CalPERS Sells Major, Long-Vacant Lot in Downtown Sacramento to Local Band of Miwok Tribe
BY ISHANI DESAI UPDATED APRIL 03, 2024 2:56 PM
The Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians reclaimed a piece of its lost history Tuesday by purchasing landmark property in downtown Sacramento’s entryway — a lot once planned for ambitious development in California’s capital city that has since been relegated as an infamous and expensive “hole in the ground.”
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System sold 301 Capitol Mall for $17 million to the tribe in a deal finalized Tuesday, said John Myers, a spokesman for the state agency. Numerous promising developments planned by CalPERS — such as creating the city’s tallest skyscraper — never panned out after it bought the grassy parcel for $70 million 18 years ago.
Purchasing the prime real estate, which is near the tribe’s original village of Pusúune, is a testament to the “enduring spirit and resilience” of the Sacramento region’s first inhabitants, Chairwoman Regina Cuellar of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians said in a statement.
“The land is part of the foundation of our existence,” Cuellar continued. “It is where our ancestors lived and flourished.”
Tribe leaders said in a news release they have no immediate plans for the site, currently a fenced-in city block at the northeast corner of Third Street and Capitol Mall, a short walk from landmarks like Golden 1 Center and the Tower Bridge. The opportunity to buy the land started around last year’s end, said Tribal Administrator Dustin Murray in a phone interview.
“Just to have a place that we could go and gather or just know is in our name is really exciting,” Murray said.
CalPERS wrote in a statement Tuesday that it sold the undeveloped land because it no longer fit the “strategic goals” of the pension fund’s real estate program.
When it first took ownership in 2006, CalPERS had been focused on developing and growing its real estate portfolio. The agency now focuses on diversification, a stable cash yield and inflation protection, the statement said.
“This sale is in the best interest of our members and our portfolio,” CalPERS CEO Marcie Frost said in the statement. “While we would have taken pride in the successful development of 301 Capitol Mall, we have a fiduciary duty to our members, and selling is the right decision.”
The purchase ends a long history of promised developments that never materialized.
CalPERS first collaborated with Saca Development to build a 53-story condo towers, planned to be the tallest residential buildings on the West Coast at the time. Construction began in 2006 but ended as the recession began.
CalPERS then transferred the property to a Los Angeles-based developer, CIM Group, and developed several plans for the site including a 33-story, $550 million tower that would have been the city’s tallest skyscraper. That idea was abandoned, and CalPERS shifted the property’s management to the Houston-based Hines in 2019.
The state retirement fund made public its intent to sell the property in April 2022, The Sacramento Bee first reported. Frost, the CalPERS CEO, told The Bee then there was “not a development project there that fulfills the risk return that we would fundamentally have,” and that the agency had asked Hines to begin the process of selling the land.
Mayor Darrell Steinberg said at the time he was “excited to get engaged on the possibilities for this important piece of property at the entrance to our city.”
This reacquisition isn’t the first time Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians bought land they said belonged to them.
Verona, an unincorporated community in Sutter County, and a commercial property at 2700 J Street was purchased Miwok Indians to reclaim land once belonging to ancestors, Murray said. The Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians also owns and operates Red Hawk Casino in Placerville.
“By reacquiring our ancestral lands, we’re reclaiming our history, our traditions and a deeper connection to our ancestors,” Cuellar said.