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The Creamery at Alkali Flat in Sacramento and Why Call a Sacramento Realtor
The Creamery at Alkali Flat will feature 3 basic models with custom design options
From the homebuilder, BlackPine Communities, that brought you infill projects in the McKinley Park neighborhood of East Sacramento and the Curtis Park Village development at the railyard, comes new homes in downtown Sacramento: The Creamery at Alkali Flat. The Creamery is the former site of the Crystal Cream & Butter Co. The project will consist of about 200 homes and covers 8 acres, adjacent to the KCRA studios at 10th and D Street in downtown Sacramento. Mike Paris, the founder and president of BlackPine Communities, presented the project yesterday to my midtown office at Lyon Real Estate.
Of course, with any neighborhood in Sacramento, there are drawbacks, pitfalls and challenges to deal with, simply because we live in an urban environment, so let’s get that out of the way right away. The challenges are all different, so you can take your pick. You look at McKinley Village, and you’ve got noise factors from the train and Business 80 freeway. The Mill at Broadway is sandwiched between Interstate 5, the WX Freeway and swaths of low-income / Section 8 housing, which some residents object to because “poor” people are not like them. Or maybe they are racist. The Creamery at Alkali Flat, however, is mostly known for a homeless population. The builders hope, I imagine, that gentrification will drive homeless people elsewhere but this is not a blog about the pros and cons of gentrification.
Kitchen and living area under construction at The Creamery at Alkali Flat
If you look at the location, the train tracks are a few blocks away and so is Light Rail, but that makes it very handy for commuters. It’s also within walking distance of the Midtown Autoworks, where I take my Porsche for service so I don’t have to drive out to Rocklin. Alkali Flat features some of the oldest homes in Sacramento, including beautiful Victorians and Italianates. If you work at the courthouse, you could be there in 2 minutes, so I bet this project will definitely appeal to lawyers, but it’s also within a mile or so to the Capitol. Close proximity to restaurants, theatres, nightlife, the new Kings arena Golden1, and very close to the American River bike trails.
Vertical accent tiles accentuate the custom tile work over the tub at the Creamery at Alkali Flat
Three 3-story designs are available, which can also be customized to a buyer’s personal tastes. They all include roof top patios as an option, and you’d be pretty much foolish not to choose the roof top patio element. Our cool nights with the Delta breezes blowing through are perfect for summer-time entertaining and what better place to be than 3 floors off the ground with a view of Sacramento?
Each will feature a two-car garage. Two of the models will be configured with 2 to 3 bedrooms, you decide, and your choice of 1745 square feet or 1818 square feet. First Release pricing, $500,990 to $530,990. The third larger model will be 2305 square feet and boast 2 to 4 bedrooms. First Release pricing, $539,950 to $569,990.
However, don’t run over to the project just yet. If you are interested in buying a home at The Creamery at Alkali Flat, the very FIRST thing you need to do is ask your Sacramento Realtor to register your name as a client of your Realtor. If you do not, you probably cannot use the services of a Sacramento Realtor when you buy because the builder will register you. Registered builder buyers are not allowed to hire an agent. So get representation. Call Elizabeth Weintraub, 916.233.6759.
Designer tile is attached to a bathroom wall entrance at The Creamery at Alkali Flat
People don’t realize that they can’t use a real estate agent, which the seller pays for, if they go directly to the new homebuilder. They think: Oh, I’ll just shoot the builder an email to get on a mailing list, or I’ll just stop by on my way home to say hello, what’s the harm in that? Plenty! My professional advice is DO NOT EVER CONTACT A NEW HOME BUILDER ON YOUR OWN. Make sure you go to your own Sacramento Realtor first. Once your Realtor registers you with the builder, you can run over there all you want.
To get registered to buy at The Creamery at Alkali Flat, call the Elizabeth Weintraub Team at 916.233.6759. We’d love to help you. I’ve got more than 40 years in the real estate business. Don’t make the big mistake of cutting out your agent and losing your personal representation. It costs you nothing and could save you big in the long run to call us. In fact, we can also get you an invitation to the private grand opening in early December.
Of course, if you want to buy a new home on a culdesac over by East Sacramento, we have a small infill project available for you. Check out the affordable new homes in Elmhurst known as Declan Court Houses. Value range pricing: $429K to $479K. Or call your Sacramento Realtor Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759 for more information.
Photos: © Barbara Dow, from the Elizabeth Weintraub Team
Real Estate Construction and Condo Market in Downtown Sacramento
Back side of the Sacramento Kings Arena, the Golden 1 Center, on L Street near 5th.
Lots of people are beginning to bank on property values going up near the new downtown Sacramento Kings Arena, now named the Golden 1 Center, and with good reason. Parts of downtown Sacramento are going through renovation, which often tends to boost values in the neighborhoods near by. And there is a lot to point toward, from the older expansion of the Crocker Museum to the revitalization of K Street and all the construction buzz for boutique hotels, new condos and apartment buildings.
Rents are going up, too. In fact, in some neighborhoods, it is cheaper to buy a home in Sacramento than to rent. The buy-and-hold investors are coming back. There is a big difference between the flipper investors and regular investors. I think it’s funny that we call the flippers “investors” when they are more like gamblers. Sometimes they win and sometimes they lose and they never seem to know when to fold. For the long run, investors who buy homes to rent them out look more for value than trying to squeeze every last dime out of a transaction and better fit the term investor.
Construction in progress at Kings Arena, Golden 1 Center, downtown Sacramento on L Street, 9/13/15.
Those thoughts ran through my head yesterday as my husband and I headed to the Sacramento Library on I Street and drove down L Street. I recall several years ago the condos at 15th Street at Stanford Court that used to sell for $150,000 are now moving in the $300,000 range and up. Those condos also rent for $1,500 and up. Some projects have remained fairly stable, like the Saratoga Townhouses over at 9th and Q Streets, but some of the others like Bridgeway Towers, for example, at 500 N Street, why, those prices have jumped through the roof. I’ve had short sales at $250K or so and those prices are almost double in 2015.
We also drove by flippers on 3rd Street in downtown Sacramento and, like the homes going in on 5th Street, the Mill at Broadway in Land Park, some of the reason for that construction is cheap land. Land is usually cheap because it’s either contaminated, like the railroad cleanup in Curtis Park Village, or it’s in a bad location, like under a freeway. I don’t know why people want to live under a freeway but they will, and I’m not talking about the homeless. Why do they want to buy in McKinley Village? I suspect it’s the same reason people will live on busy streets, affordability coupled with a connection to others.
It’s almost like a life-force to some buyers, the screaming freeway. Cars zipping by, a continual traffic hum of automobile tires, accentuated by the occasional compounding of racket made by 16-wheelers and motorcycles. I spotted new homes going in at the corner of Santa Buena and Swanson in Land Park, up against Interstate 5. This was a plot of land that the neighborhood rallied around to make into a dog park, but it never happened. I’ve sold homes on Santa Buena, and it’s one of the hardest places to sell homes in Land Park, except for those on Freeport or by the railroad tracks.
When you run out of land in a city, you get what is left, and the real estate mantra of location, location, location seems to matter less and less to home buyers. Well, until the day they become a home seller.
photos by Elizabeth Weintraub
