After years of planning, this bustling corridor in the heart of the city has finally come into its own.
R Street has come a long way. Back when its remaking was merely a twinkle in the eye of developers and city planners, there were competing visions for what this urban corridor, which straddles downtown and midtown from Ninth to 19th streets, ought to be: a succession of traditional office buildings with virtually no signs of life after dark, or an energetic, all-hours hub for shopping, dining, culture and entertainment. The dreamers won.
“I’m very proud that leaders in the city of Sacramento and local advocates fought for a just outcome and recognized that R Street is special,” says Michael Heller of Heller Pacific, the developer behind the game-changing Ice Blocks project at the east end of the corridor. “The street has a rich history and great physical character. It deserved to be a mixed-use pedestrian corridor and not just a street lined with bland office buildings.”