SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The state of Downtown Sacramento is moving in the right direction and more needs to be done. That was the message from city and economic leaders at Tuesday morning’s State of Downtown event.
Michael Ault is executive director of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, which hosted the event.
Prior to the pandemic, he said some 70,000 state workers commuted to the Downtown core, eating lunch there and patronizing local retailers. Now, only about a third of those workers have come back to the office, Ault said, so the Downtown Sacramento Partnership is shifting its strategy.
“I think work-from-home is probably here to stay. We realize that,” Ault said. “What can we do to bring in that critical mass of bodies? It’s lean into housing, lean into entertainment, really focus on activations to bring people down to offset that loss, and I think that’s been the focus. We want to bring some fun and energy back Downtown.”
The Downtown Sacramento Partnership serves the nearly 200 property owners and more than 400 businesses within Sacramento’s 66-block Downtown core.
At the State of Downtown event at the Safe Credit Union Convention Center, local leaders outlined upcoming investments and priorities, including Kaiser Permanente’s expansive campus planned in the Railyards.
“I think the state of Downtown is great,” said Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg. “I think the future of Downtown is unlimited.”
Mayor Steinberg says the city is still fighting for a Major League Soccer team, and he’s confident that before the end of the year, the city will have a “major investor” to build a professional soccer stadium in the Railyards.
The land where a parking lot currently sits at 15th and K streets has been leased and is set to become a 350-room, 28-story Hilton hotel directly across from the convention center, Steinberg said.
“We'll bring that to the City Council this summer,” he said. “We have the money now to invest in modernizing the Old Sacramento Waterfront.”
He says the city has $100 million unallocated dollars in so-called “hotel tax” funds (also known as the TOT or Transient Occupancy Tax) that – by city code, expanded by voters via the passage of Measure N in 2022 – must be used for projects that promote economic development, tourism or otherwise bolster the local economy.
He plans on proposing Council approve $40 million of that to modernize the Old Sacramento Waterfront - plans that went on hold when the pandemic led to a steep drop in hotel stays - and use some of the funds on the hotel project at 15th and K streets.
Ross Rojek co-owns Capital Books on K Street and There & Back Cafe on Cathedral Square.
“I’d like to see them spend a little bit more on K Street too,” he said. “Cathedral Square is considered a park, but it looks like a parking lot and people treat it as a parking lot.”
He points out the improvements the city has made at Cesar Chavez Plaza.
“They’ve put out new chairs, new tables,” Rojek said. “People are going there and hanging out during lunch because it’s a nice environment. You know, [Cathedral Square] could be the same thing. Youssefi Square, same thing: those just need places for people to sit. They need some shade.”
ABC10 spoke with Rojek after last year’s State of Downtown and asked him Tuesday: after another year of recovery and progress following the worst of the pandemic, how is he feeling about the State of Downtown now?
“I’m still optimistic about downtown,” Rojek said. “We’re definitely seeing a big uptick just in foot traffic… The conventions are getting bigger… The Café is getting busier at nights. We’re trying to figure out another night to stay open. But, yeah, I mean, there are definitely more tourists here. There’s definitely more people coming in and out the Capitol.”
ABC10 asked him about the unhoused population on K Street.
“It’s getting a lot better. I mean, we used to kind of track how often we had an incident, and I don’t think of it in that space anymore,” Rojek said. “There are fewer homeless people on the street. There are fewer homeless people causing issues. But my guess is that a lot of those people moved.”
He credits the Downtown Sacramento Partnership for being responsive to his needs as a business owner and keeping the Downtown core as clean and safe as possible.
Rojek said he is encouraged by the new housing he sees, citing the Envoy development near Cathedral Square. He wants to see more housing, plus retail stores and a grocery store.
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