Sacramento’s On Broadway affordable housing community celebrates its grand opening Thursday at 1 p.m., two and a half years after a three-alarm fire destroyed one of its two buildings while it was still under construction. The 140-apartment project at 19th Street and Broadway is being framed by its developers as what KCRA describes as a comeback story, marking the end of a rebuild that followed one of Sacramento’s more dramatic construction-site disasters.
Sacramento Mayor Kevin McCarty is expected to join local and state housing leaders, community groups, and project developers at Thursday’s celebration, according to KCRA. The development sits in Sacramento’s Central City near the Tower District, where EAH Housing lists the property address as 2401 19th St. and describes two buildings offering 140 one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments, along with community centers, outdoor courtyards with play areas, and transit access via SacRT’s Blue Line.
The Fire That Nearly Derailed the Project
The blaze broke out on March 26, 2024, while the site was still mid-construction, and Sacramento Fire Department crews battled flames that consumed one of the two five-story buildings on the property. The fire was intense enough to melt the sides of cars parked across the street and damage crossing arms and lights along nearby light rail tracks, per KCRA’s reporting.
Construction superintendent Shawn Eldredge told Fox40 in earlier coverage that work halted entirely in the fire’s aftermath: “We stopped work for 30 days.” Fox40 reported that one of the two buildings burned to the ground during construction, and that the cause of the fire was still undetermined at the time…