Aggie Square completes first milestone. Here’s what next for the Sacramento innovation hub

Political leaders, neighborhood residents and the UC Davis community celebrated what Chancellor Gary May called “the next big chapter of the Aggie Square story” on Thursday morning as they marked completion of the framework for the first two buildings at the Sacramento innovation hub.

“As we transform this site into a thriving hub where we can collaborate and innovate together, there’s really no limit to what we can accomplish,” May said. “This transformative development will push us forward on the right path, so that the local communities can prosper.”

This first phase of development will generate millions in revenue for the city of Sacramento, May said, but the overall project, when complete, is expected to generate $5 billion in economic impact for the city and region.

On tours around the exterior of the construction site, representatives from the university, development company Wexford Science & Technology, architecture firm ZGF emphasized the diverse local workers and regional companies contributing to the project:

UCD Community Engagement Manager Sumiko Hong shared how she was working a table at a community event when she ran into a young young Tahoe Park resident who was doing quality control for the company making the glass panels lining the exterior of the buildings. He’d been working as a Starbucks barista, where he served Chris Bagatelos, the chief executive officer of Sacramento-based Bagatelos Architectural Glass Systems.

“They got to talking and this young man said, ‘I’m really into woodworking. I love to build things and make things.’” Hong said, “and Chris said, ‘Oh, you should apply at my company.’ Now this young man … works in the quality control part of Bagatelos. He said, ‘I could afford to get married because I have (had) a transformative economic opportunity working on Aggie Square.’”

May said the equivalent of 52 full-time workers at Bagatelos are making the glass panels that at the new buildings. Local brickmaker HC Muddox, located on Bradshaw Road in Sacramento, is supplying the stonework inside and outside the new buildings, tour guides noted, and prefabricated systems builder Clark Pacific, based in West Sacramento, is delivering pre-cast framework for the parking garage next door.

Located just across Second Avenue from the UC Davis Health campus, the two buildings are still very much active construction sites and won’t be ready for occupation until 2025. Two construction cranes hover overhead, but glass panes, concrete pillars and open spaces between floors now reveal some of the character of the project.

What companies, institutions will occupy Aggie Square

Facing Second Avenue will be the Life Science Technology Engineering East building, or LSTE East. Roughly 60% of the space in this building will be occupied by the University of California, Davis, and 40% will be leased to industry. The focus has been on creating a makerspace, she said, a place where people with shared interests can work on their projects both separately and collaboratively.

To that end, ZGF has integrated lots of active walls where people can write their ideas and glass partitions so people can see the research going on in different makerspaces, said Amanda Hills, a principal with ZGF Architects, and they have also tried to make the building a bit porous.

“Every two floors, … the floors are actually connected with an open stair to really encourage people to move through the building for those serendipitous collisions of intellect in research,” Hills said. “We also have some amenity spaces towards the north end involving a space to sit on a lounge or enjoy break room spaces where people can kind of just gather and focus.”

David Lubarsky, the chief executive officer of UC Davis Health, said the wet lab research space in this building will primarily be occupied by faculty working in the academic health system.

“It is the first new Class A wet lab research space built on this campus in 40 years,” he said. “Our researchers are finally going to have a building as fine as the research that they do. That, to me, is incredibly exciting, and (so is) the ability of providing a hub for a really emerging group devoted to intellectual technology and intellectual property and spin-off companies which we really haven’t had the right environment for. This is really going to jump-start those efforts on this campus.”

The Lifelong Learning Building, or LLL, sits behind it and is connected by walkways on the first and second floors. John Marx, the vice provost for academic planning at Aggie Square, said UCD leaders hope to see learners from age 18 and into their 80s taking courses in the building.

ZGF architect Blake Coren said members of the public will be able to reserve spaces inside a civic lounge space in the LLL known as Innovation Hall. The area will have workspaces, conference rooms and sitting areas, and it will open up near the outdoor plaza known as Aggie Square, the namesake for the project.

On the ground floor of the two buildings, designers created a covered exterior walkway around the perimeter of the two buildings by recessing the glass walls to give pedestrians protection on hot or rainy days in Sacramento. Slender concrete pillars rise to the second floor, spaced evenly beneath the overhang of both buildings.

In the future, trees also will sit between the building and a wide footpath, known as “The Paseo,” that will be the outdoor link to Aggie Square. ZGF, Wexford and UCD plan to use some mature trees in this courtyard to immediately reap the benefits of an urban canopy in the space. They studied trees in nearby neighborhoods to decide which ones to plant.

Politicians praise construction progress

US Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, said she was happily dancing up the steps to the podium to celebrate the latest construction milestone for a project that has only scratched the surface of its potential. Future additions to Aggie Square, she said, can take advantage of climate funding that Congress has set aside.

“Aggie Square is going to be a monumental achievement for our region and our residents,” she said. “It is about the people. research programs, private industry partners, classrooms, lab facilities, student housing. We’re talking about all that right here. Now as Sacramento continues to grow, as it will, we have to create opportunities for local innovators, attract new economic drivers, and give our students and our surrounding communities the tools to succeed.”

Matsui, May and Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg all also alluded to the challenges they had to overcome to get the project off the ground as skeptical neighborhood residents voiced concerns that such a project would gentrify neighborhoods and price them and their children out .

Then-councilmembers Eric Guerra and Jay Schenirer met weekly with residents to tackle concerns, and slowly all parties negotiated what community benefits they expected to reap from the deal. Neighborhood groups continue to evaluate how communities are faring as a result.

“I love the term struggle because it’s only through struggle, and through challenging one another, that we achieve greatness,” Steinberg said. “Yeah, there were a couple of lawsuits, dare we say, and some challenges in some contentious moments. But man, you talk about turning lemons into lemonade and taking that controversy and creating something even greater. That’s what we did together.”

It was a project that both Steinberg and May wanted to realize, but the mayor credited May for not only having the vision to see what Aggie Square could do for the region but also for leaning into negotiations with all his “skill, talent and ability.”

Guerra said the project has to continue lifting all boats as it moves into future phases: “The big proof in the pudding is, as this gets built and as we fill it with new tenants, that we continue that path to make sure that we’re recruiting locally, that we’re upskilling workers and that we’re supporting the communities around it.”