The good stuff is gone. The presses were dismantled and sold for scrap in 2021, the hand-painted honeybee wallpaper stripped from the cafeteria decades ago.
Last time I peeked through the windows at 2100 Q St., a Linotype machine gathered dust in the deserted lobby. I bet the owners of the old Sacramento Bee building would donate that 2,000-pound monument to moveable type if someone would haul it away.
There’s no good reason to save the two-block manufacturing site where the Bee was published for almost seven decades. The building’s goals survive elsewhere, on life support. Its practice, methods and influence are dead.
I have former newspaper colleagues with nostalgic feelings for 2100 Q. I worked there for 35 years and share those feelings. But it’s time to call the wrecking crew.
The Bee building was a freak from birth, a vague Streamline Moderne design grafted onto midcentury brick factory. It was never beautiful.
Willful ugliness consumed the plant in the 1980s, when walls were knocked out for pressroom expansion. The Bee barricaded 22nd Street with a three-story printing plant hidden behind more bricks.
In 1950, the McClatchy family wanted a sensible, contemporary home for its flagship newspaper. Something functional, dependable and steadfast. Eleanor McClatchy, a humble woman, was boss. Her new headquarters would reflect her image of Sacramento.
The building’s designer was Eleanor’s friend, an artist named Dunbar Beck. He drew lines to meet her ambitions and pretentions. Famously, she lacked both.
Eleanor’s headquarters wouldn’t compete with Harry Chandler and his monumental Los Angeles Times command post, or even Charlie Prisk, the Grass Valley boy who built a Beaux Arts stunner for his Pasadena Star-News.
Eleanor meant it when she said, “I was taught that newspaper people should never push themselves forward.”
Miss McClatchy died in 1980. Heirs sold the building in 2017 and went bankrupt in 2020, flushing five generations of leadership.
Now a hedge fund owns the McClatchy name. The Bee’s print circulation, once 300,000, is below 18,000.
The Bee was ruined by mismanagement, arrogance and obliviousness. The company expanded when newspapers were sinking. It took on impossible debt, panicked and stripped the product. The end.
Now comes a new reckoning for 2100 Q. The largest brewery on the West Coast stood there before the Bee. Tomorrow, the address is destined for housing. Times change.
An Irvine property developer called Shopoff owns 2100 Q. Like most real estate companies, Shopoff bought the Bee’s headquarters to flip it.
Shopoff knows there’s money in housing. The company seeks to build homes on the 5½ acre site. The city needs homes. But you can’t always trust developers to create the right product.
Question is, what kind of housing best serves the city at 2100 Q? Here’s where things get tricky. The planning commission and City Council decide what’s best for Midtown. Not the developer.
Shopoff first proposed a high-density mix of 538 apartments spread across two buildings. The plans complemented a successful housing complex on the southwest corner of 21st and Q.
Last year, Shopoff junked the first plan and replaced it with a lower-density, semi-suburban proposal that involves 122 townhomes and single-family dwellings. The company gave no explanation.
Shopoff recently sold part of 2100 Q with plans for 48 townhomes. The company expects to sell the rest by March. “We are very encouraged about the market and are pleased with our progress and partnership with the city,” says Brian Rupp, Shopoff executive vice president.
But the lower density plan lacks inspiration. Townhouses are more appropriate for Watt Avenue than 2100 Q. Low-density developments don’t belong at 21st and Q.
Maybe City Hall thinks townhomes and single-family houses will promote the Midtown aesthetic—vintage, green and neighborly. I prefer density.
Either way, 2100 Q St. is history. What happened there—seven decades of civic leadership, journalistic pride and sins—is old news.
R.E. Graswich can be reached at regraswich@icloud.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
