What's at stake?
California lawmakers are close to approving the state budget by their July 1 deadline.
If the budget is approved as currently drafted, the City of Fresno would see $100 million toward their plans to revitalize Chinatown and downtown.
The revitalization of those neighborhoods has been slow and steady, as necessary infrastructure improvements have revealed hefty price tags that can often only be met using state and federal funding.
Downtown Fresno boosters can take a celebratory lap, as the latest state budget deal includes $100 million for the city’s revitalization efforts. The award brings the state’s contribution to Fresno to a total of $194 million since 2023 – part of a nearly $300 million promise from Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer called the state’s investment a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” in a Monday morning press release.
“I want to express my sincere gratitude to the Governor for standing by Fresno and keeping his promise to invest in our community,” Dyer said in the press release. “This commitment comes at a critical time to ensure we maintain momentum in our revitalization efforts.”
Dyer held a brief news conference on Monday morning following the funding announcement. There, he revealed that the $100 million comes a year earlier than anticipated, thanks in part to efforts from him, California Sen. Anna Caballero, and Assemblymembers Esmeralda Soria and Joaquin Arambula.
The funding only recently appeared in the latest budget proposal just last Friday.
Soria added that the contribution can be seen as an opportunity to complement other investments in the region, like high-speed rail.
“I know that high-speed rail can be a little bit controversial,” Soria said, “but for our community it is an investment that we deserve to have. It’s about jobs, it’s about the future of the state of California, and it’s about us being on the map for investment, because we deserve to have investments just like other big regions in Southern California or in the Bay Area.”
In the more immediate future, Dyer said the added money helps finish work already in progress and helps keep plans for future projects on schedule.
He said sewer and water main improvements in Chinatown and downtown should be finished this fall. The city will then begin work on sewer and water line maintenance toward the Cultural Arts District — work he said is expected to be completed in six to eight months.
The city is also using funds from a $43.7 million grant they were awarded from the state in 2023 for housing and infrastructure.
Dyer added that the investment helps the city proceed with plans for two massive parking structures in downtown that he said will help support neighboring housing and businesses — a 900-stall structure by Chukchansi Park and a 600-stall structure in the Cultural Arts District, where the CVS Pharmacy once stood on Tuolumne and Fulton Streets.
Dyer said that in a brief conversation with Gov. Newsom earlier this year, he stressed the importance of the $100 million being in this year’s budget.
“I let him know that if we did not receive it, we were going to have to bond in order to continue [revitalization],” he said of the meeting.
Dyer said that the city had five housing projects in the pipeline for downtown Fresno, though he would not name any of the projects other than the already-announced project near the former CVS, led by the Fresno Housing Authority. The city has also shared plans to build a new housing project on H Street.
When asked by Fresnoland, Dyer said the five projects would bring over 1,500 housing units to downtown.
The city’s press release included a video highlighting other improvements the initial $50 million contribution helped fund, like the demolition of the historic Bow On Tong building, to make way for a new mixed-income housing development.
The state had initially committed over a quarter of a billion dollars to Fresno’s revitalization efforts in 2023. After an initial $50 million contribution in the 2023-2024 budget, state leaders deferred funding amid budget constraints.
In spite of similar looming budget concerns at the state level, when Gov. Newsom was asked by Fresnoland about his commitment during his visit to the city last year, he doubled-down on that promise.
“…I’m not ‘interested’ in that investment, I’m totally committed to it,” Newsom said.
The state budget proposal still needs to be approved by legislators before the funding allocation can be made official. Though lawmakers are still engaged in eleventh hour negotiations, it’s expected to be approved by the Tuesday, July 1 deadline.
Dyer ended his news conference on Monday with his oft-quoted philosophy that has been the city’s north star throughout its years-long revitalization efforts — “Great cities have great downtowns, and what requires a great downtown is housing.”
“If we’re going to continue with vibrancy in downtown, it cannot be through eight-to-five, Monday through Friday, supported by government employees,” Dyer said. “It’s got to be seven days a week, and it’s got to happen on weekends and evenings for that vibrancy to occur.”
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