'Emerging skyline'
West Sacramento's riverfront goes vertical
Copyright News-Ledger, June 13, 2007
ABOVE: the sail-themed shape of the CalSTRS building now under construction north of the 'ziggurat' and Tower Bridge along the West Sacramento waterfront
By Steve Marschke
News-Ledger Editor
West Sacramento may soon “go vertical,” in a pretty big way.
That construction crane you see near the city’s northern waterfront is helping to build a striking new building for the teachers’ retirement investment agency CalSTRS. It will feature 14 stories built over “podium” parking, and will start with about the same amount of space as the nearby “ziggurat” building owned by the state Department of General Services.
“The building is about 400,000 square feet,” said Steve Rikala, West Sacramento city planner. “There’s a second phase tower planned in addition.”
Rikala said he expects the new building to be occupied around the beginning of 2009. With 14 stories above parking space, the sail-shaped building will be almost twice as tall as the 10-story ziggurat.
Left: design of the planned 'River2' condos
Meanwhile, Fairfield Residential Incorporated is pursuing land use entitlements for the “River2” project on the other side of the ziggurat, to its south.
“They want to get all their entitlements but are not hot-to-trot to build,” reported Steve Patek, director of the city’s planning and engineering divisions in the community development department. “They want to see some strength in the market.”
River2 will be taller than either of its neighbors, when built. It has CalSTRS as a financial partner.
It will be 240-feet high and 24 stories, with 150 condominium units on just over an acre.
West Sacramento’s planning commission approved plans for the tower complex last Thursday.
The two tall buildings could be among the first in the “Washington” area of the riverfront.
When the city designed a master-plan for its “Triangle” area, though, it sought to avoid putting tall buildings along the river in that area. For the “Triangle area, reaching south from the freeway bridge to the Tower Bridge, planners opted to encourage developers to build shorter buildings near the river and taller buildings farther away. That way, they felt, the river would not be as badly screened from view for farther structures.
So why is the city encouraging taller structures in the Washington area near the river?
“It’s really not how tall the Towers project is,” answered Patek. “It’s how wide it is. Before, it was designed to be shorter, but it was more of a ‘slab’ building and that blocked out more of the view of the river. Now, it’s more of a tower. Also, you’ll notice the CalSTRS building is oriented perpendicular to the river, so it doesn’t block as much of the view.”