Plans are underway to build 21 multi-story townhouses in Del Paso Heights, Sacramento. The homes will be built on 1.5 acres of empty land. McClellan Heights Townhomes, as the project is being called, is being designed by GSB Architecture and is one of the densest housing projects in the area.
Countless businesses have been shattered by the coronavirus pandemic and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “stay at home” order The hotel industry might be hurting most of all.
Travel has come to a complete standstill. Weddings have been postponed or held at private venues. Conferences have been canceled. All this leaves Sacramento’s hotel owners struggling. According to Visit Sacramento, the city’s convention and visitors bureau, this time of year, owners expect properties to be at 85% capacity; now they are seeing occupancy rates as low as 6%.
Some hotel owners have found creative solutions to fill their rooms and generate revenue. The Hilton Arden West is offering rooms as temporary office space for workers who are finding it difficult to work from home. The Hampton Inn closed, and the owner moved the guests to a nearby sister property, a Holiday Inn Express. He is rationing limited work hours among the housekeeping staff. The owner of a California Inn in Rancho Cordova is in negotiations with Sacramento County officials to lease the rooms as housing for the homeless.
Thousands of hotel workers have lost their jobs. Before the crisis, the hospitality industry employed more than 10,000 workers in greater Sacramento. John Kehriotis, owner of the Embassy Suites in Old Sacramento, and part-owner of the Sacramento Kings, said he had to let go of three-quarters of the riverfront hotel’s employees.
The Sacramento Salvation Army received the city’s highest honor, induction to the Centennial Hall of Fame, at the 125th Annual Dinner and Business Awards. Held on February 1, 2020, hundreds of community leaders, business owners and stakeholders, and people of import gathered to recognize the nonprofit’s work to curb homelessness and poverty in the Sacramento area for over 130 years.
Now is your chance to grab an apartment in a great location, and to join in the latest trend to downsize living space. Located a J street and 19th, the 11-story building will have ordinary sized units as well as “micro-units.” Appropriately the building is called 19J.
The 175 micro-units are a mere 300-square-feet but include everything you need to live comfortably in the middle of Sacramento’s action-filled downtown at a reasonable rent.
Sonya Sorich of the Sacramento Business Journal says the apartments come furnished. Kitchens will include a two-burner stove, a mini-fridge and a microwave. There is no full-size oven. Living space includes a bed built into the wall which pulls out when needed, and doubles as a small sofa.
Remarkably, considering the area the units are in, the rent for the tiny apartments will also be tiny: under $1,000.
According to a new study, fewer people are moving to California than are moving out.
The United Van Lines’ 42nd Annual National Movers Study shows that 54.5 percent of people moved out of California, while only 45.6 percent of movers relocated to the state.
Most people who moved to California did so for a job, the study showed. On a national level, the state ranked 39th for inbound migration.
Deterrents to moving to California include the high cost of living.
More housing is being built in various parts of Sacramento by the UC Davis Medical Center which already has a property near completion. The trend is only looking to continue according to Sacramento Business Journal’s Scott Rodd. He believes it’s really the up-and-coming “hot spot for new home construction,” pointing out that:
“It’s where the proposed Aggie Square project is going to be, which is a partnership between UC Davis and the City of Sacramento to create a kind of technology hub. And usually, when you see projects like this, you’ll also see interest from developers in developing land around it.”
Sacramento Commons Project – if it goes ahead – is a multi-phase housing project in downtown Sacramento that will be around 218 units with ground floor retail. The current high rise apartments there will have to be torn down for the project and it is expected that construction will begin very soon, maybe even before 2019.
Fairgrounds Drive also has major construction, including the last phase of a 44 unit project as well as plans by Western American Properties to build up to 70 single family homes.
And SKK Developments is planning to build 737 units (which will be in two stand alone complexes) next to the Arden Fair Mall. The idea behind this is to create more affordable housing for young professionals.
Initially Railroad Drive’s homeless triage shelter was set to close at the end of last month. Now, however, monetary donations from a private foundation and Sutter Health are enabling it to stay open for a further three months.
Still, the question remains, what will happen then? There is a chance of erecting three large “Sprung structures,” which will then become more permanent shelters for the region’s homeless community.
It still seems that homeless people are just being moved around the city from place to place. They’ve been at City Hall, Central Library and Cesar Chavez Plaza to name but a few. There needs to be an increase in the stock of affordable housing as well as a focus on job creation and retraining.
For now though, there is another three months for those who are battling homelessness in the area.
When it comes to the Silicon Valley tech start-up revolution, of course people in the industry want to be in San Francisco where it seems to all be happening. But when it starts becoming less viable financially other regions begin to look quite a lot more attractive. One of these is Sacramento.
Prices are so out of control in San Francisco that according to the U.S. Census, there was a higher number of people moving out than in. The numbers just don’t make sense. For what you pay in the Bay Area, you can get double the space in Sacramento County, 80 miles northeast of San Francisco.
As noted in a recent article in Mansion Global,
“The median price of a condo in San Francisco is now hovering around $1.176 million and it’s $1.6 million for a house, according to first quarter data from Paragon Real Estate Group. By contrast, the typical home in Sacramento selling for $1 million is a single-family house spanning about 4,500 square feet with four bedrooms and an office.”
Plus in general, the cost of living is 33% lower in Sacramento, CA than San Francisco, CA.
Nationwide, where is the best, most affordable mortgage destination? It seems that millennials are looking closely at Sacramento, specifically, Elk Grove, according to the annual SmartAsset study, which was ranked Number 2 in the search for millennial home ownership locations.
As Steve Ly, town Mayor explained: “The best thing about Elk Grove is that it remains an affordable option for young couples and families. The city is certainly pleased to hear of this (latest recognition), and it reinforces the 2016 WalletHub survey. It rated Elk Grove in the top 20 places to raise a family in California. There’s also Movoto’s 2015 study that rated Elk Grove as the best Sacramento suburb for young couples.”
Furthermore it was found that a staggering 90 percent of residents would recommend Elk Grove as a place to others. Given that it boasts both affordability and quality of life (with 100+ parks, a top school system and minimal crime rate), it is not all that surprising that it ranks so high on SmartAsset’s study.
Homelessness is a big issue in Sacramento. In the context of its greater state, Senator Ricardo Lara, argued that this news is shaming since the state of California is America’s “richest state.” As a result of this, a protest took place in Sacramento, whereby thousands of Californians laid down on the sidewalk or a piece of cardboard.
In view of this, a proposal outlined by state senators determined that the state of California would spend over $2 billion on permanent housing “to help the nation’s largest homeless population.” Former Senate leader Darrell Steinberg participated in this proposal. It is tragic that there are approximately 116,000 homeless people in California, which accounts for over a fifth of the country’s entire homeless population. Steinberg is currently running for Mayor of Sacramento.
Should this proposal be accepted, Steinberg’s campaign promise will go into effect. That being that he will “use his Capitol influence to write state policy that benefits the city of Sacramento.” Experts say that should this become law by the end of this legislative session, then “funding for new housing units could be ready by this time next year.”