Stan & Heather's Excellent Adventure

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“That’s why you phase it,” says Fargo of the project’s scope. But until Thomas Enterprises develops something that returns money, it will have to do a lot of the heavy lifting. City Manager Ray Kerridge has instructed assistant Marty Hanneman to oversee Sacramento’s efforts to work with Thomas and company. “And failure is not an option,” says Kerridge.

Enter the Matrix

The city has set up a “matrix” team that brings together personnel from various departments, so city services will be prompt and to spec. Meanwhile, Fargo and other city officials are walking the project around the neighborhoods to soak up community feedback.

“There’s a huge demand for living downtown,” Fargo says. “We already are getting 1.5 million people through that Capitol Corridor, the (third) highest in the nation. The state is going to grow. We are setting up financial plans, but we won’t risk any city money.”

As confident as the diminutive mayor sounds, she seems to be drawing off Thomas’ certainty. “He’s a little bigger than life,” she notes. “He’s got that Southern charm working for him. He’s very gracious. He’s done a lot of big projects. He’s very confident and sure of what he would like. I didn’t get the impression it wasn’t a big stretch for him.” But if so, she says it would be OK if Thomas Enterprises had to sell off chunks of land to other developers down the road. Thomas denies that.

“It may possibly take 20 years, but we would never do anything to hurt the property,” Thomas claims. “I’m not going to sell my soul for something that hurts the property. Maybe I’m too much of an idealist, but that’s the way I see it.”

It is hard to discount Thomas’ apparent conviction that the Railyards could stand as his greatest project. Facing that deadline from Union Pacific, he used his company’s properties as collateral while he secured the loans to buy the property. If something catastrophic had happened, the deal could have been put on hold indefinitely, and Thomas might have lost everything.

“They were happy with the insurance policy, but we weren’t happy. We had to close the deal,” he shrugs. “We just have to do the best we can. Sometimes we don’t like where we’re going, but we believe in this deal. We want to make people know what’s really there. This isn’t driven by some unbelievable plans. We believe that it’s the most special deal we’ll do in our lifetime.”

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