Monthly archive for June 2020

It’s an increasingly rare find: a Downtown Sacramento apartment
property with upside potential for a new owner.
Such a description fits 32-unit Capitol Lanai, at 1300-1320 G St., on
which a San Diego-based investor is set to close escrow Wednesday for
$6.78 million.
Joe Ramos, under the name Lanai Investments LP, is the buyer for Capitol
Lanai, a ’70s-era property with a series of two-story buildings. At the
expected sales price, the per-unit price would be about $212,000.
Ramos did not return a message seeking comment. But Tim Swanston of
North Coast Commercial Inc. said Ramos saw a way before the sale
closed to make his investment more sound.
According to Swanston, who is brokering the sale, Ramos asked the seller to keep some units vacant to make it
easier to charge a higher rent from the outset.
At close of sale, Capitol Lanai had nine open units, an unusually high number for an area in which occupancies
above 90% are common, especially for older properties.
Capitol Lanai already had exterior improvements under the previous owner, so the other added value will come
from better management practices, Swanston said.
“Especially in Downtown and Midtown, the owners have them priced where added values are already there,” he
said. Ramos has a portfolio of other Sacramento County properties and is familiar with the central city as a
market, Swanston added.
In addition to its Downtown location, Capitol Lanai has 32 parking spaces, making it more attractive than many
other apartment complexes in the neighborhood with little or no parking. Swanston said he also expects
demand for units to stay strong as the Railyards development begins to take shape to the north.
“It’s got a little bit of character,” he said. “It’s not a box by any means.”
Records on Reonomy Inc. show New Century Partners LLC, with a Sacramento address at a property
management firm, as the previous owner. A message left at the office was not returned, though an outgoing

message said the office was closed in conjunction with stay-in-place mandates to lessen the spread of COVID-
19.

In a West Sacramento neighborhood that’s still emerging, a project of
apartments and retail has a new owner.
Escrow closed in mid-January for 289 Third St., a building with four
apartments and a retail space currently filled by Westside Cafe.
Tim Swanston of real estate brokerage North Coast Commercial Inc. in
Sacramento said the building sold for $1.4 million, with the owner looking
at least partially toward the future. A new bridge across the Sacramento
River to the north and a new California State Teachers’ Retirement
System building to the south are among the expected changes to the
area, known as Broderick.
“The 2007 construction and location with the Railyards coming along were very attractive to the new Buyer,”
Swanston said in an email. “It’s a long-term hold as Buyer thinks the overall area will continue to improve and
grow.”
Swanston said the new owner, who he did not identify, is based in Yuba City and bought the building in a 1031
exchange to defer taxes on the sale of another property. At the time of sale, all four apartments were occupied,
while Westside Cafe, an outlet of Sacramento’s Identity Coffees, opened in the 1,990-square-foot ground-floor
retail space in 2018.
The building was sold by Riverside Properties 2 LLC, which has a Sacramento address. A message for the seller
left with the office at that address was not returned.
In addition to Swanston, Tony Whittaker of CBRE Sacramento worked on the deal.