No one had used the old North Sacramento School for some time, this much was clear on a crisp February day.
At a rear door, a man removed boarding to allow access to the building, which was constructed in stages between 1915 and 1947 and appears to have been vacant since 2010. Inside, the building was dark and required flashlights to tour. Signs of neglect included graffiti, water on the ground and multiple dead rodents.
Ben Poh was leading the tour on behalf of Oakland-based Creative Development Partners, which purchased the property in August through a subsidiary company. Poh wasn’t concerned about the building’s current state.
“It’s kind of like the neighborhood,” Poh said. “The bones are good. It just needs a hand… in refreshing for another generation.”
At last, help seems to be coming for the old North Sacramento School, with early-stage site work underway and Creative Development Partners looking to turn the former school into a community center and build housing nearby.
The exterior of the Old North Sacramento School earlier this month. A group hopes to restore the historic building to a community center. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com Getting buy-in from the community
If the former North Sacramento School is turned into a community center, it wouldn’t be the first time this kind of thing has happened in Sacramento.
In midtown, the Sacramento Ballet practices at the E. Claire Raley Studio for the Performing Arts, or CLARA, a conversion of the old Fremont Primary School building that dates to 1921. Then there’s the former Curtis Park school that Gregg Lukenbill turned into the Sierra 2 Center for the Arts and Community before bringing the NBA’s Kings to Sacramento in 1985.
Lukenbill stressed the importance of building community ties with these kinds of projects.
“If you want to create goodwill right out the gate, my advice would be to surveil the neighborhood in a predefined radius, maybe a mile or two and just get the neighbors input as to what they would like to see,” Lukenbill said.
North Sacramento School neighbors Kim Scott and Jack Nielsen – who live in an adjacent artist collective built roughly 20 years ago on former school land and are part of the Old North Sacramento Community Association – helped bring the project forward.
Neighbors Jack Nielsen and Kim Scott, who serve as co-chairs of the Old North Sacramento Restoration Committee, pose for a portrait inside the Old North Sacramento School on Feb. 2. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
“This site was identified by the neighborhood association who found the developer, who presented the opportunity, who’s driving the conversation,” said Hallie Chen, an architect and principal officer for Oakland-based CAHA Design, which is doing site work. “That is so rare for us.”
The former school is located at 670 Dixieanne Ave., about a block off Del Paso Boulevard, the neighborhood’s main throughfare.
The area has had its share of troubles. While the tour of the school was underway, firefighters were responding to a fire that destroyed a former Bank of America building nearby.
Still, the area has had success stories in recent years, such as Sammy’s Restaurant, a legacy business that reopened in 2024 after being long-shuttered.
At the restaurant following the tour of the school, which is a short walk away, Nielsen and Scott discussed their hopes for the project. Nielsen said his group’s primary goal was the school’s restoration. Scott said the building will have “a heavy creative culture sort of vibe.”
A boarded up door to the Old North Sacramento School is opened earlier this month. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
Graffiti marks the walls of the theater inside the Old North Sacramento School earlier this month. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
“We’d like people to feel like it’s a power center for this neighborhood because it’s been so underrepresented,” Scott said.
Getting the building back into use
The North Sacramento School served as different things over the years: An elementary school, a venue for a 1960 city council candidate forum when North Sacramento was its own city, a local theater.
One of the building’s final uses came in January 2010 when it hosted a staging of “The Meeting,” a play about Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X discussing their views on civil rights. By that point, the Fred K. Robinson Community Day School was located on site. State records indicate it closed in June 2010.
Graffiti marks the walls of the theater inside the Old North Sacramento School earlier this month. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
The building also served as headquarters for the North Sacramento School District until that district merged with others in 2008 to form Twin Rivers Unified School District.
“Our understanding from the neighborhood association is that… had we been able to take over the building at an earlier point in its history, like after it was vacated by the school district, that it wouldn’t have taken as much work,” Chen said.
Water pools inside the Old North Sacramento School earlier this month HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
Initially after Liu’s group became involved with the former school, he wanted to build the housing and then use the proceeds to finance renovation work on the school, a plan the community association resisted.
“Jeremy’s plan was to do the housing first,” Nielsen said. “And we have put forth very firmly that any building with a housing component, that also had to progress with the school building itself. Otherwise there would be a good potential to have housing built and nothing happen with the school.”
Liu said it was now looking like the housing and the school could be done simultaneously.
“We had been considering and are still considering working with a specific partner on the school portion and that would, if they were to come on board, that would allow us to really do both simultaneously,” Liu said. “So that’s kind of the goal right now.”
City support for transforming North Sacramento School
Another thing that could be helping the project is support from different levels of the city of Sacramento.
Sean de Courcy, the city’s preservation director, said the city helped Liu obtain a $26,450 grant through its Brownfields Program for environmental remediation work.
“It’s something, certainly, community doesn’t want to see as an underutilized, vacant, sort of blighted site, especially being so close to the corridor that we’re really trying to revitalize and bring a renaissance to,” said Mikel Davila, a senior development project manager for the city.
The city voted unanimously in February 2024 to place the property on its local historic register, after it had also made the state and federal historic registers.
An empty hallway inside the Old North Sacramento School earlier this month. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
“The designation is a key tool in the City’s economic, environmental and planning strategy,” de Courcy said in a statement at the time, noting that the building could be eligible as a landmark for tax credits and financial incentives.
The local designation came around the time that a prospective buyer of the building sought to demolish it, according to Bill Burg, president of Preservation Sacramento. Burg said the prospective buyer immediately dropped their bid after the building’s placement on the local historic register.
An image of the Virgin Mary hangs inside the Old North Sacramento School on Feb. 2. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
Sacramento City Councilmember Roger Dickinson, who represents the district the former school is in, said he was bullish about the project and that he thought it was significant for different reasons, including what it meant historically.
“The opportunity to restore the building, bring it back to life, I think, is very meaningful to people, whether they are old or new, to North Sacramento,” Dickinson said. “It’s a real landmark.”
For Liu, part of what drew him to North Sacramento is what’s already there. Liu said the neighborhood’s “level of leadership” helped make it a place worth investing in.
Liu said his organization was excited for another reason, too.
“There’s just such a diversity of everybody in this neighborhood,” Liu said. “And I think those are just places we really need to make sure we’re investing in.”
Neighbors Jack Nielsen and Kim Scott, who serve as co-chairs of the Old North Sacramento Restoration Committee, watch as a banner is adjusted outside the Old North Sacramento School on Feb. 2. HANNAH RUHOFF hruhoff@sacbee.com
Follow More of Our Reporting on Inside Look
The Sacramento Bee
Graham Womack is a general assignment reporter for The Sacramento Bee. Prior to joining The Bee full-time in September 2025, he freelanced for the publication for several years. His work has won several California Journalism Awards and spurred state legislation.