After Decline, Oakland Bets on Its Future
The ongoing renaissance of the Bay Area’s “Second City” is finally starting to yield results--and developers and city officials insist that the best is yet to come.
An industrial city that--like Cleveland, Detroit and other Rust Belt cities--played a major role in winning World War II, Oakland also attracted blacks and whites from the South to build Liberty Ships and manufacture the munitions.
The postwar period saw many of the city’s middle-class whites moving to the suburbs and the beginning of a long economic decline.
San Francisco’s loss of manufacturing jobs was more than offset by the massive office building boom of the 1970s and 1980s--a boom that largely bypassed Oakland, a city of 363,500 population, and leapfrogged into Contra Costa County suburbs like Walnut Creek.
But now, Oaklanders are seeing dirt moved and buildings erected at:
--Bramalea Pacific’s $500-million City Center project at Broadway and 14th Street that will include a new twin-tower 1-million-square-foot Federal Building designed by Kaplan McLaughlin Diaz, San Francisco, and a $122-million, 22-story building that will be the new headquarters of Oakland-based American President Cos. Ltd.
--The $125-million transformation of the old Jack London Square into Jack London’s Waterfront, creating a world-class festival waterfront marketplace. Part of the development includes a new headquarters building for the Port of Oakland.
--New office buildings, such as the $85-million, 27-story Lake Merritt Plaza that provides Class A space for firms that want to stay in the East Bay. Home to large law firms, the 446,000-square-foot building by Torrance-based Transpacific Development Co. is 75% leased.
--The continuing development of Old Oakland, Chinatown and the Produce Market areas between City Center and the waterfront. The East Bay Municipal Utility District is building its 150,000-square-foot headquarters in Chinatown and trendy restaurants spring up next door to rescue missions in the newly emerging Victorian splendor of Old Oakland.
Disagree on Mall
George H. Williams, director of Oakland’s Economic Development and Employment Office, and Robert J. Carey, president of Urban Centre Developments Ltd., San Francisco, disagree on the need of what is perhaps the most controversial project, a downtown shopping mall.
Williams, citing the city’s $17-million budget deficit and figures from the Assn. of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) showing that Oakland lags far behind other East Bay communities in sales tax revenue, insists that a downtown mall in the triangle formed by 21st Street, Telegraph and San Pablo avenues is necessary to reverse the tendency of East Bay residents to do their shopping in suburban malls.
He buttresses his arguments by saying that the projected 5,000 workers in the new $141-million federal complex at 12th and Clay streets and other employees in downtown Oakland will be natural customers for the downtown mall.
Carey, developer of Jack London’s Waterfront, doesn’t believe the city needs a fourth department store to supplement the existing Emporium Capwell’s and I. Magnin’s and the proposed Nordstrom.
Sales Tax Revenue
The commitment from Nordstrom in the proposed $200-million project by the Rouse Co. (developers of Santa Monica Place in Santa Monica, Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston, The Grand Avenue in Milwaukee and Harborplace in Baltimore) is contingent on securing a fourth department store for the development.
Carey believes that a quality festival marketplace geared to the needs of downtown workers--as Jack London’s Waterfront is shaping up--will generate the needed sales tax revenue--as well as boost sales in the existing downtown department stores and specialty shops.
Jack London’s Waterfront is an ambitious development, with 100 stores and 35 additional restaurants and food outlets. If Carey has his way, there will be no franchised fast-food outlets, and all the food outlets must sell raw produce to the customers--making it an up-market version Los Angeles’s Grand Central Market.
Both Carey and Williams agree that Oakland needs the sales tax dollars that are going to neighboring communities. According to ABAG statistics, less than 19% of the city’s revenues came from sales taxes in 1985-86, contrasted with more than 58% for Dublin, 45% for San Leandro and 42% for Hayward.
Opening this summer is The Rotunda, a 400,000-square-foot mixed-use development in the old Liberty House department store at 15th Street and Broadway. Williams said the project by Myron Zimmerman Investments will have about 100,000 square feet of retail space on three levels, with office space on five levels.
From his office on the 18th floor of the Clorox Building at 12th and Broadway, Glenn Isaacson has a spectacular view of downtown Oakland. A lot of what he sees is parking lots, but Isaacson, executive vice president of Bramalea Pacific, the developer of the 12-block City Center project, is confident that Oakland’s revitalization has achieved the necessary momentum.
Parking lots are a challenge to Isaacson: City Center is built atop a large underground garage that serves the downtown area and the City Center BART station that has been integrated into the design of City Center.
The mixture of low- and mid-rise office buildings and high-rise towers, along with plazas, fountains and walkways, creates a pleasant urban environment that takes full advantage of the mild East Bay climate, he said.
Construction is in progress on the 1-million-square foot Oakland Federal Building and will start this summer on two new buildings that will add about 1.3 million square feet to the 1.36 million square feet already completed at City Center.
The 11-story Five City Center at 14th and Clay streets will add 195,000 square feet of space, including 16,000 square feet of retail space, while 1200 Clay at 12th and Clay streets, will be a three-story, 95,000-square-foot building.
Office Building Start
IDG Architects, Oakland, designed the two buildings, as well as the first phase of City Square, Isaacson said, adding that the development will eventually total 5 million square feet. Bramalea Pacific is a division of Bramalea Ltd. of Canada.
Construction on the 22-story building on Broadway between 11th and 12th streets is expected to begin later this year, with completion scheduled for early 1991, Isaacson said. American President Cos., now located at 1800 Harrison St., will occupy 12 of the 22 floors, or half the space in the 500,000-square-foot building.
“APC’s decision to become the anchor tenant of a new building in the City Center area is a reaffirmation of our commitment to Oakland’s development,” according to Bruce Seaton, APC chairman. The firm has 900 employees in the Oakland area.
NEXT WEEK: Emeryville’s renaissance through recycling.
