Living the Luxe Life
From September 2005
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The Capitol Historic Preservation Society is trying to block, or at least scale down, Saca’s project by convincing the state legislature to extend a height-restriction area around the Capitol to include The Tower property. According to Capitol Museum staff, the top of the dome is 220 feet from the ground. Dan Visnich, the society’s executive secretary, says the project will “loom over the city like Godzilla.”
“If you have that building there, it’s going to do what John Saca said — it’s going to divert the eye,” Visnich says. “It’s going to be the attraction. It’s going to take away from the Capitol. And nothing should be that high to do that. It shouldn’t be higher than the building that is there now.”
Visnich says that Sacramento is trying to become like Manhattan, when what the city should really be aiming to emulate is other prominent capital cities, such as Washington, D.C. or Paris.
But Saca says his goal is to create a landmark project that will improve the skyline and put Sacramento on the map in terms of architecture. “This project will enhance the views of downtown and will be good for the community,” he adds.
BCN President Craig Nassi faced other kinds of skeptics as well, in the banks that he approached to finance the project and even from the initial market-research firms that were helping him decide whether to pursue the project at all.
The independent firm he hired, and that he prefers not to name, did proprietary research for him into the Sacramento market and reported there could be a market for such a project, he says. But the endorsement was lukewarm.
Yet he felt, from walking around and talking to people in town, that the firm was undervaluing Sacramento and that there was a far greater demand than the firm estimated.
“That’s the risk I take as a developer,” Nassi says. “They say one thing, and I say I’ll go even further and say there’s a tremendous need for it. Although our market studies showed there was a need, I thought there was a substantial need. That was just a gut instinct I went on from being in this business for 12 years.”
Similarly, he said, he had tremendous difficulty convincing a bank to take on the financing for the project.
Continued...
“If you have that building there, it’s going to do what John Saca said — it’s going to divert the eye,” Visnich says. “It’s going to be the attraction. It’s going to take away from the Capitol. And nothing should be that high to do that. It shouldn’t be higher than the building that is there now.”
Visnich says that Sacramento is trying to become like Manhattan, when what the city should really be aiming to emulate is other prominent capital cities, such as Washington, D.C. or Paris.
But Saca says his goal is to create a landmark project that will improve the skyline and put Sacramento on the map in terms of architecture. “This project will enhance the views of downtown and will be good for the community,” he adds.
BCN President Craig Nassi faced other kinds of skeptics as well, in the banks that he approached to finance the project and even from the initial market-research firms that were helping him decide whether to pursue the project at all.
The independent firm he hired, and that he prefers not to name, did proprietary research for him into the Sacramento market and reported there could be a market for such a project, he says. But the endorsement was lukewarm.
Yet he felt, from walking around and talking to people in town, that the firm was undervaluing Sacramento and that there was a far greater demand than the firm estimated.
“That’s the risk I take as a developer,” Nassi says. “They say one thing, and I say I’ll go even further and say there’s a tremendous need for it. Although our market studies showed there was a need, I thought there was a substantial need. That was just a gut instinct I went on from being in this business for 12 years.”
Similarly, he said, he had tremendous difficulty convincing a bank to take on the financing for the project.
Continued...
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