Elk Grove Promenade, One Year Later - Next In Line For Stimulus Package?
One year ago today EGN visited the Elk Grove Promenade and saw a flurry of construction activity. Here is the video of that day one ye...
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2009/07/elk-grove-promenade-one-year-later-next.html
One year ago today EGN visited the Elk Grove Promenade and saw a flurry of construction activity.
Here is the video of that day one year ago.
So what has happened in that year?
Not long after that day one year ago, construction on the mall came to an abrupt halt. Months later the mall developer, Chicago-based General Growth Properties, filed what has become the largest real estate bankruptcy in American history.
So as we visit the Elk Grove Promenade today, we cannot help but wonder if whoever ends up completing construction of this albatross will come hat-in-hand, just like the dealers at the Elk Grove Auto Mall, and ask for 'stimulus' package?
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I found the real answer the mall was shut down; they found evidence of an extinct species nearby. See the evidence here?
http://elkgrovechiropractic.blogspot.com/
The fact that this project ever got put on hold is sad. I still remember when the "Lent Ranch Marketplace(Mall)" was slated for construction and years later movement finally occurred. Now all that stands on the site is a skeletal structure and looming reminder that members of the Elk Grove City Council simply don't get things done. What did the city council do about General Growth's constant delays? Nothing to my knowledge. Why the city did not draft a better contract with penalties if General Growth failed to meet deadlines or pulled out completely is beyond me. The fact that this design ever got approved is somewhat beyond me as well. Don't people realize we have rainy winters and hot, dry summers. I want to go to the mall to escape the heat or do something indoors - but because the city council wants to be "different" we couldn't do that at the EG Promenade. We don't have San Diego weather. It sure will be great having to be aware and alert for cars driving down the center of the mall though. And when was the last time a movie theater or book store qualified as an anchor tenant? You are billing the mall as a regional shopping destination and you want Target as an anchor. Couldn't even get a Nortstrom? Give me a break. This thing was destined to fail from the start and maybe now that it has is a blessing in disguise and a new company can come on a redesign some things and salvage what could have been a great entertainment and shopping destination. Message to the city council: get a clue and take some notes on what other cities in the region are doing to be successful. Perhaps building some office parks like Natomas, Roseville, or Rancho Cordova would be a good start since there is hardly anywhere to work in Elk Grove. Cities of 140,000+ usually have stronger tax bases than subpar retail.
I see this mall as another extension of Elk Grove's failure to build anything with enduring value. An outdoor shopping plaza where humans compete directly with motor vehicles? We accepted a cheaper mall over a better design that could have potentially improved our limited public realm...if you can call a privately owned mall a shared public resource.
The location of this regional mall strongly suggests we'll be berming and bridging the Cosumnes River within the next few decades so we can sprawl all the way to Twin Cities Rd. By the time we even consider extending light rail to this mall we'll have to shoehorn it in through existing subdivisions which will be prohibitively expensive.
I agree with the earlier post that sub par retail does not provide a staid tax base. Neither will the income taxes from the hundreds of low paying retail, security, and attendant jobs. The payroll taxes paid to the city won't come close to pay for the city services each of these employees will use; services such as commuting up and down Franklin Blvd. from South Sacramento to man the hot dog kiosks; services such as the additional sewer miles, water pipes, and trash hauling vehicle miles traveled (VMT) because we chose to site the mall at the extreme edge of suburbia.
We've not even considered the impact of thousands of additional trips on Kammerer Rd. just to get to and from this mall by a public beholden to their cars. The cost of expanding Kammerer and Bilby Roads to six lane collector roads to support easy motoring to the mall isn't going to be recouped from mall employee payroll taxes or from the sales taxes on books and movie tickets.
These are jobs that cost the city; they are liabilities. Elk Grove has the worst job to house ratio in the entire Sacramento region and we're pinning our economic hopes not on better jobs but on retail tax receipts from a big strip mall, subjected to the whims of economic bubbles. Wonderful.
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