The worst partner for the city of Sacramento? Would you believe it’s Gov. Gavin Newsom? | Opinion
Downtown Sacramento’s annual pep rally, hosted in the convention center Tuesday morning by its business interests, offered an unusually dramatic contrast between the urban core’s reality and the dreams of its potential as a hub of sports, education and entertainment.
It is as if downtown Sacramento is not home to the capital, the state’s center of government, any longer.
But we are. Governments own and occupy sizeable portions of downtown. Sacramento is the California capital. And no amount of soccer, baseball, basketball and hospitals can fully compensate Sacramento for government buildings that are occupied only a fraction of the time.
Downtown’s largest landowner, the state of California, was conspicuously overlooked at the Downtown Partnership’s annual gathering. And this landowner, led by mega-commuter Gavin Newsom of Marin County, is approaching an inevitable choice as the state hurtles into the post-pandemic economy.
If state workers will only come downtown a fraction of the time, the state needs to begin reducing its downtown footprint proportionately for the sake of the city. Or the state can follow the lead of much of the private sector and bring back its workers to their respective offices most of the time.
Private interests, meanwhile, are not waiting for the state government to decide on its downtown future. As an example of a dramatic transformation that is coming, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District is spending more than a third of a billion dollars to prepare for growth in downtown and the Railyards district as it tracks more than 200 projects on the drawing boards.
“We want to move forward with a vibrant downtown,” said SMUD’s chief operating officer, Frankie McDermott.
The reality — downtown’s mixed bag
Ground has broken on the 310-bed Kaiser Permanente hospital in the railyards. “It will bring thousands of physicians, nurses and patients…..to the Railyards,” said Jay Robinson, the health system’s area manager. A health center as a new economic anchor for downtown is beyond huge.
To the east on Railyards Boulevard, the first Native American tribe (the Wilton Rancheria) to own a professional soccer team is committed to building a new home for the Sacramento Republic. And for at least three years, West Sacramento will host Major League baseball. “It’s our chance to show that we deserve another major league sports team,” said Vivek Ranadive, owner and chairman of the Sacramento Kings and owner of the region’s minor league baseball team, the Sacramento Rivercats.
Yet downtown remains the epicenter of the region’s homelessness, with more than 3,000 unsheltered residents based on a 2024 survey. One week earlier this month, the week of February 10-16, the city received 792 calls from residents seeking help on a homeless matter. The city also picked up 182,890 pounds of trash that week.
“Destructive behavior will not be tolerated in Sacramento,” Downtown Partnership Executive Director Michael Ault told the gathering, as if homelessness is primarily a crime.
“Let’s make downtown clean and safe,” said Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty. “It’s not that complicated.” But, actually, it is when two-thirds of those homeless left on the streets are self-diagnosed as mentally ill and not receiving anywhere near the care that they desperately need. The local and state governments that occupy more than half of downtown remain crucial for true and permanent progress.
The dreams - growing bigger
The government’s greatest insult to downtown is the county jail on I Street, where the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department releases inmates directly onto the streets with a new daily supply of despair. Talk of building a new jail outside of downtown, long a dream of downtown interests, is now something they are talking about.
District Attorney Thien Ho is “the leading voice to relocate the county jail outside of downtown,” Ault said. It was a horrible decision to build that jail in 1989 to be logistically close to courthouses. Downtown has endured this unfair burden long enough.
There’s increasing talk of a major downtown education hub for Sacramento State, which in the short term is grappling with major budget cuts due to a tight proposed state budget. “A university presence downtown….is a reflection of the university’s role in shaping our region,” said Ault, an alumnus. “This would be a dream come true for us.”
And while the Athletics’ planned stay in the capital is scheduled to be temporary, the yearning for a true Sacramento team is feeling more and more permanent.
“It’s our moment,” Ranadive said. “Our best days are ahead.”
Downtown is truly Sacramento’s field of dreams. The state with all of its partially occupied buildings is holding the city back. But Sacramento can’t wait for its largest government to get its act together. Windows of opportunity don’t remain open forever.
This story was originally published February 26, 2025 at 5:00 AM.