Meta pledges $50 million to help build new Sacramento State campus downtown
Mark Zuckerberg and his company, Meta, are putting $50 million into a partnership to build a new Sacramento State University campus where old, unused state office space currently sits in downtown Sacramento.
Sacramento State President Luke Wood said the partnership will help expand the university to the Capitol Mall corridor, where empty state buildings have been a big problem for downtown businesses.
The university released an artificial intelligence rendering weeks ago of their vision of a rebuilt Capitol Mall, which would include student housing, a school of public affairs, and an AI center.
"If we're not preparing students for AI, then we're not preparing them for the future, right?" Wood said. "And it wasn't planned with this, but it's aligned with this."
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg issued a statement on his company's funding of the project, saying, "Meta is proud to call California home and we're excited to work with Governor Newsom and Sacramento State to drive innovation in our state capital... I believe these investments will help strengthen our communities and support the next generation of leaders and innovators
Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty has been working on creating a reuse plan for downtown state office space for several years.
"I'm very optimistic about this," McCarty said of the Meta partnership. "When you think about cities that have life downtown, a college presence is a big, big deal, so we're very excited about it."
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the money would go toward demolition of the old buildings and entitlements for new buildings. A Sac State spokesperson says there is no timeline on this transformation yet. The next step will be requests for bids from developers.
Debbie Rajkumar and her business partner, Ken Chan, are ready for the move.
"Having something good to happen around here will be the best news ever," Rajkumar said.
The pair owns Cafe Connection across the street from the California State Capitol, where photos of Gov. Newsom and other elected leaders hang on their walls. They say that state employees sticking to remote work has made business tough.
"Most of the folks are working from home, so the foot traffic is not there," Rajkumar said.
Meta is the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads.