Lavender Heights

The Lavender Heights neighborhood in Midtown Sacramento.

AKA - The Castro of Sacramento.

If you have ever passed by K Street around 20th in the evening, you know that it is a very very active part of midtown. On the horizon, there are many projects that will enhance the neighborhood and turn it into a major gay and lesbian nightlife hub in Sacramento

You will also find a lot of interesting places to shop, eat, drink and party in this part of midtown.

PLUS, a lot of the ladies I know like going to this establishment so they can just dance and have fun without worrying about getting hit on by guys! Getting hit on by other women, different story..haha

Having a strong gay and lesbian neighborhood is important in my mind in creating a diverse urban area. With the housing that is being added to 18th and L, 21st and L and the L Street Lofts we should see a nice influx of people into this area soon.

I have a friend who left Sacramento to attend graduate school in Colorado who had been wonder how the projects have been going. So this past weekend I offered to head out and snap a few pictures of the projects that are happening in the area for him.


















Faces Expansion
This project has been in the works for many years, and has finally got going. I had a chance to talk to Terry who owns Faces and he says the addition should be done by the end of September. I'm not sure how that is possible. I couldn't figure out where the hell the swimming pool was supposed to go. (Yes, there really is supposed to be one)













































































Badlands Sacramento
This is a nightclub in San Francisco on Castro that is branching out to Sacramento. The location is right between The Depot and Hot Rods.

I also had to change to talk to Marge who own The Depot, and I think she said Hot Rods as well. She mentioned that they are going to open a Martini Bar on top of Hot Rod, or something like that. So add another bar to the mix in addition to this one.














































Patio Bar















Also, Marge said that the owners of Bistro 33 are opening a new restaurant in the MARRS project on the corner closest to Headhunters. From what I understood, it won’t be under another Bistro 33, but something brand new with a new name. In addition, there will be a new bar, and another restaurant on the other corner. Plus, more retail as well. That is going to be one crazy part of midtown. In all, around 7 or 8 bars within a block or two.

M.A.R.R.S
Sorry, it was hard to get a decent picture.































Recently completed Headhunters accross the street from Faces.















and a departing shot of The Merc...















I thought this was a cool banner hanging on one of the buildigns in the area...

800 K and L Street Project

800 K and L Street Project
2 - 300 Foot Buildings
Developer: John Saca, Mo Mohanna, John Lambeth
Architect: Kwan Henmi

Option 1)
Tower 1: 300 Loft Sytle Condos facing K and 8th Street
Tower 2: 300K Sqaure Feet Office Space facing L and 8th Street
17,730 Square Feet Ground Floor Retail

Option 2)
Tower 1 and 2: 600 Loft Sytle Condos
17,730 Square Feet Ground Floor Retail





















This architect is the same as the one doing The Metropolitan and Cathedral Square. I got say, it shows. All the buildings have a very similar look to them. Not to say I don't like the look, but it's somewhat odd that they all look very much the same. The tower itself reminds me of The Metropolitan and the base and podium look like they are taken from Cathedral Square

I would have liked to see some 2 story retail on tee project. If K Street is going to be a retail mecca for Sacramento, we need to push the envelope on the ground floor.

The two options are interesting. I would rather have the 600 condo units, but given that the office market has made a strong comeback over the last year, Saca may choose to go the office route.

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The Kress Building on the left just screams to me "Turn me back into a department store!!"













































Photos of what this development will replace:

Everything you wanted to know about downtown development

and MORE!!!

"TowerDistrict" over at skyscraperpage.com put this website together. Point and click on the project on the map, and up pops all the details.

http://www.wayfaring.com/maps/widescreen/20365

Kick ass!!!

More Renderings of The Metropolitan

The Draft EIR for The Metropolitan

Warning: Both volumes combined are 1200 pages. The Towers was only 850ish. I guess the location of The Metropolitan causes some extra issues to be looked at.

It's a lot of blah, blah, blah in which I have no idea what is being analyzed, but there is a nice part in there that talks about the history of the buildings that will be demo'd

It was interesting reading the history of the buildings, with that being said, they need to go. The report says none of them have historical enough value to place on the National Registry

The only one that could be maybe interesting and work is if they rehab is the Plaza Building. But that thing has gone through a ton of changes that it is a shell of what is was. Time to go.

The Towers Official Groundbreaking - July 20th

I had this passed to me by a friend who has purchased at The Towers.

I would have never thought 5 years ago something like this could be possible in Sacramento.

_____________________________________________________________________

Hello future Neighbors,

At this time we are extremely pleased to announce the official ground breaking ceremony for The Towers on Capitol Mall. We would like to take this opportunity to extend an invitation to you to join us for this festive and historical event. There will be cocktails, appetizers, and live entertainment performed by The Cheeseballs.

Please join us on July 20th 2006, as we close down Capitol Mall between 3rd and 4th Streets for our ground breaking event and concert. The festivities will begin at 4:00 PM and last until approximately 8:00 PM. The attire is business casual, and this is sure to be a good time. Invitations and tickets will be mailed to you in the very near future, and we hope to see you all there.

We would like to thank you in advance for your participation and for your interest in The Towers on Capitol Mall... THE place to live in Sacramento.

Sincerely,
The Towers Sales Team

New Renderings of The Metropolitan

This is John Saca's third project that you have probably heard the least about.

Obviously, The Towers and the K Street project grab most of the headlines, but this one is on an equally blighted part of downtown that included the old Biltmore Hotel.

Thanks to joninsac over at Skyscraperpage.com for finding these.




















The Metropolitan Kwan Henmi is designing a new 650,000 square-foot, 38-story condominum tower at 10th & J Streets in Sacramento, California. This tower is one of the many new residential buildings emerging in the city’s downtown area, only a few blocks away from city hall and the state capitol. The building will provide the growing residential neighborhood with 350 regular and loft units. The loft units and parking are located in the building podium. Amenities include a gym and roof-top swimming pool


I really dig this one a lot. Not only does it clean up some very blighted parts of downtown, I think it looks awesome. The shot of the building in the nights sky looks great