Kaiser Permanente officially broke ground, Wednesday, on a 310-bed hospital, a project that will fill a long-vacant swath of land that borders Sacramento’s downtown.
Officials said Kaiser will serve as the anchor for a long-awaited wave of development in the Railyards. And it will offer visible progress for a district that has spent decades in cleanup and ownership changes , and has remained largely undeveloped since railroad operators moved out in the 1990s.
“This is a difficult, complicated and expensive piece of land,” said State Senator Angelique Ashby.
The Railyards are often described as one of the country’s largest urban infill projects, and an opportunity for Sacramento to double the size of its downtown. For years it lacked roads and infrastructure, the land was contaminated and railroad tracks needed to be removed, Ashby said…