Sacramento: 301 Capitol Mall: A New Plan for The Towers Site

[Phillip]

Originally Posted by innov8

It's not unusual for competitors in business to also be good friends; after all… it's a small world.

Anything is possible, I suppose. If Best Buy's CEO pays off Saca's $25 million (or whatever) debt I would say he's a REALLY good friend.

[Sacto]

Originally Posted by Phillip

Anything is possible, I suppose. If Best Buy's CEO pays off Saca's $25 million (or whatever) debt I would say he's a REALLY good friend.

Giving away $25M...I don't know about that.

[brandon12]

^Philip and Sacto, are you guys serious or just trying to make some kind of misinformed, rhetorical point? Under this scenario, nobody is GIVING anything to anyone. He would be buying a $25M equity stake in a project he believes would net a reasonable return. People GIVE $25M to hospitals and universities and museums, not high-rise condo development projects.

Under this scenario (which I'm not saying is what will happen) someone would invest private money in a project that a public entity is not willing to. Nothing more, nothing less. There's no altruism here; it's just a private individual making an investment that is either too risky, or for whatever other reason, not an attractive investment for a steward of retirement funds for public employees. Once CALPERS is excused, nobody that steps in is doing it because they exchange Christmas cards with the Sacas on an annual basis and they want to bail out a good friend by GIVING him $25M.

[Phillip]

Originally Posted by brandon12

^Philip and Sacto, are you guys serious or just trying to make some kind of misinformed, rhetorical point?

I don't pretend to know what's going on at SacTowers now, Brandon. I'm just trying to evaluate a rumor posted by a newly registered user, who might or might not be credible.

My first impression, based on intuition not "inside knowledge", is that a close friendship between the Saca family and CEO of Best Buy, Brad Anderson, doesn't sound likely. If he'd posted it was the CEO of Oracle or Diamond Nuts or some other company in California it would sound more plausible.

But the CEO of a Fortune 500 company in Minnesota? When would Anderson have time to be friends with the Sacas? The guy probably doesn't have time to see his wife.

And if Anderson was such good friends with the Sacas I don't think he would have opened Best Buy warehouses so close to the Filcos.

But again, anything is possible. We'll see.

================

Googling for the name of Best Buy's CEO I came across a list of the 2006 Fortune 500, ranked by revenues. Best Buy is #76, ahead of Coca Cola (#89), American Airlines (#105) and JCPenney (#118)!! I had no idea Best Buy was so big.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/full_list/index.html

[brandon12]

Originally Posted by Phillip

But the CEO of a Fortune 500 company in Minnesota?...The guy probably doesn't have time to see his wife.
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That's very funny and probably true!

[bennywah]

^
actually when I was working in Best Buys business sales 2 years ago, Brad Anderson and his wife came into our store for a visit in San Diego, extremely nice couple we talked for about 30 min about the weather and some geeky tech stuff, but extremely approachable, you wouldn't have guessed he runs a company that after taxes makes over a billion dollars in profit a yr.

Best buy like wal-mart is also expanding into china, and has a brand in canada as well as its own stores, the geek squad, magnolia hi-fi, which is sometimes co-branded with best buy and its own in house service centers.

Also John Saca who normally develops strip malls has some of those properties with best buys on 99 yr leases, so John has dealt with them before, competition for dad or not!!

If they are friends, its more than likely in the means of hollywood friends, they know each other converse when in the same crowd, but highly doubt they're on the phone gossiping, or im-ing each other on aim, or posting a comment on myspace, lol, I could be wrong though!!

[Schmoe]

I don't see the competition between Filco and Best Buy as an issue here. I know a Saca, one of John's cousins who is pretty close to him. He works for Filco, but says that John won't have anything to do with the family business. I don't know all the details, but the gist of it is that John seems to view Filco as embarrassing or inferior to him. Remember, this is not my impression, but that of one of his family members.

[vicinsac]

I was just thinking, this Ted Eliolopolous guy, the new investment officer from calpers. He replaced the other investment officer who retired and that was the guy that john was working with.

Ted came in with his own agenda and that why i think calpers isn't the right equity partner for the project anymore. Ted has a very Greek last name. Another know fact is that Ted is a blood relative of Phil Angelides. Angelides is a long time friend of which prominent Sacramento land developer??? His name was mentioned in previous posts here. Smells like the Greek mafia I think, lol. Maybe John could reach out to his Greek friends.

Another known fact: Jo Mohamed has been friends with the Saca family at least 20 years, if i remember correctly. So he's definitely in bed with john. What happens if they foreclose on the land to get calpers out of the deal? I know that would void the contracts with all the buyers. I'm just wondering how much buyers john would lose. I know i would renew my contract. How about you guys?

There are definitely talks of bestbuy being an equity partner and Its not just rumors.

[vicinsac]

At this point its obvious that Calpers is trying to get full control of the project, and get their own developer in to finish this project on a much smaller scale. John does have investors that are willing to pitch in. All those bills that Saca owes would have been paid off if it was up to John. Calpers has to authorize every thing John does with the project and from the time the new investment officer steped in Calpers has been doing everything to screw it all up. The people haven't been very friendly at Calpers so John the last couple of weeks.

[innov8]

Originally Posted by vicinsac

I was just thinking, this Ted Eliolopolous guy, the new investment officer from calpers. He replaced the other investment officer who retired and that was the guy that john was working with.

Ted came in with his own agenda and that why i think calpers isn't the right equity partner for the project anymore. Ted has a very Greek last name. Another know fact is that Ted is a blood relative of Phil Angelides. Angelides is a long time friend of which prominent Sacramento land developer??? His name was mentioned in previous posts here. Smells like the Greek mafia I think, lol. Maybe John could reach out to his Greek friends.

Another known fact: Jo Mohamed has been friends with the Saca family at least 20 years, if i remember correctly. So he's definitely in bed with john. What happens if they foreclose on the land to get calpers out of the deal? I know that would void the contracts with all the buyers. I'm just wondering how much buyers john would lose. I know i would renew my contract. How about you guys?

There are definitely talks of bestbuy being an equity partner and Its not just rumors.

There are lots of rumors about the project on who’s doing what. I have heard
several solid statements on who might be doing what, but I prefer not to
post them here at this time because there's no use stirring everyone up
about 'what ifs' during ongoing negations. The Bestbuy one is still a mystery
to me... I have not heard that from anyone else but you vicinsac. I also feel
100% confident that the Towers will be built as proposed.

[vicinsac]

Not trying to stir anything up. Just trying to keep an open discussion going. Its very interesting to know what everyone else thinks or knows, or have heard.

So feel free to share your thoughts guys.

Innov8, If you heard something interesting please let us know. Don't hold back.

[innov8]

I'd like to vininsac... but my screen name doe’s not protect my identity like
yours does. My sources knows I post as innov8 and I often hear stuff in
confidence that I can not blurt it out here. If you or someone else spills the
beans on something, then I’ll chime in and contribute more… but until then,
I have to maintain the trust. I’d hate to be cut off from future info just
because I could not keep my trap shut on SSP. I’m not the only one on the
board that doe’s not say everything they know about the goings on with the
Towers… and honestly, I’m tired of all the ‘hear say’.

[ozone]

I heard that McClatchy Corp. was going to come in a save the Towers projects but that they are going to nix the hotel and reduce the height of the condo towers to 5 floors.

[KAWAK]

I heard that a Mcdonalds may now go there and that the big Macs will be 54 story's high!

[arod74]

McClatchy's stock is dropping faster than the Kings' playoff hopes. Its argueble that McClatchy Corp can barely save themselves after all the loses they have taken on their recent newpaper purchases. I would tune the source of that rumor out ozone...

[foxmtbr]

^ I believe ozone was kidding...

...and reduce the height of the condo towers to 5 floors.

[ozone]

Originally Posted by KAWAK

I heard that a Mcdonalds may now go there and that the big Macs will be 54 story's high!

54-story golden arches. Now that would be cool..

[Sacto]

Originally Posted by ozone

54-story golden arches. Now that would be cool..

Nah, I rather have those towers.

[friedpez]

Hey, with two 54 story arches we'd be the St Louis of the west coast!

[innov8]

Originally Posted by goldcntry

A quick update on the Towers Wetlands Restoration Project (Sponsered by CalPERS): Yesterday, the two ducks that have been frequenting the south tower pond were joined briefly by a white egret and three seagulls. Greenery is beginning to sprout with a vengence around the pillars creating a wonderland environment for various rodents and inner-city wildlife...

Thanks CalPERS...

By special request from a PM I went down to ground zero to capture a white egret or
a seagull on film making a nest or even enjoying the sun today… but I had no such luck