New building permits have been filed for 72 townhouses across ten four-story structures on the site of the old Sacramento Bee headquarters in Midtown, marking the next concrete step in a years-long transformation of the former newspaper campus at 2100 Q Street. The application, filed by Roseville-based Tim Lewis Communities, covers a 6.28-acre portion of the 9.4-acre property once occupied by the paper's printing presses and newsroom.
The filing was first reported by San Francisco YIMBY, whose Andrew Nelson detailed the design for the project, known as Q21 @ The Press. The 2100 Q Street property spans two full city blocks, bounded by 21st Street, 23rd Street, Q Street and R Street, and sits about four blocks from the Ice Blocks shopping center and close to a Gold Line light rail station. Tim Lewis Communities acquired the 6.28-acre parcel from Irvine-based Shopoff Realty Investments in July 2025 for $18.5 million, or roughly $49 per square foot, according to Traded.
The recent application calls for the 72 townhouses to rise across ten four-story buildings, designed by TCA Architects with gabled roofing and street-level stoops meant to give the complex a rowhouse feel. Facades will mix brick veneer, fiber cement, metal panels and likely stucco, per the same filing. The 72 units represent a first phase of what is expected to grow to 122 units total once the project is complete.
From Newsroom to Rowhouses
The Sacramento Bee's headquarters was built in 1952 and served as the paper's printing plant and newsroom for seven decades. Shopoff Realty Investments had originally acquired the full 9.4-acre campus in a 2017 sale-leaseback deal with McClatchy Companies valued at $44.75 million, according to the Orange County Business Journal. McClatchy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February 2020 and vacated the building the following year, clearing the way for redevelopment.
Shopoff Realty Investments then split the property, planning to replace the former newspaper headquarters entirely. The company sold an adjacent 9.25-acre parking lot at 1801 21st Street to Atlanta-based Beazer Homes USA for $9.8 million in January 2025, where 48 three-story townhomes known as Sac Bee South Townhomes are planned, per the same outlet's report. Demolition of the headquarters building itself started in mid-2025, clearing the way for the Tim Lewis housing project now moving through permitting.
A Much Smaller Project Than First Proposed
The current townhome plan is a dramatic scale-back from what Shopoff Realty Investments originally pursued. The developer had proposed a 538-unit apartment development across two 57-foot-tall podium structures, a plan considered by the Sacramento Planning Commission in December 2023 before the firm abandoned the high-density concept in April 2024, according to San Francisco YIMBY's earlier coverage. That original concept had included a public pedestrian paseo connecting Q and R streets.
To speed up entitlements for the downscaled townhome proposal, the developer used California Senate Bill 330, the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, which limits how much local governments can subject housing projects to added public hearings or downzoning. The City of Sacramento also approved a California Environmental Quality Act Notice of Exemption in March 2024 under Public Resources Code Section 21155.4, which allows statutory exemptions for projects in transit priority areas, according to CEQAnet records. The approved site design incorporates 244 off-street vehicle parking spaces, providing two spots per home.
Part of a Broader Midtown Shift
The project lands within a broader era of zoning change in Sacramento. In September 2024, the city became the first in California to eliminate single-family-only zoning citywide, adopting flexible land-use codes that allow triplexes and fourplexes in every residential zone, as Hoodline has previously reported. That policy shift has fueled a wave of middle-density infill proposals across the city's core neighborhoods.
Nearby, construction continues on Monarch, a 241-unit affordable housing complex along the R Street corridor that broke ground in 2025 and is scheduled for completion in 2027. The corridor has rapidly shifted from historic industrial uses into Midtown's primary residential and entertainment hub, reflecting the same pressures reshaping the old newspaper site a few blocks away. Whether transit-adjacent parcels near light rail should maximize unit counts or favor lower-density ownership housing with generous parking remains an open question for planners and developers alike as more of Sacramento's industrial-era properties come up for reuse.
