The house at 1500 S Street, and commercial building at 1506/1508 S Street, have been razed in preparation for a new development.
I am curious about redevelopment/infill projects in the central city because they have the potential to increase housing, allowing more people to live in the central city, improving economic vibrancy for businesses and property/sales tax for the government. At the same time, I know that perfectly viable Victorian houses have been torn down for redevelopment, so I’m not always in favor of these projects.
The house at 1500 S Street had been unoccupied for years. Same with the commercial building at 1506/1508 S Street. Houses on three adjacent lots were razed sometime between July 2015 and February 2018. As much detail as I was able to gather from Zillow and Google Earth historical imagery is below. I think it is interesting that the houses had survived for 95 years, 103 years, 101 years, and 108 years, whereas the commercial building lasted at most 36 years. So many commercial building are disposable, often not built to last, and not worth modifying or reconstructing. The house on the corner, 1500 S Street, looked to be in poor condition. I don’t know about the other three houses.
- 1500 S St, house 926 sf, lot 3200 sf, 1926, gone 02/2021
- 1506/1508 S St, building, built after 12/1985, gone 02/2021
- 1512 S St, 3,129 sf, lot 6400 sf, 1915, present 7/2015, gone 5/2018
- 1516 S St, 1,177 sf, lot 6400 sf, 1915, present 7/2015, gone 7/2016
- 1522 S St, 876 sf, lot 6400 sf, 1910, present 7/2015, gone 2/2018
The combined lots sold for $5,125,000 in 2019.
The information I was able to find about plans for the location are: Anthem Acquires an Infill Project in Sacramento, Anthem Properties submits plan for site near R Street Corridor (2020-04-27, firewalled), and Downtown Sacramento Partnership 1500 S, all indicating a mixed use building of eight stories.
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There were a couple of fires in those middle buildings that destroyed them. IIRC, SFD blamed it on a warmth fire or cooking fire that got out of control.
It is a shame about the small house but probably worth the sacrifice. There are still plenty of examples of that type of house around the neighborhood and this development should hopefully reduce the pressure to modify or tear those down.
For the bindery, that building was still good but it had been built for a purpose that was eliminated by the internet.
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There is a survivor bias in the common observation that 100-year old houses or antique furniture was better-made. They had poorly made houses and furniture in 1920 too. They just didn’t survive, because they were poorly made, so we don’t see them today. Flip side though, I have a book from the mid-twentieth century on how to build your own house. It had a basic budget template. Things like lumber, nails, concrete, paint, pipes, etc., were all pretty costly. Labor? I forget what it was, or what percent, I just remember it made me laugh how little labor costs were. I suspect that explains a lot about the intricate craftsmanship you see on Victorians. It’s easy to miss how the industrial progress of a century or two has made commodities comparatively dirt cheap, and made labor comparatively much better-paid. But the downside is, I think that makes a lot of intricate workmanship not worth it for a lot of consumers.
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