Zuckerberg gives down payment for downtown campus dream. Where’s Newsom? | Opinion
Gov. Gavin Newsom gave himself top billing in the announcement that Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg will donate $50 million toward a downtown campus for Sacramento State across from the Capitol. But do not look for the ribbon cutting ceremony any time soon.
Zuckerberg has only made what will amount to be a modest down payment toward the future of downtown Sacramento. It is Newsom, starting in the next state budget, who carries the responsibility of ensuring annual payments towards this project for it to ever be realized.
Legislators will have to demonstrate the same dedication to this project as they do to their own Capitol Annex construction deal. But as we already know, the new annex in Capitol Park is close to two years behind schedule. It was estimated to cost $543 million, but the true costs are a mystery, just as no one knows how much a downtown campus for Sacramento State will cost.
Sacramento lacks the stable of generous and super wealthy individuals that helps to fuel Bay Area philanthropy. Zuckerberg’s sudden interest in Sacramento State brings back memories of how Oracle’s Larry Ellison years ago needed some orthopedic help at the UC Davis Medical Center, and later donated $5 million in 1998 toward the ambulatory care center that carries his name. High-tech titans tend to surface here as quickly as they disappear.
If Zuckerberg’s gift proves, years from now, to be the catalyst to transform three state buildings into a downtown Sac State campus, he will have done this city a huge service. The downtown remains too dependent on partially filled buildings owned and operated by a state that pays no property taxes. Bringing higher education and student housing downtown is exactly the kind of diversification this downtown will need to evolve into a vibrant 24-hour community.
But for now, Zuckerberg’s largesse only shows how far Newsom and the Democrats who run the California Legislature have to go to make this a reality.
The 23-campus California State University system depends on the state government for about 60% of its money, by far its largest source. A downtown campus simply cannot be built without annual state contributions to amass much of the necessary funds.
Campus plans are ambitious, everything from a new performing arts center to an artificial intelligence complex, a boutique hotel, residential housing and a full-blown School of Public Affairs. The proposed campus sites are the Employment Development Department headquarters building at 800 Capitol Mall; the EDD Solar Building at 751 N St.; and the State Personnel Board Building at 801 Capitol Mall.
Sacramento State has yet to begin the master planning process, making it too soon to know an actual price tag. But a project this ambitious could be a 10-figure number. Zuckerberg’s generosity was eight figures.
There was an era when campus expansions were fueled in part by statewide bonds approved by voters, but the CSU in recent years has gotten short shrift. A $10 billion education bond (Proposition 2) passed by voters in 2024 focussed on the community college system, not the CSU, for higher education investments. That’s why ongoing state contributions towards this campus will be essential for it to happen.
It’s not wrong to dream and hope. Project ideas like this, and the construction that is now finally happening in the Railyards with the new Kaiser Permanente medial center and a soccer stadium to house Sacramento Republic F.C., the capital’s minor league team, give glimpses of how tomorrow’s downtown could be so much more vibrant and diverse from today’s.
But we as a city, and our leaders, have to set higher expectations of how the state, our largest downtown landlord, must deliver. Newsom has forged no firm, long-term plan of the occupancy of many of his state buildings downtown, instead adjusting their uses largely based on labor negotiations versus urban planning. The future stream of reinvestment funding should be akin to the property taxes the state is not paying to local governments.
Meta and Zuckerberg are stepping up for some welcome seed funding from the private sector. Newsom’s job to make this happen is now just beginning.
This story was originally published February 3, 2026 at 5:00 AM.