Uneasy Rhetoric

Heckasac beat me to it, posting about the building that is rapidly nearing completion at the corner of 12th and K Street. According to the Bee, this former home to Marilyn’s, Gaesorn, and some offices, will soon be home to a new “American Bistro” restaurant, a day spa, and luxury apartments.

Just what Downtown needs. More luxury accommodations. The building will be:

a four-story structure with 23 apartments on the third and fourth floors. Rents will be in the $3,000-to $4,000-a-month range - a price tag that targets lobbyists, lawyers and other professionals who need a place to stay near the Capitol.

Notice the article said “a place to stay” and not “a place to live”? The target, then, are people with homes elsewhere who conduct business in Sacramento. Let’s break this down:

1. Assume you are Joe Lobbyist and you manage to get an apartment for the low end: $3,000 a month or $36,000/year.

2. You spend five nights a week (which is probably more than you actually would) in the apartment from roughly January through August. That’s a total of about 170 nights. Since you’ll probably be renting the apartment year-round, $36,000 divided by 170 equals just under $212 a night.

3. According to Hotels.com, I can get a room at the Sheraton Grand for an average of $196 a night during the week. If I’m staying for five nights a week for weeks at a time, I bet I could negotiate a better rate.

And at the hotel, they’ll change my sheets for me, give me clean towels every day, clean my bathroom, and the cable TV is free (but the remote probably doesn’t work).

To be fair, these apartments will probably be shared among a group of high-maintenance lobbyists and/or legislators, but still, 3k-4k rent is just crazy.

Aside: I agree with heckasac - Sacramento doesn’t need another place to get ribeye steak and garlic mashed potatoes. Just for the record, we don’t need another place to get spinach and cheese stuffed ravioli, either.