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Stop by to see what we have done with part of our building at 1931 H Street. The Urban Hive is opening its doors this Second Saturday (that’s tomorrow) for a sneak peek and art show, starting at 4:30. After, our favorite local green building supplier, Green Sacramento, is graciously using their great open part of the building for live music, including Nevada Backwards’ Brian Ballentine’s new band, Boulevard Park (fitting, since this is where the space is located).

With the help of some amazing people, a new space has been created, with a great vibe along with some some really cool people. We mentioned repurposing some our space once we needed less of it, and we have done it (with lightning speed, I might add). The idea behind the coworking space is to create a great eco-urban work environment for independent professionals to collaborate and work with like-minded people who have similar values. Kind of like a really cool company culture without the company.

Okay, so the space still isn’t ready for prime time and The Urban Hive (as it is called) won’t be officially up and running until June, but they are already operating with a group of “beta” members (and welcoming more!). Still have no idea what coworking is? That’s okay, come any way. It will be a good time.

If you can’t make it and would like to talk more about coworking in Sacramento, feel free to call Brandon at 916-524-9047, or email him at BrandonKWeber at Gmail dot com.

We recently had the idea of putting our current office space to better use and we have two choices: (1) to have two new tenants come into the space and share it with, or (2) Open up the space to many of you who value the ability to work alongside people with shared values to work in a green space — along with us and our friends at Green Sacramento — that encourages collaboration and creativity. And, let’s face it: the second option sounds like a lot more fun.

The co-working model is nothing new — okay, it’s pretty new — and we have mentioned what Citizen Space is doing before. When done correctly, a co-working space will “have many of the advantages of a coffee house environment (social, energetic, creative) without sacrificing the best elements of an office environment (productive and functional) and gives indie professional an affordable and collaborative environment to work in”.

Okay, we are a bit biased, but we really do think our workspace is one of the coolest in Midtown Sacramento. For those of you who haven’t visited, we are located in a 1930s brick warehouse with 20′ (ish) ceilings and brick walls that has a modern/industrial feel with concrete floors and hand-made steel desks and tables. No, this is not your father’s office space. There is a conference room (with a gigantic steel conference table) and a brainstorming room (basically, a smaller conference room) that will be available for our members. Our members would also be free to organize evening events in the space, for their clients, partners, etc.

We are looking to rent out desks (part-time and full-time) and entire personal offices, as well as offer low-cost memberships to the occasional user and stopper-by-er. The building has free wireless internet throughout (as well as hard-wired internet) and a ridiculously expensive fax/copy machine (don’t ask how much it cost) that members can use. We plan on having coffee and tea always available.

We aim to officially open in June, but will be accepting applications for membership before then for early-adopters (and will be giving the first passionate handful their first month free as we “beta” test the idea). The space is located at 1931 H Street. If you are interested, leave a comment, email Brandon at Brandon[at]LJUrban[dot]com, or call us at 916-930-9400 ext.0.

Should we do this? Do you want to share an eco-urban space with us? We would love to get your feedback. Our decision whether or not to move forward with this will in large part be determined by the level of interest we receive.

I keep thinking…what good is all this talk about community without a good movie night now and again?!? So we are getting together with the good folks over at USGBC and hosting a movie night here are the Green Living Center (20th and H in Midtown Sacramento).

After the film, the film’s producer, Maria Terezinha Vaz will join a panel of local policy makers to use the film as a springboard for a lively discussion about related issues facing the Greater Sacramento Area: waste, transportation, flood protection, and city planning.

“Cities should be a solution, not a problem for human beings. The City of Curitiba has demonstrated for the past 40 years how to transform problems into cost-effective solutions that can be applied in most cities around the world.”

When:
Sept. 18th, 2008
6:00 Networking
6:30 Showtime!!
7:30 Open Discussion w/Director & Panelists
Where:
Center for Green Living (Home to Green Sacramento, LJ Urban, and GreenBuilt)
1931 H Street (On the corner of H Street & 20^th Streets)
The Event is FREE But space is limited so please register and get your very own pre-printed nametag.

Hope to see you there!
Levi

Doors open at 6 and the movie starts at 7

1931 H St.  The Green Living Center

Donation at the door for ECOS.

See you there!

Levi

Many of you attended the movie night we put on last year, I know that there were even quite a few that were turned away because we ran out of space. Well we are thinking its about time to do another one and hopefully we can get everyone in this time.

We are going to ask that everyone bring a small donation at the door for our friends over at ECOS. They are a great organization that does great things for Sacramento and we think that a movie would be a great way to celebrate them and get some good folks together while we are at it.

The last movie was all Jason’s idea so its a bit sad to be doing one without him around to enjoy it but I think he would have wanted us to continue in his honor.

The Details

Where: Its going to be in the new Green Sacramento Space at 20th and H (which is our office also)

When: Friday July 25th at 7pm

What: We are going to be showing the movie The Corporation and possibly a few other short films as well. Just a bunch of fun stuff to get you thinking about your community and what you can do to make it a better place.

Here is a trailer for The Corporation…

Hope you can make it!

Levi

I was excited to read in Inside the City that Sacramento is taking it’s first step toward bike stations that I see popping up worldwide – it’s called Bikes and Bites! People can rent bikes by the Sheraton for the next few months and cruise around midtown to find food and beverages.  Sounds like it is a private undertaking with some of the restaurants helping support it and it seems mainly targeted at the hotel guests.  Hopefully it will be successful and keep going – and maybe someday we can have one of my favorite things in town- a Bike Tree! With Million Mile May behind us and Velocabs cruising the streets it’s a logical progression I think.

Steve

We have not talked much on here about our new neighbors and I am not sure why that is, I guess I just forgot to mention it lately.  But we now have just about the coolest neighbors you could ask for.  Green Sacramento a sustainable building material retail store and GreenBuilt a sustainable home remodeler / construction company.  All together we are calling ourselves the Green Living Center.

Its really fun to have them so close we are all constantly working together to come up with new ways to build and design homes in a more sustainable way. I always like to get near like minded people, it seems we get sharper and better at what we do by working together.

Showing off

And what is all this cool synergy worth if you are not showing it all off a bit, right?   Well this Saturday we are going to be doing just that.  From Noon to 5pm all three companies are going to be wearing their Saturday best (old shorts and a T Shirt most likely) and giving a tour of the place.  We are going to have food drinks and judging by anything else we do lots of little kids running around having a good time.  Stop by if you happen to be taking a Saturday walk in Midtown and see us.

Levi

With the approval of the Railyards late last year, Sacramento is awash with opportunities to create new urban neighborhoods! I’m just wondering where it will happen first. It seems as if all the big redevelopment plans will be competing with each other for state grants and infrastructure funding and there is only so much to go around at a time. It also seems like we should concentrate the development in one area so a critical mass can be reached and really transform the neighborhood – although its tough to tell approved projects to wait! I think the downtown and midtown infill projects will continue to fill in those areas. And our Washington neighborhood projects in West Sacramento are well positioned since they already have streets and infrastructure.

So let’s see, we have Raley’s Landing, the Triangle, and Stone Locke in West Sac. There is also a ton of opportunity on West Capitol Ave. Then there are the Railyards, Township 9 and all of the Richards Blvd area, the Docks, and Setzer Project at Broadway and 3rd. With well over 30,000 residential units possible in all these it’s going to take a long time to fill it all up with urban livers(unless we can get the suburbs to stop growing…big IF only).

So here are my forecasts… but not all for 2008! And they are guesswork!

When the market comes back I think a few more large buildings will go up in Raley’s Landing since it has momentum with STRS and has the Fairfield Condo tower approved already. Hopefully the spots on West Capitol by Tower Bridge will get filled in too. Township 9 will kick off but won’t fill out too fast until it can grow with the Railyards underway. The City of Sacramento will focus on the Railyards, but it will be difficult to get much built in the next 5 years while plans continue to be refined. The Triangle needs to beat the Railyards timeline to get attention and traction. Stone Locke is a different kind of project that can probably go forward as an attraction for the whole downtown – maybe the Setzer project can build off that. It sounds like the Docks may be later on from the problems I have heard about.

Then throw an arena into Cal Expo and I bet it all changes too!

Anyone else been playing with this in your head (or on a map)?

Steve

I know, I know… you have had enough pizza recommendations after both Sactown and Sacramento magazine ran stories about the best pizza in town this month, but I can’t help myself.

I heard that Old Soul was going to offer pizza and finally got a slice today – and I was impressed.

I got the vegetarian and it had tomatoes, eggplant, and lots of other good stuff I can’t seem to remember, but it all went together very well. I always like a good pizza, especially if it’s by the slice.

I also noticed that Pete’s is opening a new store at 20th and J Streets. Only 3 blocks from our office. Hooray for midtown!

Levi

Back in March, we moved to our new office at 20th and H. Originally, we were going to run a separate office from our J Street location but we’ve since decided that its unnecessary, so we’ve now got an office to sub-lease and thought we’d send a quick post and see if anyone’s interested or knows someone who might be.

Here’s a few pics from back when we were there…

And Here’s the Basic Info.

• 1400 sq. ft. Very cool open space.
• Upstairs office (above Haus), facing rear alley.
• Lots of natural light from both alley-facing windows and sunlights. We rarely turned our office lights on.
• Floor tile carpet. Easy to pop out and clean…
• A tiny sink/pantry closet for comestibles and another closet that we used for paper-type storage and our server.
• Two bathrooms, shared with adjacent tenant…the wonderful people at PICO.
• Conference room has a custom-built plate steel and glass panel enclosure with sliding door. We also have a matching custom-built plate-steel front desk which can be used, if desirable.
• Four dedicated parking spots are included.
• 1 year lease with more as an option.

The Best Part is (of course) its J Street Location.
A dozen great restaurants in walking distance made lunch-time choices hard. Sandwiches at Beach Hut or at Grind. Sushi at Kru. Shrimp Curry and Pad Thai at Thai Basil. Noodles at Tamarind. Coffee/Pastries at True Love. Fresh-Mex at Centro. True Mexican at Tres Hermanas. Man, just thinking about it gets me kinda sad (not that we don’t have great stuff around here….). If we ran out of pens or post-its or something, we could find pretty much all of that officey-type stuff at University Art.

Walking down the strip was a daily reminder of what makes a walkable neighborhood: mixed use, street-forward, diverse architecture, diverse retail, small independent businesses, open spaces. We really loved this location and had a hard time letting go of it when we realized we were outgrowing it, which happened much sooner than we anticipated.

So, if you or anyone you know is interested, call Mary at 916-930-9400 or e-mail her at mary at ljurban dot com.