Major apartment building planned next to historic midtown Sacramento school

Just shy of its 100th birthday, the historic site of the former Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in midtown Sacramento has yet another proposed redevelopment.

Sacramento architects Vrilakas Groen submitted an application with the city of Sacramento to construct an eight-story market rate apartment building at the corner of 16th and N streets. Another application by the same firm is seeking approval to build seven three-story single-family townhomes facing 17th Street on the same block.

The new apartment building would have 102 apartments ranging from 572-square-foot studios to 1,346-square-foot two-bedroom apartments.

Architectural drawings of the project show the school would remain.

City and state leaders have debated about what to do with the site for at least a decade. The lot is along one of the busiest commercial corridors in the central city, close to other large scale apartment complexes being built or planned.

The first school on the site was built in 1866. That building was demolished in 1921 and a new school was rebuilt in 1923. The Sacramento City Unified School District turned it into an administration building in 1949 and vacated the property in 1994.

Downtown and midtown Sacramento are in a sudden building boom. Hundreds of new housing units will open in the central city, with hundreds more being planned.

This story was originally published January 12, 2022 at 2:25 PM.