By Srishti Prabha | OBSERVER Staff Writer
In North Sacramento, where Dixieanne Avenue and Del Paso Boulevard meet, sits an abandoned Romanesque tower surrounded by Mission-Spanish Colonial style exterior hallways and courtyards built in 1915. The North Sacramento School has been vacant since 2008, but might receive new life after discussion of a local historic site designation at a recent preservation commission meeting.
“A lot of problems have happened in the neighborhood and this school has fallen into disrepair,” said Ronnie Shaw, president of the Old North Sacramento Community Association. “This local designation is going to bring about a new life for the community.”
After passing through the city’s preservation commission in mid-November, the item is set to be on City Council’s docket early next year. The building is already listed on the national and state registers as a historic site, but not on the local register.
“When there’s a national register nomination that’s non-controversial, we typically like to list it on our local register,” said Sean de Courcy, the city’s preservation director, adding that the steps for local designation are separate from the state and national registers.
Since the school is already on the state register, it is subject to California’s rigorous Environmental Quality Act, de Courcy explained, and putting the location on the local register would nominally change the guidelines for preservation of the building.
Benefits of being on the state register include improved access to grants, tax incentives and other funding for historic preservation and rehabilitation. “Historic preservation is a key component to economic and cultural development,” de Courcy noted.
He highlighted that North Sacramento, which is a predominantly low-income area, does not have many designated historic landmarks, unlike midtown Sacramento and Oak Park, which have benefited from a renaissance after the preservation of their historic sites.
“The required preservation of certain buildings that are significant to a community can have a halo effect,” said de Courcy. “In areas like downtown where a lot of buildings were torn down, you don’t have that same sense of creative economy that you see in areas with historic landmarks in great number. So it really creates a pride in – and a sense of place in – a neighborhood.”
Shaw, a resident of North Sacramento, underscored the importance of retaining the facade and structural integrity of the school.
“The property was gifted to build this state-of-the-art school that was unheard of during its time and it was used as a catalyst to bring people to this burgeoning city of North Sacramento,” he said. “Every region of North Sacramento can trace their roots somehow to this school and this building and the legacy that it created.”
The school meets three criteria of significance to be a local historic site: contributions to the broad patterns of the city’s history, distinctive characteristics and style, and having a notable architect.
During the preservation commission meeting on Nov.15, Henry Feuss, the city’s preservation planner, outlined works of architects Clarence C. Cuff, E.C. Hemmings and Dean and Dean, who have not only contributed to the North Sacramento School, but were prominent in Sacramento’s building landscape – in Guild Theater, Elks Lodge Tower and Memorial Auditorium.
In addition to being vacant since 2008, it has been over 30 years since the North Sacramento School has been a school site, Feuss reported at the commission meeting. Still, the building continues to be under the jurisdiction of the Twin Rivers Unified School District, and is a drain on its finances.
“The school district’s biggest problem is that they can’t put any money into [the space] if it’s not serving an educational purpose,” he said.
De Courcy, who has been in contact with the district, confirmed it wants to liquidate the property quickly.
“They’ve actually tried to sell the building once and it was in escrow and then it fell out of escrow,” he said. “There’s a process involved in that it first has to be offered up to other public agencies and nonprofits and then they can go through the public sale process.”
This is not uncommon, he said, citing the numerous schools in Sacramento which have been deemed historic sites and have been adapted or modified for use. Examples include CLARA Studios for the Performing Arts which was originally the Fremont School, Newton Booth School which now serves as a private school and the Old Marshall School, which will be converted for alternative use in the future.
Srishti Prabha is an education reporter and Report For America corps member in collaboration with CapRadio and The Sacramento Observer. Their focus is K-12 education in Sacramento’s Black communities.
Support for this Sacramento OBSERVER article was provided to Word In Black (WIB) by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. WIB is a collaborative of 10 Black-owned media that includes print and digital partners.