Riverfront Development Becomes Priority For Sacramento Mayor

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – Big plans could be in the future for the city's riverfront district. In his first state of downtown address, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg released his ideas to make the city more of a destination for visitors and locals.

"Our opportunity is to make our city and region an essential experience to tourists and people who live in our city and in our region," he said in his address Wednesday morning. "Let us acknowledge that even with our momentum, we do not yet have enough iconic attractions in our downtown, our city or our region."

Steinberg suggested adding a grand urban park, an observation tower, a public market, and an aquarium, like the one in Monterey Bay.

"Our vision and our economic plan must include more amenities," the mayor said.

Right now, Sacramento has a $170 million plan to revamp the convention center but Steinberg suggested putting some of that money towards building up the riverfront. Mike Testa, Chief Operating Officer with Visit Sacramento, said there's room to explore all of the options for downtown renovation.

"We believe that the convention center is a very effective way to drive tourism and visitation to Sacramento but certainly there are other things that drive tourism and very smart to look at those other options," Testa said.

According to City Councilman Steve Hansen, the money comes from the Transit Occupancy Tax, which is about 12.5% tacked onto every hotel stay in the city. The more hotel rooms the city gets, the bigger the pot grows to pay for all of those big ideas Steinberg has for downtown.

"We need to continue to enhance our reputation as a place that people want to visit, want to work, live and want to play," Hansen said. "If it's not a good investment, then we're not gonna do it."

But Chris Miller told CBS13 that Sacramento doesn't need an aquarium or any more frills; it's fine just the way it is now.

"We're not San Francisco in terms of how big we are, but we certainly have the heart," he said.

The city will meet on Thursday to discuss the plans for the first time and continue to meet every other week until April. At that point, they'll decide which projects will move forward.