This Sacramento suburb is poised for an economic rebirth — but will it work this time?

Throughout high school, if there wasn’t a football game — and no one was holding a house party — my friends and I would pile into someone’s car and make our way to the $2 movies at Sunrise Mall. We’d spend hours strolling past myriad windows with an overpriced pretzel in hand, dodging strollers and enjoying the precious hours of freedom away from our parents.

For many locals, the mere mention of Sunrise Mall occasions a wellspring of deeply fond memories. But these days, the building itself is more likely to evoke a sense of neglect than nostalgia. Once a bustling economic driver for the city of Citrus Heights, it’s long since fallen into disrepair. Personally, I can’t remember the last time I went to Sunrise Mall.

Now, the city of Citrus Heights has finally decided to do something about it. Calling it the most important priority in Citrus Heights, and with $1.2 million already invested in consulting fees, the city now has a unanimously-approved Specific Plan called “Sunrise Tomorrow” and a comprehensive Environmental Impact Report for the 100 acres the mall currently sits on. The plan will roll out in phases over the next 20 years, focusing initially on transforming nearly 75 acres of mostly-unused parking lots into a walkable, liveable, shoppable community space, with at least one hotel, an entertainment center, multiple restaurants, a transit center, and retail spaces. The project could cost developers as much as $818 million to complete; city staff estimated the plan could generate as much as $99 million just in taxes to the city in the first 20 years.

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“Unlike other cities, Citrus Heights is 98% built out,” said Meghan Huber, the city’s economic development manager. “We don’t have the benefit of vacant land to build out our economy. We have to work smarter and proactively steward our community’s opportunities.”

With this project, the city can reimagine its future — by redeveloping the very land that has defined its past.

The sprawling complex opened in 1971, predating the city’s incorporation by more than 25 years, but directly influencing the economic boom that led to the suburb’s zenith. The city is, in part, only here because leaders wanted to gain more local control of revenue from the mall.

But now, for a variety of reasons, young people don’t want to (or can’t afford to) live in the suburbs, which left the aging Sunrise Mall limping long before the pandemic decimated the country’s retail sector. “Sunrise Mall has long been in decline, due to changing retail trends,” the city’s interim city manager, Chris Boyd, said in a news release. One of the mall’s anchor tenants, Sears, closed in 2018, and retail sales have dropped more than 50 percent since 2006.

Starting in the 1950s, Citrus Heights began to attract high-earning and influential professionals. Between 1950 and 1960, the population increased from 5,600 to more than 22,000 and continued to grow through the 1990s. Some scientists, engineers, and corporation executives remained in the Sacramento suburb even after the massive Aerojet General building, which employed more than 19,000 at its peak, began job cutbacks in the 1970s.

Since the city’s incorporation in 1997, nearby communities such as Folsom and Roseville have continued to grow, while land-locked Citrus Heights has slid down the economic ladder: Today, the median household income for the city is $62,276, with a poverty rate of 11%. The city hopes to recapture the economic success of its heyday with the revitalization of the mall and bring back a shared space where everyone in the community can find something to enjoy.

Citrus Heights vice mayor Porsche Middleton said community input was the most valuable source of information during the planning phase, and there were multiple community meetings and surveys launched -- a process that will continue to play out over the next two decades as Sunrise Tomorrow moves forward.

“We knew we needed to do something to replace the heart of our community,” she said. “And we will always go back and touch base because we want people to have ownership.” Huber said the project is the “No. 1 priority” for the city.

Despite the enthusiasm, the project will face numerous hurdles. It begins with the sheer amount of players involved in the process. There are currently four owners, with each owning a different part of the property. The majority owner, Namdar Realty Group, is a New York-based hedge fund known for snapping up old mall properties across the United States — more than 400 now — and letting them decay. The company has been hit with multiple lawsuits and allegations from dissatisfied retailers renting spaces from them that claim Namdar neglects even basic maintenance such as roof repair, sewage backups, and roach infestations, and are little better than “slumlords.”

So far, Citrus Heights has had a cooperative relationship with Namdar, Huber said. Namdar agreed to the city’s plans and even wrote a letter of support for the city council in favor of the mall’s redevelopment.

“We have been working closely with City Staff to discuss redevelopment options for our property and support the approval of the Sunrise Tomorrow Specific Plan,” Namdar CEO Igal Namdar wrote in the letter. “We look forward to advancing our plans for the site.”

But some of the most stubborn land use issues in California are continuing to play out in Citrus Heights.

It is disappointing that the city has no plans to build affordable housing on the site, preferring instead to sell the planned housing at the back of the complex at a market rate. Huber said this is because the city has “already met its requirements for affordable housing,” but that seems a short-sighted approach with the way Sacramento’s housing market continues to price out the next generation — Citrus Heights included, where Zillow lists the average home price at $465,473.

It would also be fair to say that business improvement districts in other parts of the county, such as Midtown Sacramento, have thrived because of the variety of housing options surrounding those improvement districts, leading to a diverse and more creative community that can partake in the opportunities being offered.

For those already living in and around the Sunrise Marketplace area, it’s important to remember that the plan is still incredibly fluid. The city hasn’t even yet begun to accept proposals from vendors and contractors. Artist’s renderings, as exciting as they may seem, are subject to change; and there’s no hard start date yet for construction, though the city said it estimates Sunrise Tomorrow will create an estimated 350 new construction jobs. That would be great — if it really happens.

Like so many hallmarks of a life lived before the internet, Millennials are perhaps the last generation to have had a deeply personal relationship with their local mall. As times and shopping habits change, it’ll be wonderful to see a former, neglected hub like the Sunrise Mall regenerate once more into a communal experience. Those teens who once flooded its halogen-lit halls can now bring back their own children — and their much thicker wallets — to the new Sunrise Mall’s airy, open spaces, parks, and shops.

Hopefully, they’ll keep the $2 movies, too.