Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to be a part of The Railyards’ community conversation! We appreciate the words of encouragement as well as the ideas, dreams and aspirations you shared with us. Rest assured that we are reviewing every comment we receive and your thoughts will help us imagine, study and create a Railyards development that will blend the historical past with the City’s relevant future. This bi-monthly blog will continue the community dialogue as we work our way through the planning phase. Here you will find responses to comments and questions we’ve received through our outreach efforts in addition to the latest updates from The Railyards.
 

The Railyards team is set to embrace and transform The Railyards from its original role as an industrial innovation center into an Urban Innovation Village. This will be a mixed-use community with commercial, office, residential, entertainment, and retail space thoughtfully planned to inspire and encourage meaningful connections and interactions between the people in the village, within the buildings, between the buildings and throughout the public space.

Part of the vision for The Railyards is to make it easier to live without a car by creating transit-rich opportunities with walkable and bikeable infrastructure.

A smart jobs and housing balance will make it possible for Railyards residents to work at well-paying jobs within a short walk or bike trip home. We will continue to fine tune our plan as the vision evolves over the course of this 25+ year build out.

Living in The Railyards

We intend to make The Railyards one of Sacramento’s most desirable places to live. Many people have shared their ideas on creating housing in The Railyards. Some people liked the idea of high rise condominiums, while others wanted to see smaller scale residential mid-rise developments. We envision urban neighborhoods that offer a variety of mixed-use and mixed income housing options that fit the desires of all ages and incomes.
 

We are proposing a flexible housing approach that establishes a scale of 6,000 to 10,000 mixed-income residential units for The Railyards build-out. The estimate of 6,000 units reflects an average density of about 120 units per acre for blocks with residential or mixed-use development. This roughly equates to a 6-7 story residential product. If you look around the downtown and midtown region, most of what is currently under construction is 4-5 story mid-rise residential development.

However, The Railyards will be developed over the next 15 - 20 years and things will change. It is likely that there will be some demand for high-rise residential units. Our new plan will allow the flexibility of creating high-rise residential developments in several areas within The Railyards.

This flexible housing approach allows us to move forward with a strategic development plan that addresses current market conditions in Sacramento, but allows us to respond to market changes and increase densities without requiring a supplemental environmental analysis.

Exploring The Railyards

Community members shared a wide variety of dreams for The Railyards. We enjoy hearing your fascinating ideas for different experiences at The Railyards.

We understand that people want a compelling reason to visit The Railyards.

Some of you have encouraged us to thoughtfully plan the public spaces and make sure we create interesting areas where people can relax and enjoy conversations or partake in a public market or concert. Others have told us to build on the growing arts and culture experiences already established in the Sacramento region. This could include creating spaces for museums, art galleries, and other cultural amenities. Because of your comments we are reaching out to the local arts and cultural community to see how we can expand on these ideas.