ELK GROVE, CA (MPG) - While no one can predict with absolute certainty what 2025 will bring for the city of Elk Grove, there are several projects and issues that will continue to take precedent heading into the new year. 

Below are projects that residents should keep their eyes on in 2025. 

If all goes to plan, Elk Grove’s new library should open its doors in late 2025, offering a larger, more robust location for Elk Grove residents.

The facility on the southeast corner of Elk Grove Boulevard and Waterman Road, will increase in size by 5,000 square feet and add new features not available in the current library at 8900 Elk Grove Blvd., including twice as many parking spaces, charging stations for electric vehicles, public art and improved landscaping. 

The 18,000-square-foot project has been nearly seven years in the making. 

In 2018, the city approved a study that found the library had outgrown its current site. The original library was built in 2008, but as the city’s population increased by nearly 50,000 residents, parking issues and other concerns were identified, leading city officials to seek a new site. 

The Sacramento Public Library Authority provides library services for each community, but the city is required to provide the space. 

In 2021, the city acquired the former Rite Aid building at 9260 Elk Grove Blvd. for 

about $3 million, and in October 2023, the City Council approved design schematics for the site. 

Almost half of the $15 million project will be paid for with state grants.

The Sacramento Zoo is moving to Elk Grove, marking the first newly constructed zoo in the United States since 1998.

A considerable amount of the design work should be completed in 2025, paving the way for construction to begin in early 2026, according to the city’s timeline. The zoo’s actual facilities will be constructed between early 2027 and early 2030, according to the City of Elk Grove’s timeline. 

The new zoo on the northwest corner of Kammerer Road and Lotz Parkway received the green light from city officials in May and will be four times the size of the Sacramento Zoo in Land Park. 

Sacramento Zoo leadership had sought to build a new site in Sacramento after determining the 14-acre location was too small but failed to find a suitable site in Sacramento before being approached by Elk Grove officials in 2021.

The city approved purchasing the soon-to-be100-acre home of the zoo in 2022. The zoo will take up 63 acres with another 10 acres devoted to parking

The design firm Applied Economics predicted the zoo will bring 900,000 visitors to the city in its first year and drive almost $130 million to Elk Grove's economy over its first five years in operation.

More than 2,400 jobs could stem from the project, according to a study commissioned by the city. 

SH/R Studios, a landscaping architecture firm, is the project’s master planner. 

Attention will be placed on Elk Grove’s affordable housing projects in 2025 and beyond after the city settled a state lawsuit in 2024 accusing the city of improperly rejecting an affordable housing project. 

The dispute began in July 2022 after the city voted against approving a 67-unit affordable housing project in Old Elk Grove after significant opposition from potential neighbors.

Both the state and the Long Beach-based developer Excelerate Housing Group filed separate lawsuits against the city, accusing it of inconsistently applying its building code. 

The settlement with the state required the city to provide land for the rejected development and provide the Department of Housing and Community Development with a copy of any application to build affordable housing. It also required the city to submit monthly reports on the progress of any affordable housing projects, and if the city rejects any project that includes affordable housing, it will have to explain the decision.

The complex will now be constructed along Elk Grove Florin Road on vacant land owned by the city. 

Additional affordable housing units are expected to come online in Elk Grove in 2025, including the 236-unit Pardes Apartment project on Poppy Ridge Road and the 200-unit Project Elevate development at the corner of Elk Grove and Big Horn boulevards. 

In October, approximately 13,000 people applied for an affordable housing lottery for the new Lyla and MOSA apartment complexes for a chance to live in one of 700 units of affordable housing. 

Move-ins began in December and will continue into early January, if everything goes according to plan. 

Prior to the lawsuit, there were 18 affordable housing complexes in the city.