs downtown are connected to the government in some way, either through serving its employees or as vendors for its services.
What this means, in a general sense, is that after government closes up shop for the day, almost everyone leaves. Most of them go home to the suburbs and that is where most shopping and other spending done after work hours is concentrated, close to where people live, handy to reach in their cars and where they can park relatively close to their shopping, dining, or recreational destinations and not pay for parking. They also do not want to be screamed or leered at, solicited for money, intimidated or otherwise discombobulated by the often unruly and inappropriate behavior of too many of our citizens on too many of our downtown streets these past several years.
A lot has changed in how people are choosing to live (some new cities in the area seem aware of it) and though it was noticed several years ago by urban observers, too few folks who make planning policy decisions seem to be taking account of it.
Bogart (2006) remarks.
“Even by 1960 observers such as Jane Jacobs and Jean Gottman had discerned a new structure for metropolitan areas, although popular interpreters of their work have neglected this insight. This new structure was called the polycentric city, in recognition of the multiple centers of economic activity that now comprised the metropolitan area. While some people have recognized this change for more than forty years, it still has surprisingly little impact on the design of public policy. With notable exceptions, such as Phoenix’s urban villages [perhaps one of the reasons our new mayor called it his number one city to look for inspirational urban ideas] planning concept, most metropolitan areas remain wedded to a picture of the world in which the downtown of the central city is the dominant employment center. Local governments and private individuals devote great resources to reverse the exodus of businesses from the downtown. Some of this activity is appropriate, but much of it has an impact resembling that of King Canute’s orders to the tide.”
(Don’t Call it Sprawl, Metropolitan Structure in the Twenty-First Century, William T. Bogart, p. 9)
An excerpt from an article in the Bee describing the latest K Street dramatic turn.
“The path is finally clear for the Southern California furniture retailer to transform the bedraggled 700 block of downtown Sacramento's K Street into a spiffy row of upscale stores. It's not clear, though, that Zeiden still intends to do so – at least not without more money from the city's treasury.
“Zeiden had been blocked for at least four years by the property's longtime owner Moe Mohanna, who had refused to sell. Last month, the city and Mohanna reached a settlement, avoiding an eminent domain trial. The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency took ownership of Mohanna's nine properties on the 700 and 800 blocks, the bleakest stretch of K Street.
“But Zeiden was noticeably absent from a celebratory meeting in which Sacramento's City Council approved the deal with Mohanna.
“Since then, Zeiden has not responded to The Bee's attempts to contact him at the Gardena headquarters of his family's Z Gallerie furniture chain.
“City officials say the severe downturn in the retail economy has prompted Zeiden to rethink his K Street proposal. He likely will ask the city to kick in more money before he moves forward, said Leslie Fritzsche, Sacramento's downtown development manager.”
