After about two years of waiting and watching, the good news finally came today:
Construction to begin on downtown high-rise
By Jon Ortiz -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:43 pm PDT Thursday, September 8, 2005
Construction crews will break ground in two weeks on Downtown Sacramento's first high-end office project in more than a decade, said developer David S. Taylor.
The project, dubbed Six Twenty-One Capitol Mall for its location just three blocks from the state Capitol, will be a 25-story steel-and-glass tower and should be completed in about 2 years.
Downey Brand LLC, one of the region's biggest law firms, has signed a lease to move from its current offices at 555 Capitol Mall into Taylor's high-rise in 2008. Two other firms, whom Taylor declined to name Thursday, also have signed contracts. That would bring the total preleased space to about 35 percent of the building's rentable 366,000 square footage.
The site of the building is a vacant half-block parcel known as Lot A, bordered by 7th Street on the east, L Street on the north, Capitol Mall on the south and another city-owned parcel on the west.
"It's the last undeveloped block in the downtown area," said Michael Ault, executive director of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership. "We'll definitely see momentum from this project spin into more development in the area."
Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum of San Francisco are the buildiing architects. Hensel Phelps Construction Co., based in Greeley, Colo., is the general contractor.