21st Century (2000–present)

Sacramento Railyards Specific Plan

2007– · United States · North America · Post-industrial regeneration and waterfront urbanism · Planned by City of Sacramento; LDK Ventures
Land-use districts plan for the Sacramento Railyards Specific Plan: innovation district, historic Central Shops, intermodal station, housing, riverfront and the MLS stadium.
Land-use districts plan for the Sacramento Railyards Specific Plan: innovation district, historic Central Shops, intermodal station, housing, riverfront and the MLS stadium. · © Downtown Railyards Venture LLC — used with credit · Downtown Railyards Venture / LDK Ventures (Railyards Specific Plan), via The Architect's Newspaper

Core idea

Railyards to new neighborhoods and MLS stadium

Why it matters

Largest infill site in the US West

Description

The Sacramento Railyards Specific Plan, adopted by the City of Sacramento from 2007 and later carried forward with developer LDK Ventures, guides the redevelopment of the former Union Pacific railyards immediately north of downtown Sacramento. The plan converts one of the largest urban infill sites in the western United States into a set of new mixed-use neighbourhoods, integrating the historic central shops buildings, an intermodal transit centre, a hospital campus, housing and a Major League Soccer stadium site. It extends the downtown street grid across land that had severed the city from the riverfront for over a century.

Significance

The Railyards plan is significant as a test of American infill-led growth policy, showing both the promise and the slow, financing-dependent pace of converting vast industrial railway lands into city fabric. It is often referenced in discussions of brownfield remediation, historic industrial preservation and stadium-anchored regeneration in mid-sized US cities.

What shaped it

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.