Joe’s Neighborhood Tour of Davis: East Davis

EAST DAVIS

North, West and South Davis are clearly delineated from Central Davis by Covell Blvd., Highway 113 and I-80, respectively. For East Davis, no well-defined boundary exists. However, L St. is as good a candidate as any. East Davis follows a growth pattern typical of many city neighborhoods with older sections closer to the downtown business district composed of smaller, older dwellings.

A large swath of older East Davis offers production homes built by Stanley Davis in the 60’s and 70’s. Named for California counties, Stanley Davis built six plans, the El Dorado, Shasta, Marin, Sonoma, Alpine and Trinity. The plans differ in size from 900 to 1,600 square feet, with most in the 1,200 to 1,400 range. A few notables: the Alpine is the only two-story plan; the Trinity, the only plan featuring a detached garage; and the El Dorado, the only plan with just one bath. Stanley Davis built these plans in smaller quantities throughout North, West and South Davis, as well.

Chestnut Park and Slide Hill Park are two of the larger parks within older East Davis. The re-designed Manor Pool complex at Slide Hill is currently under construction. Both Birch Lane Elementary and Valley Oak Elementary lie in older East Davis. The school board has voted to close Valley Oak after this school year due to shifts in enrollment. Many Davis residents oppose the closing and prefer it to operate as a charter school.  Davis Manor Shopping Center, (aka the Popsicle Mall), Davis Cemetery, and Rancho Yolo, a senior mobile home community, are other neighborhood landmarks.

With the exception of Sunnyside Village,  a little development of approximately sixty homes built in the late ’90s just east of the cemetery with its streets branching out on either side of E. Eighth St., the newer development in East Davis is the large master-planned community of Mace Ranch. Most Mace Ranch homes were built in the mid-to-late 90’s. Lake Alhambra Estates features large custom homes surrounding a man-made lake, (the lake is smaller than Davis’s other man-made lake, Stonegate Lake).  Beautiful Mace Ranch Park is the community’s centerpiece, with athletic fields, playgrounds, a picnic area and protected open space for burrowing owls, jackrabbits and other Davis critters. Korematsu Elementary is adjacent to the park, and Harper Junior High, the newest of Davis’s three middle schools, is on the neighborhood’s northeast corner, near the Covell Blvd. – Mace Blvd. curve.  A “green” Target store is planned to open in ‘09 just northwest of the I-80 Mace Blvd. exit.  Like the Covell Village proposal, the decision was put before the voters. Big-box won at the ballot box by a razor-thin margin.