Sweet deal

“Icing on the cake,” is how Sacramento City Council member Sandy Sheedy described a redevelopment deal for her district that she shepherded through the council last week.

The cake in this metaphor is Del Paso Boulevard. And the sticky, delicious goo on top is SN&R.

The Council voted on June 12 to sell an abandoned, 18,500-square-foot building that the city owns at 1124 Del Paso Boulevard to SN&R, and to kick in a loan to help fix up the property and turn it into the company’s new headquarters. SN&R will pay $1.5 million for the property. The building improvement loan totals $955,000.

The deal means that SN&R will be leaving its trendy high-rent Midtown block for the grittier North Sac location—where city officials hope the business will help accelerate the revitalization of Del Paso Boulevard. “The Boulevard really needed this boost,” said Sheedy

For SN&R CEO Jeff vonKaenel, whose paper has written extensively about, and occasionally taken shots at, other redevelopment schemes over the years, the process was an eye-opener. “It wasn’t until we got involved in this project that we saw the incredible complexity, and just how difficult it really is,” vonKaenel told the Council, thanking officials from the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency who helped put the deal together.

Rehabbing the building won’t be easy, either. But, if all goes well, SN&R will be out of Midtown and into its new digs by this time next year.