Sacramento already has the seeds of a humane city, all one really has to do is look around and use what has been built or planted in the past or has been built successfully recently, then, there you go…Portland and Seattle have developed over a Century with their own unique patterns, and San Francisco, well is San Francisco and great to live in, as are Paris and Rome and…

Comments by a Sac Native, woman, Architect, married to one of the Sacramento Illuminati…

“1. Sacramento is infected with a hodgepodge disease, where one minute they design stuff and put put money here and a few years later exit that location and put design stuff and money over there…a real buckshot approach to urban design

2. Why would I buy a highrise condo in the middle of nowheresville, with no amenities when you walk out the front door and then have to deal with drunks and druggies?”

and that’s why they call it “urban design”….

Highrise condos are great if you’ve got a great body like Neve Campbell, a great amount of cash like Martha Stewart and a great neighborhood

otherwise you might as well build the highrise condo in Rancho Cordova next to “Show Girls”…where the action is hot…

LIUS, is it my imagination or does the CIM project in DC look like a doubled-up version of our federal courthouse? Our skyline will continue to develop; it’s just going to take a little more time.

Central, spot on. The city needs to be proactive, but I think it will take a Mayor and a Council with more cojones than this one.

cole, as long as Sacramento is the Capital, there will be state workers.

jks, I’ll agree that I think there was a little “creative accounting” on the project, but rising construction costs were certainly one nail in the coffin, as was the suddenly soft housing market in general.

you mean a load of hooey?

have no fear dudes and others, now there will be an “Iconic” project, not Doric, and certainly nor Ionic, maybe a tad bit Spartan, but Iconic nonetheless…

Yes Cole, we been had…and not because or rising construction costs, but because the main hypster dude could not add…as in adding up the costs of the project before the hype began…

It is interesting that these two dudes, Saca and Nassi seem to be a tad bit on the loosey goosey side…lol…but hey, that’s just Living in Urban Sacramento for ya…

tell me it ain’t so joe…

and oak is an oak or maybe an elm…and the craftman detailing is quite nice inside many homes…and is still pleasant to sit outside at Rubicon, even though you must put up with State Workers…

Im not so much saddened as dissappointed . im sure none of us are all that surprised really .

I think its high time the city became the aggressor when it came to downtown housing of all types . Why wait around for developers ? Go get em - a proactive approach .

I can but remember a day when all the late Mayor Serna would talk about was dtwn development , Laying the groundwork for much of the interest we see today .

If the city would be as aggressive with housing as it was with the arena we would be in great shape .

As long as CIM/CalPERS puts some dense housing on that site, I’ll be ‘okay’ with it being scaled down, though I would have loved to see those buildings in the skyline.

There was an article in the Bee today that CIM is thinking two buildings, one office and one hotel/condo. They used their Waterview project in DC as an example. Though i assume (and hope) it would look much different.

http://www.waterviewresidences.com/

I would have loved to see those buildings in the the skyline, but like you said housing is what we still need in the end.

I am an avid supporter of small projects, like those on tap from LJ Urban or D&S Development, that combine high unit densities with comparatively moderate overall sizes. This means more housing opportunities that lower overall price pressure, filling gaps in the existing urban fabric (vacant lots and parking areas) instead of razing neighborhoods and existing buildings, and accessibility to a broader demographic. It will be necessary to decouple the term “density” from the term “overcrowding”, because too many people still associate the two. That association is a main reason why downtown Sacramento was forcibly depopulated fifty years ago, and it’s time to reverse that mistake.

And heck, I think Aura will be just fine. I just hope they get rid of the giant creepy-ass Liebskind photo once the building is up: I assume it went unvandalized because his terrifying visage scares people away like a medieval gargoyle.