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| Folsom Railroad Block news https://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12513 |
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| Author: | bobyar2001 [ Thu Mar 10, 2005 11:02 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Folsom Railroad Block news |
Also stolen from the Altamont Press: Folsom banks on light rail Prosperity rode the rails into Folsom, California in February 1856, when the West's first train line began runs from Sacramento to Sutter Street. By all accounts, the Gold Rush town boomed. Only relics of the Sacramento Valley Railroad remain, but Folsom city leaders and developers are gambling on similar success with the arrival of light rail to the city in October. They plan to spend as much as $30 million on improvements linked to light rail coming to Sutter Street, a historic area where sales have flagged since the closure of Folsom Dam Road two years ago. The light-rail extension to Folsom is the final step in Regional Transit's $230.5 million Amtrak-Folsom Corridor Project, which is adding 10.9 miles of track to the system. RT plans to run 58 trains along the new tracks each weekday. City plans call for a four-story parking garage and a town plaza ringed by four new buildings that will house shops and offices and as many as 70 upstairs apartment units. An antique locomotive would sit in a display barn and be rolled out into the plaza for special events. "There's a tremendous opportunity to create some energy for that part of Folsom," said Ryan Fong of Folsom Railroad Block Partners, which is negotiating with the city to develop the site. For more than a decade, Folsom has pondered the future of the former railyard, a two-square-block plot off Sutter Street. A parking lot now covers the site, centered on a replica of the railyard's original locomotive turntable. At the edge of the lot, a gazebo lists in tall grass. Folsom Historic District business owners are tired of waiting for redevelopment. They're eager to see increased foot traffic expected to come with light rail and the project. "Just build it," said Rich Gray, owner of Gray's Place Antiques on Sutter Street. "No matter what they do, it'll have a positive effect." The new plan marks the city's second attempt to redevelop the railroad block. In 1996, the city prepared a master plan for the area. The City Council had selected the same developers, the Folsom Railroad Block Partners, to build the project in 2001. But the plans fell through. The council in 2003 rejected the group's plan to build as many as 200 apartments and a 100-room hotel on the site. The high-density development in the plan, which would have cost Folsom as much as $16.5 million, drew broad criticism in city government. Over the past two years, the city replanned the project and prepared a new scheme that appears to enjoy broad support. "I'm fairly confident that ... we'll get something that fits," said Candy Miller, a longtime Historic District commission member. The current plan, she said, matches "the way it used to be in the Old West - people lived above the stores. We're totally in agreement with that." So, after years of delays, all the pieces of the project seem to be in place. "With light rail coming, that added some impetus to get something going," said Joe Luchi, Folsom's economic development coordinator. Luchi said the city plans to spend about $8.3 million on the project, largely for improvements to utilities and some of the site's public spaces. Most of the rest of the project's funding - "somewhere north of $20 million," Fong said - will come from Folsom Railroad Block Partners. In the next few months, the city will complete an appraisal of the site and move toward selling the property to the developer. Depending on the outcome of negotiations this month between city officials and the Federal Transit Administration, Folsom may use federal funding for the project's proposed parking garage. But accepting federal transit money for the project could mean that some or all of the facility's parking spaces would be reserved for transit users, rather than shoppers. Luchi hopes that the first phase of the project, including rerouting one street and building a plaza in front of the new light-rail station, will be ready to welcome the first train. Construction on the full project is tentatively scheduled to be completed by the end of 2007. - Jim Downing, The Sacramento Bee, courtesy Larry W. Grant |
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