Uneasy Rhetoric

LivingInUrbanSac comes up with the goods. In two posts this week, he outlines some upcoming potential changes to the R Street corridor that virtually make me swoon:

• The R Street Market Pedestrain Walkway and Plaza
• The Pearl of California - R Street Corridor

I grew up close enough to R Street that I can still remember it, pre-light rail, as an even more run down stretch of dilapidated buildings, vancant lots full of trash, and old rail lines and cracking asphalt.

But, a number of projects would bring higher-density housing and a fair amount of ground-floor retail to the area. Living points out that there is some danger of this area becoming like a mini “Pearl District,” and I agree with his statement:

While I am not a preservation crazy person, I do hope the R Street warehouse feel can be preserved while still creating a thriving environment that is unique to Sacramento, and not only become ‘The Pearl of California’

As I recall, the original plan for the Pearl was along the same vein but, somewhere along the way, someone discovered there was money to be made and all of the old warehouse district-type buildings came down, to be replaced with midrise condos of a familiar style. It may be that R Street is small enough to retain its funky warehouse-in-the-city flavor, especially given that it is surrounded by the decidedly residential Midtown.

Midtown, as anyone who has lived there for very long knows, is actually fairly walkable, but not always very interesting. One of the project’s Living points to would change that. There’s a plan under way to turn the section of R Street from 16th to 18th into a pedestrian plaza. The possibilities for such a space — farmers markets, weekend street fairs like Saturday Market in Portland (to feed your kitsch fetish), whatever — are endless.

This is the proposed idea, viewed in cross section. Still a little auto-heavy for my taste, but a vast improvement:

(From SACOG’s R Street Market Pedestrian Walkway and Plaza document)