Millennia Buys Railyards: The 240-acre Transaction Is Subject to Union Pacific Approval

By Mary Forgey

	RENDERING COURTESY OF THE JERDE PARTNERSHIP

Union Pacific Railroad Co. and Millennia Sacramento III have signed an agreement for the sale and purchase of the 240-acre downtown Sacramento Railyards. The area is slated to be re-developed into a mixed-use transit village.

Completion of the purchase transaction is expected to occur by the end of the year and remains subject to Union Pacific board approval as well as the resolution of various strategic issues and arrangements with other parties, including public participation in the project.

Project officials said the primary objective of the master plan for the Sacramento Railyards is to restore a sense of connection, community and vitality to that part of downtown. The master planner for the project is the Los Angeles-based Jerde Partnership.

Representatives of Millennia Sacramento III said that the goal for the Railyards is to create a dense, sustainable, mixed-use transit village offering a variety of amenities. Up to 4,500 new homes-both affordable and market-rate housing-will be built, including loft-style apartments and two- and three-bedroom units.

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The plan will integrate the city's plans to preserve and transform the historic depot on the site into an intermodal transit center, supporting passenger trains, light rail and buses. Thirty acres of parks, green space and meandering landscaped pathways will encourage walking. A lifestyle center with retail and entertainment venues will complement nearby shopping venues. A public park will be created along the Sacramento River.

Linking the districts

Reconnecting the railyard with the surrounding downtown districts and those districts with each other is a key element to revitalizing the area. To meet this challenge, the architects will create a circulation system that extends over the rail tracks and beneath a freeway, knitting together the downtown core. The design concept transforms Fifth and Sixth streets into an innovative architectural "armature" that gently bridges over the rail tracks at a three-to- four-percent grade.

Sixth Street will be a grand landscaped boulevard, creating a convenient and much-needed vehicular link between downtown and the districts to the north. Fifth Street will also link the downtown core to the neighborhoods north of the tracks, but, in contrast, it will be comprised of two lanes of slow-moving traffic and angled parking. Wide landscaped sidewalks with interesting paving patterns will provide plenty of room for walking in both directions.

Awnings fronting the cafes and shops along the way will offer shade in the summer and protection in the winter. Public plazas and piazzas will emerge every few hundred feet, providing landscaping, sculpture and places for people to sit and talk.

The buildings surrounding the plazas on Fifth Street will vary from three to five stories. Hundreds of apartments and condominiums above the street-level shops and restaurants will create a neighborhood where people can mingle on the sidewalks. It is anticipated that the area will have 24-hour activity, which will provide a sense of security to residents and to a growing number of suburban visitors.

Under the armature, parking for thousands of cars is provided to serve the intermodal transit station, downtown offices and the above-grade residential and retail units.

Plazas for people and produce

As the armature winds back to grade north of the tracks, it will culminate in a grand entertainment plaza and open-air market created within the restored Central Shops. A permanent festival marketplace, reminiscent of Faneuil Hall in Boston, San Francisco's Ferry Building or European plaza markets, will be a place where farmers, artisans and local merchants can offer their goods and fresh produce.

The market will spill out onto a large public plaza that is flanked on three sides by the restored shops. Developers said that it will be a place that resonates with the energy and the grandeur of the railroad empire-a place that generations of Sacramentans worked to build.

Across the plaza from the marketplace, the plan envisions restaurants, clubs, live music and dancing. Vendors, carts and local musicians and performers will enliven the plaza. The overall effect of the plaza and surrounding entertainment options are expected to enliven downtown day and night, 365 days a year.

Railroad history

Through an adjoining courtyard, the plaza will provide access to the new California Railroad Technology Museum, where visitors can watch the renovation of locomotives and other rail equipment. The new museum will explore the future of rail transportation technology and, in concert with the California Railroad Museum that currently exists near the site, will make Sacramento home to a comprehensive source for railroad history in the world, and a mecca for railroad buffs.

The plaza will also provide access to the historic Old Sacramento district through a pedestrian and trolley link. A separate trolley system will link the plaza with the K Street retail district, convention center and arts district.

An estimated 10,000 residents from the new residential neighborhoods on the site and the estimated 5 million new people a year that will arrive through the intermodal transit station will have a short walk to the plaza, museums, Old Sacramento, K Street and the downtown government and office buildings.