Meea Kang: La Valentina is an exciting new building at one of the gateways into downtown
Sacramento. The 12th street corridor is a major artery that takes about 15,000 people a day
into downtown Sacramento. What's also very exciting is it's very green; so, not only
are they modern, new apartment buildings, but they also are very energy efficient and
really set a new bar for energy efficiency in the city of Sacramento. [MUSIC]
Tom Pace: 12th Street was part of the old state highway. A lot of the businesses were
gas stations, had underground storage tanks, so a lot of these older sites in this corridor
and corridors like it throughout our city do have brownfield issues, toxic clean-up
requirements that have to be addressed.
Meea Kang: We undertook this project with the desire to not only clean up the site,
but to build something that was quite transformative for the neighborhood. Everything we tried
to do was not permissible in this area, primarily because of the older use as a commercial facility.
The zoning had not been updated in 50 years.
Tom Pace: La Valentina is being used as a case study of what was wrong with our old
regulations. Since La Valentina was built, we have comprehensively overhauled the city's
zoning regulations and adopted a new planning and development code, which makes this type
of development much easier now. [MUSIC]
Meea Kang: For the last 25 years, there really have been no buildings on these two sites.
We're at a light rail station; it means that we have people coming in and off of transit.
So there's a lot of people around. Because there were no eyes on the street, large trees,
places to hide, it became known as somewhat of a dangerous area.
Chloe Walker: I grew up downtown as a child, and the Alkali Flats area was the no-no neighborhood.
If you had to come downtown, you stayed on your bike or kept your head down and didn't
talk to anybody in this neighborhood. And it's completely changed. So, to now say that
I live, you know, on the new La Valentina apartment complex on 12th and E, there's a
lot of pride and ownership for me.
Meea Kang: The location of this project is near almost everything. You're a couple of
blocks away from major work hubs like the Capitol and businesses around there, as well
as restaurants, dining.
Marques Davison: It was close to work; it had a light rail right in front. The advantage
of being able to get to work in five minutes either by walking or by bus is completely,
like, unheard of anywhere else downtown.
Meea Kang: This particular neighborhood is historic. It is the oldest continuing residential
neighborhood in all of Sacramento. People wanted it to maintain a historic element,
keep it somewhat Victorian. We really took that on first hand and worked and developed
relationships in this community. And we were able to work with them. At the same time,
we felt as though we needed to do something bold, and something modern, and something
that really called for a new direction in this community. It's a four-story building
wrapped in a rain screen. We have very energy efficient systems and we include photovoltaic
panels on the roof.
Jenny Anderson: A house that we lived in that was literally a third of this size was costing
us $160 to heat. This house has never cost more than $25 to heat.
Meea Kang: We really wanted to encourage a healthy lifestyle.
Dezaraye Garcia: The bike room's awesome. That was one of the things I really liked
about this place when I saw it. I was like, "Ooh," because, you know, I had a bike instead
of a car. So, it worked.
Meea Kang: And we look at areas that really build community as well, so it's important
to us to have a community room. We have a children's program here.
Tom Pace: La Valentina really hits all the bells and whistles. It's urban in-fill; it's
transit-oriented development; it is an affordable housing development. So, it's a very sustainable
project.
Meea Kang: We've seen more people invest in the area, more businesses open, and more people
building new buildings, and starting to see some revitalization activity, I think, as
a result of this project being a catalyst in the area.
[MUSIC]