The bids to construct the Curtis Park footbridge on the eastern border of City College are being submitted, and the components of the long-awaited Curtis Park Village are finally coming together a decade after developer Paul Petrovich purchased the former rail yard location.
The site of the $250 million development by Petrovich Development Company is adjacent to City College and the Curtis Park neighborhood near the intersection of 24th Street and Sutterville Road.
Once a rail yard owned by Union Pacific, the 72-acre development will be connected to the campus and light rail station by a new pedestrian bridge. The pedestrian bridge is a separate project that will be constructed by the city of Sacramento.
Last month Drake Haglan Associates, the civil engineering firm responsible for building the bridge announced that bids for its construction were being accepted at Sacramento City Hall.
The bidding process will close Oct. 24 with construction of the bridge beginning not long after the qualification of the lowest bidder, according to a memo from the Sacramento Department of Public Works.
City College Vice President of Administration Robert Martinelli said the bridge’s construction will begin during winter break, starting on or around Jan. 6, 2014, and scheduled for completion around the beginning of the 2015 spring semester.
Martinelli, who regularly attends meetings with Drake Haglan and Petrovich Development, said he does not expect the bridge project to affect the campus much.
“They [Drake Haglan] have been very good about working around the college schedule,” said Martinelli, “and sensitive to the possible impact the bridge construction might have on campus.”
The preliminary design connected the pedestrian bridge to the campus parking structure. However, after administration voiced concerns over increased non-student through traffic to Freeport, the current design, which aims to shift some pedestrian traffic around City College, was adopted according to Martinelli.
City College professor and Curtis Park resident Jeff Knorr said he looks forward to using the new bridge to walk to work. He believes the new development and its connecting bridge will benefit both his neighborhood and the campus.
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“I think the development has the potential to be a really nice link between the college and the neighborhood,” said Knorr. “The residents will be able to access the amenities on campus and students might feel more a part of the neighborhood.”
Kuchman Architects, the subcontractor tasked with the $11 million bridge’s aesthetics, will use a variety of talent to integrate art with design.
“We worked together with landscape architect Callander Associates, engineers, lighting designers, metal craftsman, bronze sculptors and others to integrate materials and forms that evolved from functional requirements,” according to information posted on Kuchman’s Curtis Park Village Bridge project page.
Improvements to the sidewalk and lighting along Panther Parkway were recently completed and were designed to improve safety and minimize the impact of increased traffic resulting from the new bridge. The bridge and improvements were funded by a federal grant, according to Martinelli.
The Sacramento Business Journal reported in an Oct 10 article, Petrovich Development obtained an additional $41 million loan to complete the project’s infrastructure and assist in refinancing a senior loan.
The first phase of the development began in July with infrastructure construction of streets, sewer and water lines and is expected to be completed by next spring, with actual home construction to follow sometime later in the year, according to Trace Johnson of Petrovich Development.
“We expect home building to begin next year after infrastructure work is complete and final city approval is given,” said Johnson.
Knorr, also Poet Laureate for the City of Sacramento, praised Petrovich’s willingness to work with the neighborhood association and make the development fit into the neighborhood.
“He [Petrovich] has worked with the neighborhood association to really make the development fold into the neighborhood and has probably done more than most developers would do in terms of going back to the drawing board.”
