Sacramento region · Real estate
Mark Friedman
Founder and chairman, Fulcrum Property
Developer behind The Cannery, The Barn and the Bridge District, and a key figure in bringing the Kings arena downtown.
Mark Friedman is the founder and chairman of Fulcrum Property, a West Sacramento developer whose projects include The Cannery and The Barn in West Sacramento’s Bridge District, Davis Commons and the MARRS building. The company traces its roots to retail development in 1962.
By the numbers
The data
Fulcrum project awards by year
Source: Fulcrum Property, About page (Sacramento Business Journal and design awards).
The story of Mark Friedman
Friedman earned a bachelor’s degree at Harvard and a joint JD/MBA at Stanford. Fulcrum grew from retail into an integrated firm that develops, builds and manages mixed-use, residential and commercial property.
Fulcrum’s work has won repeated awards: Best Mixed Use Project for the Elliot Building in 2004, Best New Infill for Sutter Brownstones in 2008, and Best Real Estate Project honors for The Barn, Ice Blocks, Moderns on Eames Walk and The Cannery in 2017 and 2018. The firm has won the ICSC Design and Development Award three times.
Friedman played a key role in efforts to build the downtown arena for the Sacramento Kings, and the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce named him Sacramentan of the Year in 2015. He has served on the boards of CalHumanities, the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute and the UC Davis Foundation.
Awards and recognition
Milestones
- 1962Company roots in retail development.
- 2004Elliot Building: Best Mixed Use Project.
- 2008Sutter Brownstones: Best New Infill; Friedman serves in the Electoral College.
- 2015Sacramentan of the Year.
- 2017The Barn: Best Real Estate Project.
- 2018Ice Blocks, Moderns on Eames Walk and The Cannery win; The Barn earns an International Design Award.
Companies and ventures
Lessons for business builders
- Infill pays when it is designed well: most of Fulcrum’s awards are for urban infill.
- Build a district, not a building; the Bridge District links many projects.
- Civic work and development go together, as the arena effort showed.
Sources
Photo: Fulcrum Property (fulcrumproperty.com). Figures marked firm-reported come from the company; all others from the sources above, checked November 2026.
