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Two Planned Residential Towers Would Add More Than 550 Units to Downtown Oakland
By Nancy Amdur
Downtown Oakland may soon receive a boost in its housing inventory as
Portland-based developer Gerding Edlen looks to build a 206-unit
residential-and-retail tower at 1700 Webster St. Also, the city’s
planning commission last week approved a 33-story mixed-use high-rise at
19th Street and Broadway proposed by District Development, LLC, which will add 345 residential units to the neighborhood.
The
1700 Webster St. plan calls for demolishing the existing two-story
building on the site, now occupied by the American Cancer Society, and
constructing a 24-story building with about 6,000 square feet of
ground-floor retail and/or restaurant space and a 206-space parking
garage, according to a city report about the project. Retail space would
front both 17th
and Webster streets. Residences would span 18 stories, and there would
be four stories of podium parking above the ground floor. Architecture
firm Perkins + Will in San Francisco is working on the project.
Construction is slated to begin this year with building occupancy
planned in 2017. The project is under a public comment period until Aug.
17 and likely will be approved by early September, said Scott Miller,
the city’s zoning manager. Gerding Edlen did not respond to a request
for comment.
District Development’s 1900-1944 Broadway project will include about
10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and 333 parking spaces.
The project’s studio, one- and two-bedroom residential units are
designed as apartments “with flexibility” to be condominiums, said Seth
Hamalian, managing principal of San Francisco-based District
Development.
It will sit on one now vacant and one underutilized lot.
Emeryville-based architecture firm Brick, LLP is designing the project,
which will include a tower clad in precast concrete with glass window
walls, metal panel and brick, according to a city report about the
project.
The developer also plans to restore the historic four-story Tapscott
Building next door to the residential high-rise. The building will be
incorporated into the overall project with residential units above
ground-floor retail. A 20-foot wide outdoor courtyard will separate the
new construction from the Tapscott Building. District Development is in
discussions with capital partners and aims to begin construction on the
project during summer or fall 2016, Hamalian said.
Adding housing to the neighborhood is a “positive,” said John Dolby, a
senior vice president at real estate firm DTZ in Oakland. “A lot of
people are moving downtown,” he said, and there is a need for more
housing. Apartment vacancy in that neighborhood is less than 5 percent,
Dolby said. These projects also are conveniently located near the 19th
Street-Oakland BART Station.
Additionally, more retail is welcome in the area, said Steve Snider,
district manager of the Downtown Oakland and Lake Merritt-Uptown
District associations, which are community benefit district corporations
committed to revitalizing downtown Oakland.
“[The] retail will fit beautifully into the neighborhood,” he said.
“We need to continue to fill [the area] up with great retail in order to
help support the growing retail scene that’s here already.”
The neighborhood is home to well-known Vietnamese restaurant Pho 84,
Snider said, along with sandwich shop Stag’s Lunchette and Spice Monkey,
which serves international cuisine. The art-deco Fox and Paramount
theaters anchor the district.
“If we get more foot traffic down here, more residents…more stores
will open, more restaurants, more bars, more entertainment venues,”
Snider said. “It will be a much more vibrant place even five years from
now. You’re going to see that momentum.”h
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