The 400,000-sf building is located at Ninth and J Streets near City Hall. In addition to anchor tenant US Bancorp, major tenants include Investors Bank and Trust and the California Department of Managed Healthcare. Bidders for the office tower included Equity Office Properties, Walton Street Capital in Chicago and a joint venture between Boston-based Charlesbank Capital Partners LLC and San Francisco's McCarthy Cook & Co. Shorenstein signed a letter of intent with Grosvenor Group in mid-December.

The Shorenstein family has been active in San Francisco business and social circles for most of the last century. Headed by patriarch Douglas Shorenstein, the company is the largest office property holder in San Francisco's CBD with 6 million sf and controls more than 22 million sf of office buildings nationwide. The deal is the first in Sacramento for Shorenstein, which has acquired property in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia as the dot-com collapse has left the Bay Area office market bereft.

Shorenstein paid a reported $750 million last year for major office towers in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. In July, Shorenstein Co. acquired an 80-plus-year leasehold on 450 Lexington Ave., the 911,000-sf office tower perched atop the Grand Central Post Office in New York. Royal Dutch Shell Pension Fund sold the lease to San Francisco-based Shorenstein's SRI 6 fund in a deal believed to be worth $300 million.