Business View Magazine | December 2019

305 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2019 STOCKTON, CAL I FORNI A are rehabilitating Stockton’s historic spaces into multi-family residential and urban live/ work units to support the growing downtown population. “Stockton is very unique in that it has a lot of incredible, historic buildings in the downtown area, many of which are underutilized in terms of office space,” Wright explains. “We have several developers that have come in and re-habbed old buildings into studio and one-bedroom apartments and the waiting list for those are young professionals and entrepreneurs, who either work in the Bay Area and commute, or have a small business in the downtown Stockton area. We even have units that are work/live; so you can have a business on the ground floor and live in an apartment above. One young couple was living in the Bay Area, spending something like $4,000 on rent, plus they needed studio space for their furniture company. They started scouting where they could go, and they landed in Stockton. They’ve attracted their friends and their network of people to invest in the downtown area. That’s just one example of what I think will continue happening.” “We’ve waived some of our development impact fees for any building in the downtown area, and we currently have three market-rate housing projects that will come on line – all have waiting lists for people to move into,” Wright continues. “We also have a major grant that will transform one of our main thoroughfares making it walkable, with outdoor dining options, trees, and bicycle paths, and connecting to our ACE (Altamont Corridor Express) commuter rail and bus depot, which are also right in our downtown area. So, everything that you need to live in the downtown area either has happened or is in-progress. We need a little bit more market- rate housing to really tip us into the next wave, but we’re right behind Sacramento in terms of that investment, creating lots of vibrancy and opportunity.”