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Balancing Small-Town Identity with Growth
Loomis offers lessons in how to revive a commercial corridor
March 31, 2021: Despite the pandemic, Loomis’ downtown is thriving. Last April, a month into the Covid-19 lockdown, new bistro Reds’ opened in a space on Taylor Road that had been vacant for eight years and it is now a hot ticket. In the fall, a pair of 1988 grads from the local Del Oro High School opened an Ace Hardware in a former fitness studio that is now booming and bringing more foot traffic to Taylor Road. Loomis town manager Sean Rabé said that Ace’s corporate headquarters had predicted December revenue would be $45,000 but that actual revenue had been five times that at about $220,000. March is on track to beat even that number, Rabé said.
ACE Train Races Toward Sacramento Region
Rail expansion on track to connect the Northern California MegaRegion
March 31, 2021: The Sacramento region is on the verge of much better access to both the Bay Area and the Central Valley thanks to the expansions of key regional rail services. For a sense of the potential impact, consider that together Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor and San Joaquins services and Valley Rail’s ACE service carry about 4.4 million passengers a year.
Innovative Mobility Charges Forward
Launch of California Mobility Center advances key plank of region’s Prosperity Strategy
March 31, 2021: The Sacramento region’s goal of becoming a ”global leader for entrepreneurs, firms, and workforce in future mobility” got an electric boost on March 11 with the opening of the California Mobility Center (CMC). The center’s goal is to accelerate the commercialization of innovative mobility technology.
Developing a cluster of innovative mobility businesses is one of the six key planks of the region’s Prosperity Strategy. That may sound like a lofty goal given that many regions are chasing such companies. But California and the Sacramento region have some big competitive advantages, as the CMC’s Chief Operating Officer Mark Rawson explained. California is the largest market for electric vehicles in the Western Hemisphere; the “Big Seven” automakers and more than 40 percent of mobility start-ups have a presence in California; and the state has favorable policies and regulations. The Sacramento region is the plum location in the state because of its concentration of industry expertise (boosted by world-class research at UC Davis’ Institute of Transportation Studies), access to policymakers and regulators, and its proximity to Silicon Valley, where costs have made hardware development prohibitively expensive. The region also has a diverse and growing workforce and a diversity of communities that serve as market models for the mobility industry.
Assemblymember Kevin McCarty Introduces Green Means Go Bill
Proposed law would govern how the infill-boosting program would be administered
March 31, 2021: SACOG’s Green Means Go plan got a big boost on February 19 when Assemblymember Kevin McCarty introduced AB 1209, which would govern how the pilot project would be administered.
