Here’s why that big neon ‘BROADWAY’ sign popped up near downtown Sacramento
Broadway once was the coolest street in town. It was home to the art deco Tower Theatre. It gave birth to world-famous Tower Records. It hosted the Sacramento Solons at Edmonds Field baseball stadium (now the Target parking lot). And it nurtured the city’s once buzzing late-night jazz scene.
Then, 50 years ago, the state built the elevated W/X freeway, essentially walling Broadway off from downtown, leading in part to a slow fade for the southernmost of Sacramento’s original grid streets, once called Y Street.
Now, Broadway’s on the comeback, and a big 1940s-style red neon sign popped up just last week to make sure freeway drivers and anyone else in the area take notice.
The sign, near Third Street, spells “BROADWAY” in 10-foot-high letters. It’s about “branding,” city officials say.
“It’s a beacon for Broadway, to send a message that a new Broadway is rising,” City Councilman Steve Hansen said.
Encouraged by City Hall, businesses looking for more space and cheaper rents than in downtown are repopulating and redefining Broadway. The Mill at Broadway community at the street’s far west end has become one of the biggest and most successful housing infill developments in modern Sacramento.
Nearby, Selland’s Market Cafe and Bike Dog Taproom on Broadway are big draws.
And the cornerstone intersection of 16th and Broadway – still anchored by the landmark 1930s Tower Theatre – is seeing notable change, although it’s been wrenching for some.
The former Tower Records and later Dimple Records store was recently torn down, prompting complaints that the city had allowed a piece of history and culture to be erased (though Russ Solomon launched his record empire in the back of his dad’s drugstore in the Tower Theatre building across the street).
City officials said early plans are in the works for a mixed-use housing and retail project there that would have a community gathering spot to complement the garden at the Tower Theatre.
Farther east, in Oak Park, sections of Broadway are seeing even more development, including chic town homes, businesses and restaurants.
Architect-developer of some of those Oak Park projects, Ron Vrilakas, came up with the BROADWAY sign idea. The sign sits atop a decidedly unglamorous new storage building. But it should soon share its Third and Broadway lot with a five-story, urban-style apartment complex.
Vrilakas said the sign helps create a “sense of place” and identity on Broadway. “The hope is that the sign is a source of community pride for the Broadway corridor.”
The site’s developer, The Grupe Co. of Stockton, and city officials came up with an unusual arrangement to get the sign built. Although Grupe paid for the sign, the city took “air rights” to the space above the building so the sign could be legally constructed in public space.
“It’s fun, it’s bright,” Sacramento city Urban Design Manager Bruce Monighan said. “We tend to have restrictive sign policies that stomp on creativity. But there is a way to create some visually entertaining sorts of things.”
The city is laying plans to redesign much of the streetscape on Broadway itself, making it safer and easier to walk and bike on, and reducing car speeds by reducing lanes. City officials say the changes will prompt more commuters to use nearby W and X streets instead, both of which are three lanes and one way.
City officials say they hope that by freshening and redesigning the street, they can make it easier for people to stop and shop, drink, dine and do chores on Broadway. That in turn could coax some longtime property owners, including out-of-town owners, to redevelop their properties rather than sit on them, as has been the case for years on many under-used parcels.
The city and West Sacramento have long-term plans to build a bridge over the Sacramento River at the west end of Broadway, linking Sacramento to West Sacramento’s growing river district.
Hansen says he sees Broadway as the next major central city corridor to modernize, after K Street and R Street.
“The opportunities really abound here,” Hansen previously said of Broadway. “You are starting, not with a blank canvas, but with an area that has been fragmented and overlooked for a long time.”
This story was originally published February 13, 2020 at 5:00 AM.