The former Campbell ’ s Soup factory in Sacramento has been renovated into a mixed industrial and commercial site with tenants including Comcast , Silgan , Macy ’ s and Siemens . PHOTO COURTESY OF RABIN WORLDWIDE support local startups interested in any of the remaining space . And in July , the Sacramento City Council approved the Growers District redevelopment project for the River District which involves bringing 525 housing units and repurposing historic warehouses for commercial use , according to a tweet from Mayor Darrell Steinberg .
Last fall , local art nonprofit , A Space in Between , had its grand opening in downtown Mansion Flats . Inhabiting a 12,000-square-foot industrial-era warehouse , the street art museum brings artists , designers , entrepreneurs and dreamers together for a multipurpose , multimedia experience .
“ Enter this space with a thought , an object , an intention , a question , and perception changes along with the physical space itself ,” the website notes . “ This is the liminal place where beauty and truth dance , where the boundaries between individual minds dissolve , and something new takes shape .”
Sacramento ’ s Power Inn Road corridor continues to grow its industrial sector . Buzz Oates , commercial real estate developer , has submitted an application with the City of Sacramento for two new buildings to be constructed at Depot Park , adding 373,000 square feet of space to the industrial park , which is home to Siemens , the California Mobility Center and other agencies . These buildings can be lucrative . LDK Ventures sold a 340,000-square-foot building on Belvedere Avenue for $ 42.8 million to Dalfen Industrial , an industrial real estate company based in Texas .
‘ Functionally obsolete ’
But these decades-old warehouses and industrial buildings can ’ t just waltz into the 21st century without help . A lot of help . These big spaces were built for manufacturing purposes , but the specific designs of these interiors can also cause issues for developers .
To understand this unique challenge , look no further than the old Campbell Soup manufacturing plant in south Sacramento . The hydraulic plant closed in 2013 after a 66-year run . That same year , an affiliate of Hackman Capital Partners purchased the site with the Mill Valley-based industrial asset recovery company Rabin Worldwide and renamed it the Capital Commerce Center .
It seemed like a solid buy . Humongous space . Historic roots ( dating back to 1947 ). Near downtown , right off Highway 99 . This was about 1.6 million square feet of space with 12-foot columns , each 3 feet in diameter . But only about 700,000 square feet ended up being reusable in the beginning , says Nate Ellis , senior vice president of real estate at Rabin Worldwide .
“ Sometimes , it ’ s just functionally obsolete ,” Ellis says . “ When that happens , you can either rent it for cheap or sit with an empty building . With some spaces you ’ re stuck . It could be market conditions , locations , the building ’ s physical
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