High-rise plans in doubt for Sacramento’s Lot X.
It was supposed to be a skyline-defining moment for Sacramento — a pair of gleaming towers rising above Capitol Mall, bringing hundreds of homes and a bold new future to a long-empty lot. But nearly four years later, Lot X remains what it’s always been: a parking lot with potential. The developer has now scrapped the plan and put the land back on the market.
Southern Land Company, the Tennessee-based firm that bought the site from the Sacramento Kings in 2021 for $16.75 million, has listed the property for sale — signaling a clear abandonment of its high-rise project.
The company had pitched an ambitious two-tower development with approximately 430 rental units, ground-floor retail, and a parking structure — what would have been the city’s first high-rise apartment complex. But those plans never made it past the entitlement phase.
By mid-2024, the City of Sacramento had paused its review of the project due to inactivity. Last week, it was officially announced that the 2.6-acre parcel at 201 N Street is back on the market, listed for $19.95 million by Turton Commercial Real Estate. The search is once again on for a developer with both the vision and financial backing to succeed where two previous efforts have fallen short.
Lot X has long been considered one of downtown Sacramento’s most valuable blank canvases. Tucked between the Tower Bridge and the Capitol, and flanked by Crocker Park and the city’s civic district, it’s been touted as a natural anchor for urban revitalization. City leaders once called it the “gateway to downtown.” Despite the prime location and permissive zoning — with no height limits and potential for high-density development — no project has come to fruition.
Lot X was once part of the grand redevelopment strategy tied to the Golden 1 Center and Downtown Commons. The Kings themselves held it for years, branding it “Lot X” and floating their own vague ideas before selling it off.
Southern Land’s initial 2021 proposal included a 32-story residential tower and an 80,000-square-foot office building. In 2022, the plan was revised to feature a 26-story glass tower, a 14-story mass timber building, and a row of townhomes facing Crocker Park. Renderings showed rooftop terraces, ground-floor cafés, and the beginnings of a more vertical Sacramento.
But in the end, the project became a casualty of shifting market conditions — rising interest rates, higher construction costs, and a cooling investor appetite for luxury rentals outside the nation’s top-tier downtowns. Southern Land never broke ground.
Now, the site is left where it started — with a surface lot, a set of architectural drawings, and a familiar sense of uncertainty about downtown’s evolution.
