• DEVELOPMENT
players as well as athletes from around the region receive treatment, and plans to build a hospital within the Railyards Project.
Next door to the new Kaiser is The Sawyer, a 16-story mixed-use tower owned by the Kings. Upon entering The Sawyer’ s lobby on J Street, visitors see directly across to large windows that open onto the public plaza outside Golden 1. The building features the Kimpton Sawyer Hotel, a 250-room boutique resort. It is topped with The Residences, 45 luxury apartments opening to tenants in early 2018— units range from $ 600,000 to $ 4 million.
On the second floor are the newly opened Punch Bowl Social, a games-inspired restaurant with a bowling alley and a nightclub. Echo & Rig Steakhouse, a steak and seafood restaurant with another location in Las Vegas, is slated to open early next year. Fittingly, the nightclub is named Revival.
From here are views of K Street, the arena, the State Capitol and Tower Bridge. Looking out onto Plaza West sits the former site of Downtown Plaza. Macy’ s remains and the old movie theater got a renovation, with the rest of the mall demolished. Eventually, the area will have several restaurants and fastcasual eateries.
The Kings have labeled this area Downtown Commons, a“ common ground” theme that follows Ranadivé’ s vision that sports arenas are this generation’ s town squares or cathedrals. Banners and signage with the abbreviated DOCO moniker hang prominently.
Since the Kings launched its DOCO public relations campaign, a handful of new restaurants have opened within the space. The first DOCO restaurant, a chain called Sauced, replaced the former Hard Rock Café with a Southern spirits and barbecue theme. Sauced caters to a sports bar set hungry for comfort food and alcohol, and packs 300 customers inside and 150 outside.
Beginning in early 2018, patrons will be able to walk across the street to The Bank, a three-level upscale cafeteria that will host multiple bars and restaurants on J and 7th streets. The owners of The Bank say the Golden 1 Center influenced their decision to pivot from a banquet space.
“ TENANTS ARE LOOKING TO DOWNTOWN THAT HAVE HISTORICALLY BEEN IN THE SUBURBS, AND THEY WANT TO BE CLOSE TO ALL
THE AMENITIES AND
EXCITEMENT.”
— LISA STANLEY, VICE PRESIDENT, CBRE
“ After researching abroad and visiting cities in the U. S. with large arenas in the downtown areas, this concept is what we came up with,” says general manager Juliet House. The idea was to provide“ a place where people could gather before, during or after an event,” she says,“ and a place with the flexibility to be able to accommodate high volumes of guests quickly if they are in a hurry.”
Capitol Mall has historically been the domain of law and lobby firms that wanted walkable access to the Capitol building. But since arena construction began in 2014, engineering and tech firms have started funneling into those offices, says Lisa Stanley, a vice president with real estate broker CBRE.
Downtown office vacancy rates fell more than two percentage points, down to 8.2 percent, last year. Employers believe they can attract and retain talented employees by locating close to the fun.
“ Tenants are looking to downtown that have historically been in the suburbs, and they want to be close to all the amenities and excitement,” Stanley says.
BEYOND BUSINESS Along the 800 block of K and L streets, the Kings plan another 148 apartments as part of a mixed-use project. The Kings total apartment portfolio includes 55 units designated as affordable for lower-income tenants.
Down the street is the rehab of the 700 block of K Street— a $ 55.4 million mixed-use project begun by developer Ali Youssefi and Bay Miry prior to the announcement of the new arena. The project will consist of 250,000 square feet of retail and mixed-income apartments,“ ranging from affordable studios to penthouses” above. Youssefi is the man behind the Warehouse Artist Lofts, which attracted a creative class to the R Street Corridor and has served as the cornerstone to revitalizing a long-defunct part of the city’ s central core.
Wassmer, of Sacramento State, notes that even if Sacramento can leverage tame weather, the proximity to the Bay Area and Tahoe, and the relative low cost of living, the issue of housing affordability remains. And that, he says, is a“ piece of the puzzle we’ ve yet to crack.”
Affordable housing advocates believe more is needed. Darryl Rutherford, executive director of the Sacramento
48 comstocksmag. com | January 2018