The historic Elks Tower was rehabilitated to showcase retail shops on the first floor while providing affordable office space for tenants on its upper floors. Miyamoto designed a voluntary seismic upgrade to reduce the risk of death or injury resulting from an earthquake. The 14-story structure consists of unreinforced masonry (URM) supported by a concrete beam-column system on the second floor. The URM walls and braced frames are designed to satisfy current code performance levels, combining friction dampers with the braced frames provides enhanced building performance. Designed by architect Leonard J. Starks in the Italian Renaissance Style, the Elks Tower is the second skyscraper ever built in Sacramento when it opened in 1926.