The Abridged version:
- The Franklin Boulevard Complete Streets Project marks the end of more than a decade of community advocacy, planning and investment in a corridor that residents and business owners say had long been overlooked.
- The roughly $20 million project rebuilt 1.5 miles of Franklin Boulevard with protected bike lanes, wider sidewalks, slower traffic, better lighting, landscaping and improved pedestrian access.
- Beyond the construction, the project honors one of the Sacramento region’s most historic Latino business corridors and the families, entrepreneurs and community leaders who kept it alive through decades of change.
For decades, people traveled Franklin Boulevard for a mix of family-owned restaurants and specialty markets, car sales and repair shops, supplies for celebrations and the families who built their lives — and work — along the corridor.
Others simply raced through it.
Cars sped up and down Franklin Boulevard between Sutterville Road and 32nd Avenue, often using the stretch of street as an alternative to Highway 99. Sidewalks were narrow at best, and bicycle access was limited. Aging infrastructure and years without major investment left many residents and business owners feeling that Franklin Boulevard had been forgotten.
That completely changed Monday, when the Franklin Boulevard Business Association marked the completion of the Franklin Boulevard Complete Streets Project.
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The revamped commercial artery underwent roughly 1.5 miles of major reconstruction and revitalization to slow traffic, widen sidewalks and make it safer for families to move through the neighborhood. The community celebration, flanked by the “Una Noche de Salsa” mural at 4027 Franklin Blvd., marked the end of 10 years of planning and the beginning of a new chapter. Construction began in 2025 and lasted 15 months.
“This marks the most important infrastructure project that the district has seen in my life,” said Mike Bokan, executive director of the Franklin Boulevard Business Association. “This is a labor of love for so many people.”
The project represents an investment of about $20 million, pulled together through a combination of city, county, regional and federal funding. It added protected bicycle lanes, improved pedestrian crossings, landscaping, lighting and newly planted trees.
A dream that once felt impossible
The effort began with a $443,000 planning grant more than a decade ago.
Even then, Bokan said, many people along the boulevard did not believe the project would ever happen.
“This is a community that’s been underserved for so long,” he said. “Nobody believed it. It was still pie in the sky because nothing like that had ever happened on Franklin Boulevard or in this district for over 45 years.”
The project moved through years of engineering, public outreach and fundraising. Construction was delayed, in part, by the COVID-19 pandemic. The final funding package came together from numerous sources, including the city of Sacramento, Sacramento County, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments and federal programs.
A boulevard built by generations
The corridor has been one of the Sacramento region’s most important Latino business districts. Some businesses have operated along Franklin Boulevard for 50 or 60 years. There are more than 600 businesses within the district today.
“It is where traditions have been shared, our milestones celebrated and small businesses created opportunities for future generations,” said Cathy Rodriguez, president and CEO of the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
Many of those businesses survived recessions and the pandemic.
“They never closed,” she said. “What they did instead is they pivoted and they stayed open because they are serving the community here.”
Fifty years of faith in Franklin
Few people have watched Franklin Boulevard change as closely as longtime business owner Frank Cable.
Cable moved South Sacramento Pharmacy to the Franklin Center in the late 1990s and later purchased the shopping center. He also owns the pharmacy’s former building at 4720 Franklin Blvd.
He served as the third president of the Franklin Boulevard Business Association and remained in the role for 27 years.
Cable, 84, spent about 50 years working on — and believing in — the boulevard.
“People would say, ‘Frank, how come you do so much on the boulevard?’” Cable said. “It should be as nice where I go to work every day as going back home to my house. I should have that much pride in it.”
His attachment to Franklin Boulevard grew through the families he served.
Cable said he came to know three and four generations of customers at the pharmacy. Years later, while visiting his son in a nursing home, a man in a wheelchair recognized him.
“You’re Frank from the drugstore, aren’t you?” the man asked.
Cable did not immediately remember him. Then the man shared the names of his mother and grandmother.
The grandmother had once told the family to always go see Frank on the boulevard. She remembered bringing her grandson into the pharmacy without enough money and still leaving with the medicine he needed.
“I spent 50 years on the boulevard because the people,” Cable said. “The people of this boulevard are great.”
He sold the pharmacy to CVS in 2016, but his connection to Franklin Boulevard never left.
Restoring an identity
Sacramento County Supervisor Patrick Kennedy’s involvement with Franklin Boulevard began in 1991, when he attended a Franklin Boulevard Business Association meeting in the garage of former Sacramento Mayor Joe Serna Jr.
Kennedy said the vision was always larger than putting utility lines underground or improving the appearance of the roadway.
“For a while there, Franklin Boulevard didn’t know how to be Franklin Boulevard,” Kennedy said. “Franklin Boulevard was wondering, ‘What is it we want to be when we grow up?’”
The answer, he said, had been present all along.
“This is the Latino corridor for Sacramento County,” Kennedy said. “This is a destination for Sacramento County. This isn’t some place that people drive through at 60 miles per hour to avoid 99.”
Kennedy walked the corridor and spoke with business owners throughout construction. Road projects can be particularly punishing for small businesses, limiting parking, blocking entrances and making it difficult for customers to stop.
He was struck by the lack of complaints.
“Businesses knew they were going to suffer a little bit,” Kennedy said. “It’s going to be hard to open our doors when our customers have trouble getting to those doors. But nobody complained because we knew: Keep your eye on the ball.”
Kennedy said he wants the next chapter to include a zócalo, a public gathering place traditionally found at the center of communities in Mexico and other parts of Latin America.
Long overdue
Sacramento City Councilmember Caity Maple represents District 5, which includes Franklin Boulevard and surrounding neighborhoods.
Maple credited former Councilmember Jay Schenirer for spending years advancing the project before construction began.
She said many residents in the area have long felt that their neighborhoods did not receive the amenities, safety improvements and public investment seen in other parts of Sacramento.
“We talk all the time about equity,” Maple said. “We want to make sure that we’re going to give back to the places that need it most.”
Maple said infrastructure spending has historically favored communities with louder political voices or easier access to funding. The result, even when unintended, has been an uneven distribution of public improvements. Franklin Boulevard, she said, demonstrates what it looks like to begin correcting that imbalance.
Art and a sense of belonging
The construction project created a foundation for something Franklin Boulevard leaders have wanted for years: a stronger sense of place.
Murals, utility-box artwork and monument installations will continue appearing throughout the district, including “Una Noche de Salsa,” a mural by Juan Carrillo of the Royal Chicano Air Force and artist Carlos Lopez.
Twenty-two artists will create designs for 28 utility boxes using funding from a Clean California grant. Four murals are planned, including one underway near 14th Avenue. Artist Jaya King is also creating work for monument walls at 21st and 26th avenues.
“The great part about having a new streetscape is being able to also have placemaking,” Bokan said.
For Liliana Ruiz of the Franklin Boulevard Business Association, the work carries a feeling that is difficult to translate directly into English.
“In Spanish, we would say cariño, like the care, but it doesn’t translate the same,” Ruiz said. “It felt very true to who and what we are as Franklin Boulevard and what this district represents.”
Ruiz’s family grew up in the area. When she drives down Franklin Boulevard, she said, it feels like home.
“It’s just nice to see what I feel like was something that this community was very deserving of,” Ruiz said.
Rob Stewart is a senior correspondent and host for Abridged by PBS KVIE.