Former downtown Macy’s property acquired by local Miwok tribe for $15M
The Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians have purchased the shuttered Macy’s store in Sacramento’s Downtown Commons, securing the tribe another prominent piece of real estate in the city’s urban core.
The retailer confirmed the sale, which closed Wednesday.
The tribe’s chairwoman, Regina Cuellar, called the move a “significant investment in Sacramento’s cultural and economic renaissance.”
“These lands in the Sacramento region are part of the Tribe’s ancestral homelands and near the Tribe’s original village of Pusuune in downtown Sacramento,” Cuellar said in a news release. “The land is part of the foundation of our existence. It is where our ancestors lived and flourished.”
Cuellar said the tribe intends to contribute “meaningfully” in the city — economically, culturally and socially.
“We are excited to be part of Sacramento’s future and honored to return to this land with purpose, pride, and partnership,” Cuellar said.
The department store closed this spring as Macy’s — faced with customers’ growing indifference to brick-and-mortar retail and pressured by activist investors to offload real estate — shut down dozens of locations across the country. The department store had anchored the downtown mall since 1963, but closure rumors circulated throughout its final year.
It was unclear Thursday what plans the tribe has for the site, which has drawn no shortage of speculation from Sacramento’s business community. But in the news release, the tribe said the land would be developed together with another lot the tribe owns, on Capitol Mall.
The purchase price was $15 million, according to the release.
In the past, local real estate and economic development experts have floated the possibility of converting the Macy’s building into a hotel, though it would compete directly with the Kimpton Sawyer, also located in Downtown Commons. Still, Sacramento’s tourism bureau has implored the city to grow its hotel capacity as a means of drawing larger events and conferences.
Others speculated that the site would become an experiential business, like the bars, restaurants and mini golf courses around Golden 1 Center that draw foot traffic from Sacramento Kings games.
The transition of the Macy’s property comes during an era of broader soul-searching for Sacramento’s downtown. The pandemic laid bare the district’s dependence on commercial real estate, and its vulnerability to dramatic swings in the market. Some now believe the district, over the long term, ought to more closely resemble midtown, with its more even mix of housing and business.
The Macy’s property is near a pair of prominent, undeveloped sites that could influence the future of downtown. One is also owned by the tribe.
The tribe last year bought the “hole in the ground” at 301 Capitol Mall, a vacant city block catty-corner from the former Macy’s. The Sacramento Union once had its offices there, but after the paper folded in the 1990s the site saw a series of failed high-rise development projects.
Another city block adjacent to that, so-called Lot X, was listed for sale in May. Its owner, Nashville-based Southern Land Company, once planned to build two high-rise residential buildings there.
This story was originally published July 10, 2025 at 2:04 PM.
