Video: After collapse of Project Elevate, Elk Grove City Council receives alternate plan
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2024/01/after-collapse-of-project-elevate-elk.html
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| Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen and her city council were presented with an alternate plan after Project Elevate negotiations collapsed last year. | |
Last year, negotiations between Elk Grove and Houston-based Hines Interest for developing the city's much-ballyhooed Project Elevate terminated. The city and Hines had agreed to a formal negotiation agreement to develop the mixed-use project on Elk Grove Boulevard adjacent to District56.
Plans for the mixed-use development, including high-end retailing, entertainment, office space, executive lodging, and market-rate housing, are now uncertain. With the Hines collapse, the city has said it will continue its pursuit of its development, but no formal updates have been offered.
However, during the Wednesday, January 10, Elk Grove City Council meeting, Elk Grove Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen and her four councilmen heard a proposal from Elk Grove resident and smart-planning advocate Lynn Wheat, who presented an alternate use of the 20-acre site.
Wheat advised Sigh-Allen that the proposed Project Recreate would replace Project Elevate and help the city fulfill its long-held desire to become a major tourist destination. Project Recreate would fit with Singh-Allen's declaration that new developments in Old Town-Historic Downtown Elk Grove will transform the special planning area into a San Diego-like Gaslamp Quarter.
Details on the plan can be viewed in the video.
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7 comments
Dang, no Bocce ball courts? Well at least I won't have to go to Florida and visit grandma to find some good shuffleboard competition!
Why can't out city employees who are handsomely paid to generate new ideas for creating income and new ideas to make our city more livable and more appealing come up with ideas like this?
The city needs to hire Lynn Wheat as a community planner and liaison. She has better ideas that anything I've heard from the dais in years. Take advantage of the skills this community possesses. Is anyone listening?
Having seen Ms. Wheat appear before the city council over the years, I am not sure what to make of her presentation.
One one hand, it is probably more realistic than the city's Project Elevate and could make good use of Measure E money. Certainly it would be easier to finance and be helpful to our city's growing senior citizen population.
I recall Mr. Suen at one time saying he wanted more amenities for old folks like myself. This would fit his description.
Likewise, could Ms. Wheat's presentation be a satire of all the city's various plans? Performance art perhaps?
Either way, it more realistic than any of the schemes the city has conjured up over the years. Dare I say Zaha Hadid.
What many people may not realize is Ms. Wheat ran for office twice--City Council and then Mayor. Since she is not prone to Groupthink and rubber stamping every development project that would come before her, her grassroots under-financed campaigns did not succeed. I suppose the developers were not going to risk 4-1 votes when they can easily buy 5-0 votes.
I remember BSA saying how Project Elevete was going to give EG a “chance for us to be more than a community of subdivisions and strip malls.”
I think Project Recreate can do just that!
Well since the developer-ruled Elk Grove City Council, past and present, refused to build inclusionary housing or pass inclusionary zoning, young people will leave Elk Grove because they cannot afford housing.
Who will be left? Baby boomers who were able to buy homes. Lynn's proposal is not too far-fetched. We baby boomers might like pickle ball!
I look forward to spending my later years playing pickle ball and shuffleboard with my cronies at the Lynn Wheat Adult Recreation Center. Get going EG, I'm not getting any younger!
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