CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA (MPG) - At the Citrus Heights City Council meeting on January 9, City staff provided an update about the Sunrise Mall Specific Plan, which will define a vision for future redevelopment of the site.

Mayor Jeff Slowey explained, “At the end of the day, it’s still private property. The city is going to come up with a plan on what we’d like to see.” He said that because the mall property is split into parcels with five separate owners it can be difficult to get everyone on the same page: “It’s a challenge, to say the least. But we’re going to work our way through it.”

Casey Kempenaar, planning manager for the City of Citrus Heights, said that they have been working on extensive background analysis for the project: “We’ve been looking at traffic patterns. We’ve been looking at what the infrastructure can support and doing a lot of data gathering to help guide our future planning efforts.”

Back in October 2019, the City Council approved the hiring of Gensler, an international architecture firm that specializes in mall redevelopment. Megan Huber, economic development and communications manager for City, said, “They are now onboard and working very hard for us and collaborating with our community.”

“Once Gensler was onboarded, we immediately introduced them to the five owners of our 100-acre Sunrise Mall site,” said Huber. “There was certainly an educational process around what a Specific Plan is, what it will look like, [and] what the outcomes will be. We took time to understand [the owners’] plans and vision for the future and talked about how all that information can funnel together into a collaboration.”

At previous City Council meetings where the Sunrise Mall Specific Plan was discussed, the Council made it clear that community input was essential in order to ensure the plan reflects the needs of the community. Huber said, “We made a promise and a commitment to you to really engage our community and maximize outreach.”

“Just this week we completed three very full immersive days of stakeholder interviews,” said Huber. “Once we had a chance to touch base with our owners, we then moved on to engaging the immediate Sunrise Mall community.” For the purposes of the Sunrise Mall Specific Plan project, Huber defined stakeholders as any businesses, organizations, or community members who “are affected by, have a relationship with, [or] live in the business-ecosystem of the mall.”

To get more feedback from the community, the City will be hosting a Community Vision Workshop on February 11 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM in the old Sears building on site at Sunrise Mall. Huber said, “We’re so excited about it. It’s a really great way to harness all the energy around people’s excitement for Sunrise Mall. The workshop will be interactive and provide a lot of exciting activities and great ways for folks to give feedback.”

People can also engage with the project and provide feedback online at a website dedicated to the project: www.sunrisetomorrow.net. The site offers information about the project and will be updated with new developments. The website launched just 24 hours before the January 9 meeting and Huber said community members were already engaging on the site and sharing their ideas for the project.

Huber said, “We will review early findings with you and really dig in and start our visioning discussion” at a joint Planning Commission and City Council study session on March 12.

As part of the funding for the Sunrise Mall Specific Plan project, Huber recommended that the Council agree to liquidate the City’s remaining sewer credits at the Economic Development Treatment Capacity Bank. In 1999, the City partnered with Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District to create the Economic Development Treatment Capacity Bank, and Huber explained that the credits can be allocated to reduce sewer impact fees or can be used for economic development, as determined by the Council.

As of January 2020, there are 298 credits remaining — a value of $436,658. The fund expires on December 31, 2020. Huber said, “Liquidation is a necessity at the end of this year. We’re just getting a little bit of a head start on it with a very important economic development project for our city.”

The Council voted unanimously to approve the liquidation of the sewer credit and the allocation of the funds to the Sunrise Mall Specific Plan project.