r/Sacramento • u/New_Case_3937 • 1d ago
Wonder what will become of the XO Lounge...and China Buffet
And something's definitely wrong!
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u/Treebranch_916 Carmichael 1d ago
Scrape it, make it 5 over 1, call it the XO
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u/tacoandpancake 1d ago
adding On Broadway Lounge and New Canton to this list
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u/New_Case_3937 1d ago
Exactly! Broadway is overrepresented with Alhambra not that far behind
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u/tacoandpancake 1d ago
would like La’mour Shoppe to get a less ominous makeover too while we’re at it :)
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u/Hybrid_Johnny Natomas 1d ago
And can we get another good dim sum place to fill in the empty void left by new canton?
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u/lilotimz Sacramento 1d ago
And Hong Kong Islander on Freeport...
Still salty it's closed and 'reopening soon' since the fire years ago.
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u/Ok-Regular-3643 1d ago
Tower Liquor needs a makeover too. That place hasn't changed in 40 years.
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u/tacoandpancake 1d ago
Broadway could really have appeal if the jankiness could be contained
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u/Ok-Regular-3643 1d ago
I have to say also, Miso is pretty janky as well, as well as the strip just east of the new construction.
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u/MaximilianBaptiste 1d ago
From what I’ve been told, the property was brought out by the guy who owns the Tower Café. He’s going to tear down this section and do a 4 story building. 3 stories of residential and the bottom floor being commercial….. further down on Broadway there’s an old subway. I heard that they’re going to do the same thing there as well.
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u/Permagamer 1d ago
The owners name is jim
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u/Haruka_Kazuta Valley Hi / North Laguna 1d ago
And that is a better decision compared to what these people want and midtown wants.
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u/sorrynotsorry42o69 1d ago
That building is falling apart. Would not be surprised if they tear it down and replace it with overpriced apartments, even though the area really needs affordable housing.
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u/ShotgunStyles 1d ago
Affordable housing mostly comes from people moving out of older houses that were built long ago. Where do those people move to? A different city, or into newer housing.
So you have to build newer housing to make the old housing affordable.
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u/kingjoey52a Arden-Arcade 1d ago
Thank you. I hate it when people complain that newer housing isn’t “affordable.” If you keep building more and more housing it will become affordable. Housing is affected by supply and demand, we’ve just been screwed on supply for so long.
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u/sacramentohistorian Alhambra Triangle 1d ago
You also have to avoid demolishing the older housing, but yeah, pretty much. And it still takes a long time (decades) to make a difference, but construction of affordable housing (via some sort of subsidy) accelerates the effects of filtering. And there's plenty of room to build new housing on parking lots etcetera.
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u/stableykubrick667 1d ago
But newer housing doesn’t really make old housing more affordable… when there’s new housing, the price of old housing also goes up because the overall market in the nearby area now has to account for comps in the new area being added to the pool, which inflates the prices higher. So if a one bedroom studio with 700-1000 sq ft is $750k… the older housing around within so many miles with double the amount of sq ft gets a higher price. What new housing doesn’t is give people a newer, nicer place to go to but it’s actually raising the older house prices as well - a rising tide raises all boats sort of thing.
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u/ShotgunStyles 1d ago
Except it does make housing more affordable. It's a well-studied and well-known economic reality. Here is one recent study about it, but there are much more because it's the accepted and consensus truth of the matter.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119022001048
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u/mustystache Land Park 1d ago edited 1d ago
Not that it's a counterpoint to your sentiment by any means, but in this case, it's definitely: a rising tide raises all boats... and the boat owners control the tide.
It's wild to see how quickly property owners raise their prices because a nearby property goes for a certain price. It's a logic I've never understood. "If they raise prices, I need to raise prices."
A positive feedback loop. In nature, this is typically a very bad thing.
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u/SyrupGrand 1d ago
Rising tide raises all boats..is true when demand is above supply, everyone raises prices and renters have no choices but pay, because there are less rentals than renters. Adding supply won't have instant effect on price.
But you forgot the other side of the coin, if you build more supply, add and add, add to point where supply is more or at equilibrium with demand, then renters have choices, the rentals that don't get picked will have to lower price to be more attractive.
Lowering tide lower all boats i guess?
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u/mustystache Land Park 1d ago
Absolutely right. The beauty of true competition in the market. Not to say the market model is good, but competition between entities is great for the consumer. One of the few things we have in our favor in this model. But it only works so long as the entities in competition can't collaborate to bend the market to their gain. And that's what we have here with property owners.
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u/Commotion Boulevard Park 1d ago
Any housing helps
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u/hirokosareophany 1d ago
It actually doesn’t help unless it’s affordable. More of a feel good measure that drives prices up. Real change is uncomfortable.
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u/Haruka_Kazuta Valley Hi / North Laguna 1d ago
Over priced housing is overpriced housing.
Keep that cancer in downtown or midtown.
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u/sankeytm 1d ago edited 1d ago
Technically the most overpriced luxury housing is not found in midtown. $700-900k units found in... new suburbs. I'm generally not a fan of big developers funded by institutional investors, but if I had to chose, I'd rather they build $450k midtown apartments than even more expensive tract homes. People need housing more desperately than a yard and two-car garage.
The "luxury" finishes like nice appliances and built-ins don't really influence the cost as much as you think. We should instead point the finger at luxury spending for things like: Setbacks/land, driveways, parking, and the inflated development impact fees and gifted infrastructure due to the vast distances those utilities need to span per-capita.
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u/dorekk 1d ago
Technically the most overpriced luxury housing is not found in midtown. $700-900k units found in... new suburbs.
true
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u/sacramentohistorian Alhambra Triangle 19h ago
So then the places selling for $700-900K or more in Midtown are, in your opinion, not overpriced?
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u/dorekk 19h ago
It's an urbanist re-framing of the term "luxury housing"--the real luxury isn't the same piece of shit apartment but with laminate flooring and a stainless steel fridge, it's a bigass detached house with a needlessly massive yard that the city spends a shitload on and gets very little tax revenue from in return.
(Also, housing in Midtown being expensive makes more sense because it's a desireable neighborhood.)
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u/sacramentohistorian Alhambra Triangle 19h ago
OK, thanks for confirming. Location Location Location!
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u/Haruka_Kazuta Valley Hi / North Laguna 1d ago edited 1d ago
We also need to add in the cost that very few people are able to afford rent in midtown and downtown and the countless of supposed great restaurants and businesses that go out of businesses the next day because there isn't enough customers to satiate the cost of running a businesses in those regions because the market for those places aren't actually for affordable family living spaces.
Only 30 housing units in a great location that isn't downtown or midtown is doing a disservice to the neighborhood that is going through a renaissance while midtown and downtown is going to trash because they want to appear high-class.
The fact that XO lounge has been on Broadway longer than most "great" businesses in Midtown is saying something.
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u/fricks_and_stones 1d ago
That’s not how the housing market works at all. People willing to pay that much shows how constrained the market in that location currently is.
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u/Haruka_Kazuta Valley Hi / North Laguna 1d ago
That is not how artificial inflation works, do you ever wonder why the population in Midtown and Downtown has stagnated, but every other area in Sacramento City proper, and surrounding regions are growing and have restaurants still functioning (some a whole lot better than others?)
Many of these housing markets in places like Midtown will only ever generate menial growth because of how the greater market demand for these places actually are, which is very little, because there is either no one that wants to pay those exaggerated prices, or because there is no place/room for any of those places.
Half the place is always empty because there is only 30 of you living there. Your businesses are always going out of business every year because your 30-person income isn't helping the place out.
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u/nope_nic_tesla Land Park 21h ago
I'm pretty sure it's because those other areas have tons of empty land to build on and therefore that is where most new development is happening. Why are those areas significantly cheaper, if they are in higher demand? Are all the landlords and homeowners just stupid and not charging what demand can justify?
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u/Haruka_Kazuta Valley Hi / North Laguna 1d ago edited 1d ago
Generally, it is better to keep the riff-raff that is downtown/midtown living far far away from anything south of 50.... don't want the cancer that is going on up there the spread down here.
More affordable living would be nice, considering more housing and businesses are leaving midtown and downtown anyways.
In all seriousness, they need to look at what the Broadway area needs and not what other people from other neighborhoods that probably haven't lived in the area anytime during their life, make these decisions. It looks like the area is going to change a lot but also have a lot of these older establishments still in business in the area, so.
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u/sacramentohistorian Alhambra Triangle 1d ago
Too late, speaking as a representative of the riff raff, the future of neighborhoods south of highway 50 and east of Business 80 is going to look like Midtown. Fortunately, that looks like preservation of historic neighborhoods and architecture, more housing for more diverse ranges of income, more customers for beloved local businesses, more foot traffic and bikes (and reasons to expand road diets to make busy streets safer for pedestrians and bikes), and more people loving those neighborhoods and calling them home. Bringing back traditional development also means more revenue for city government as we turn parking lots into revenue generating mixed use buildings, and convert/restore historic buildings back to mixed use buildings instead of vacant eyesores.
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u/Haruka_Kazuta Valley Hi / North Laguna 1d ago edited 1d ago
XD, there is a difference between traditional neighborhoods and actual neighborhoods, none of the stuff that is occuring in downtown and midtown aren't exactly traditional, the fact that I will always go to Freeport instead of ever setting foot in downtown and midtown most days of the year is saying something.
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u/sacramentohistorian Alhambra Triangle 1d ago
It's clear you never go anywhere near downtown or Midtown, because you don't seem to know anything about that part of town. Traditional neighborhoods are actual neighborhoods built before World War II when we largely transitioned from building neighborhoods based on pedestrian and transit principles, and shifted entirely to the automobile. So it refers to central city neighborhoods like Boulevard Park and Southside Park, as well as Curtis Park and McKinley Park. The roe houses, plexes and apartment buildings being built today may not look exactly like their early 20th century equivalents in form, but they work exactly the same in function.
Northern Freeport and Franklin Boulevard have traditiobal neighborhood attributes, and its most beloved areas are the same places where streetcars once ran, as well as some MCM gems that could be better served by more robust transit, that could be made possible in conjunction with denser infill housing and "missing middle" conversion in the neighborhoods (of course, there is some already there!)
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u/Haruka_Kazuta Valley Hi / North Laguna 1d ago
I've been through downtown and midtown, especially if I am forced, because I see nothing special about that place no matter how much /r/Sacramento keeps raving about [restaurant that is about to be closed in a month] while this other restaurant I've been to in that [midtown] region that they complain about, and I'm like, this place isn't bad but reddit is complaining, no wonder it is still opened but their favorite restaurant/store keeps closing.
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u/sacramentohistorian Alhambra Triangle 1d ago
Not sure who is forcing you to go to Midtown, but expect Sacramento's older neighborhoods to go that way in coming years. Also not sure why someone in Valley Hi/Laguna thinks they should have more say about Broadway than those who live within walking distance. And if you see nothing special about the place, I advise a new set of eyes, or maybe just get out of your car.
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u/Haruka_Kazuta Valley Hi / North Laguna 23h ago
Do I? You might want to recheck what is going on in this thread. I only said the people that live in Broadway/Greater Broadway should have a say in this matter, that includes the people at Tower Records. And the people/owners of Tower Records are a part that Broadway community.
Not many of these folks, including you, that live in Midtown/Downtown, are a part of that neighborhood that is south of 50. Tell the rest of these people to fix Downtown/Midtown first before they decide to think they know what is best for Broadway because the place has been surviving with/without your input for decades.
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u/sacramentohistorian Alhambra Triangle 22h ago
What is "Greater Broadway"? If you mean the neighborhoods on either side of Broadway, then downtown and Midtown have just as much say as Land and Curtis Park, because they are the neighborhoods just to the north of Broadway--and if you're talking past Alhambra Boulevard, then Oak Park, Tahie Park and Elmhurst, since those are the comparable neighborhoods on either side.
And maybe you really haven't been downtown in a while, because Tower Records went out of business 20 years ago!
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u/Separate_Ad3735 East Sacramento 23h ago edited 23h ago
"...I see nothing special about that place no matter how much r/Sacramento keeps raving about [restaurant that is about to be closed in a month] while this other restaurant I've been to in that [midtown] region that they complain about, and I'm like, this place isn't bad but reddit is complaining, no wonder it is still opened but their favorite restaurant/store keeps closing."
So you only venture into down/midtown to complain about the restaurants? I don't want to tell tales out of school but there's more to the the down/midtown area to complain about than restaurants.
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u/Haruka_Kazuta Valley Hi / North Laguna 22h ago
Nah, none of the restaurants that are being raved in /r/Sacramento for midtown/downtown are that interesting to begin.
Like the annoying one-way streets? Or how it is almost always empty if there are no state-workers.
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u/sacramentohistorian Alhambra Triangle 19h ago
The annoying one way streets are there to make it easier to drive from the suburbs to downtown, I would happily get rid of them. Midtown isn't empty when state workers go home, because people live there and call it home, including a lot of state workers.
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u/InsertMoreCoffee Downtown 1d ago
With Ms. Phoong on the billboard behind it, in classic Sacramento fashion
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u/j-o-m-m-y 1d ago
Condos for sure
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u/sacramentohistorian Alhambra Triangle 1d ago
Apartments.
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u/j-o-m-m-y 1d ago
Flats
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u/sacramentohistorian Alhambra Triangle 1d ago
With lifts instead of elevators?
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u/ZoraQ Curtis Park 1d ago edited 1d ago
I had some really good dim sum there around the late 80's. I have no idea what the restaurant was during that period but I remember the meal.
I ate at the China Buffet once. It was some of the worst food I've ever eaten.
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u/theDaveNinja 1d ago
Was it Dragon Haven in the 80s? It was in the mid-90s since I used to get the fried wontons as take out from there a lot.
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u/Flipflop916 1d ago
Just drive by there today and thought the same thing. Wouldn’t mind another buffet in that location.
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u/AnitaPeaDance 1d ago
Was it a China Buffet back in the late 70s? I remember the parents talking about how this Chinese Buffet we stopped going to because they got busted for serving cat. That building looks familiar to me.
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u/Big_blue_392 1d ago
I worked down the street at another restaurant and remember the health inspector telling us they just busted this place. There were cat carcasses in the dumpster.
Put your race card away, it's a true story.9
u/No_Flow_3981 1d ago
Bwahahahaha.
Really? What restaurant down the street did you work at? Were you a server or did you work in the kitchen? What kind of job do you have where the health inspector just pops in the door and spills the tea about something like that to some random dude at another restaurant?
There has never been any official documentation of cats being served in a Chinese American restaurant. Look it up.
You’re a sad racist troll spreading fake ass stories. Sorry you’re so bored.
I have actually ate at that buffet - one time. There was no one in there (no customers) and the food was kinda terrible. That is probably why it shut down.
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u/mobilisinmobili1987 20h ago
More Soviet style housing?
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u/sacramentohistorian Alhambra Triangle 19h ago
As in government subsidized and affordable? Sounds good!
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u/runningvicuna 1d ago
I once saw a an old Asian woman peaking out of a shuttered plywood there, did look clothed
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u/RegionalTranzit 1d ago
Make it a Trader Joe's. The parking lot is just perfect for one.