District 8 City Councilwoman Bonnie Pannell hosted a bus tour Thursday highlighting recent redevelopment efforts and future growth opportunities throughout the district with a group of developers, real estate brokers and city employees – along with a few district residents and neighborhood association representatives.

“This is going to be a tour of opportunities,” said City Manager John Shirey at the start of the tour. “We’ve got a good future for this district.”

The Meadowview and south city areas have seen the second-greatest rate of growth in all of Sacramento, second only to North Natomas in District 1, Pannell said.

“We have had a lot of growth (in District 8),” Pannell said, “and we still have more land to be developed. We’re going to be looking for new projects – so developers on the tour, pay attention.”

Some of the economic development successes highlighted on the tour included a $350 million expansion of Kaiser Permanente, a new 20,000-square-foot Valley Hi/North Laguna public library, new recreational amenities with three new parks and the Phoenix Park development – a project completed in conjunction with the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency.

“One way we can get through our financial difficulties in the city is to grow our way out,” Shirey said. “I see the positives all around now. We’ve got something good started, and we can build on that.”

David Kwong, city planning director, pointed out on the tour more development activity at Meadowview Road and Freeport Boulevard, including a new Walgreens and a 20,000-square-foot veterinary hospital.

Kwong also noted the future site of a Fresh and Easy grocery store – something residents in the south area want and need but have very few of, according to Pannell.

“Meadowview really needs a grocery store,” Pannell said. “They’ve been talking about a grocery store for 13 years, and (the future Fresh and Easy) is the closest we’ve come.”

Pannell said residents often have to drive nearly two miles to the nearest store, and that creates a real challenge for people.

Nehla Buchanan, 46, a caregiver with the state of California, has lived in Pannell’s district for about a year. Buchanan said she moved to the Meadowview area because housing was affordable and there was a good opportunity for home ownership.

Buchanan’s neighborhood is adjacent to the future site of the planned Delta Shores development – an 800-acre mixed-use project that will include retail shops, single-family and multi-family housing, and office and commercial uses.

The project will also include at least one grocery store, according to Jain Wager, a developer with MerloneGeier Partners, the developer of Delta Shores.

“I love the Delta Shores development,” Buchanan said. “I can’t wait until they start building over there.”

Buchanan is part of the Meadowview Neighborhood Association, and the group has held numerous meetings with Pannell and city staff to give input into the many changes happening in the district.

“We’ve worked with Ms. Pannell specifically on improvements in our neighborhood, and it’s been so helpful,” Buchanan said. “We will continue to give our input to new things that are happening here.”

Jesse Reese, president of the Meadowview Neighborhood Association, has been a community activist for more than 35 years in the south city area.

“It’s good to see us grow,” Reese said. “It’s inspiring to see things that we’ve worked toward for a very long time finally happening.”

Reese said that, when the idea for Delta Shores was first discussed nearly 30 years ago, the developers at the time wanted to open “another Mack Road” with nothing but apartment complexes, Reese said.

“We wanted more of a development than that,” Reese said. “We now see (developers) MerloneGeier doing something better and hearing what (neighborhood associations) have been wanting.”

Reese said that, as the area develops more, he and the MNA will continue to reach out to City Council to make sure the issues that concerned neighbors want addressed don’t get lost in the shuffle.

City Economic Development Director Jim Reinhart said that, over the past five years, south area neighborhoods have experienced a real growth spurt – but it’s gone “unnoticed” for the most part.

Pannell said south area development has been largely ignored because downtown and North Natomas have been getting the lion’s share of attention at City Hall.

“We have a ton of land that needs to be developed,” Pannell said. “So, we’ve been quietly developing small plots, plugging along and hoping that one day someone would notice.”

The bus tour was the second one in four years that Pannell has hosted. The next one won’t be planned for another two or three years, she said, to allow time for “even more growth and development to show off later on.”

“Even though we still have a lot of vacant land, we have done a lot,” Pannell said. “And we’ll do even more before the next tour.”

Pannell said she hopes to see a new, 200-plus-unit senior center that is in the planning stages get approval in time to break ground next summer.

“I want the light rail South Line to start next year,” Pannell said, “and the Cosumnes River Boulevard connection (between Interstate 5 and Highway 99) to happen next year, too.”

Gwendolyn Feathers, 67, a resident of the district since 1988, said she has seen a lot of the growth and development projects going up in the district, but this was the first bus tour of the area that she has been on.

“I’ve learned so much today,” Feathers said. “We have really been building up in the area – it’s exciting.”

Although City Council approval is in place, the Delta Shores development does not yet have a planned construction start date, according to Wager.

Melissa Corker is a Staff Reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @MelissaCorker.