A major new housing development on a fallowed art school campus in Oakland’s pricy Rockridge neighborhood can move forward thanks to a recent approval from the City Council.
The decision allows the California College of the Arts to proceed with its 448-unit mixed-use development at the small campus site that has sat vacant since the school moved to San Francisco in 2022.
“We’re glad to have wrapped this part up,” said Marc Babsin, president of Emerald Fund, the San Francisco-based development firm the college tapped to spearhead the project along with Equity Community Builders.
It could be a while, however, before economic conditions improve to the point that the project pencils out, with its estimated cost of about $850,000 per unit to build.
“The project is not financially feasible currently,” Babsin said. “We’ll just sit and wait for conditions to change. Right now, there’s no new projects that are being built in Oakland. The numbers just don’t work.”
Seven years, hundreds of meetings
Still, at least it can move forward when the time is right after traversing a seven-year process to win final approval. That process included roughly 100 community meetings with neighborhood groups, along with about a dozen hearings in front of city agencies tasked with overseeing urban planning, landmarks preservation and architectural design.
During that time, the project has changed shape due partly to community push-back — having been paired down from a nearly 600-unit development with a 19-story tower to a site that’s now roughly 45 percent open space with two main buildings that can be up to 95 feet tall, 14,300 square feet of commercial space and 237 parking places.
It also preserves two historic buildings and the college’s main front wall, stairs and gate, along with some art that was produced at the campus over the years and portions of the existing landscaping, some of which will be open to the general public.
“People can come here to enjoy the grand Macky Lawn and we’re putting in a playground. We’re opening up a historic building to have community meeting space for free,” Babsin told the council at its Dec. 3 meeting.
“There will also be a museum celebrating the history of the California College of the Arts, as well as the Arts and Crafts Movement,” he said. “It’s not ordinary for a market rate project to devote, you know, an acre, an acre and a half to the public, but we’re doing that here.”
Praise and pushback
The project drew praise from many of the dozens of people who lined up during the public comment period, including members of the influential nonprofit Rockridge Community Planning Council, for its contribution to Oakland’s housing stock, its amenities and its location at the intersection of Broadway and College Avenue, close to multiple bus lines, a walkable commercial district and the Rockridge BART station.
“This is an ideal community,” said Councilmember Treva Reid. “I wish this was an opportunity and a project that we could develop certainly in West Oakland and East Oakland. I think the benefit of having a project like this is significant.”
Not everyone loves the project, however, with some speakers decrying the fact that it morphed from having 10 percent of the units set aside for moderate-income residents to having just 5 percent reserved now for very low-income residents.
People also worried about the loss of 10 buildings with historic significance.
“There’s no question, not everybody is getting everything they want and not all the changes that were made over the past several years are all the changes that all the stakeholders and interested parties with legitimate suggestions and requests wanted,” said Councilmember Dan Kalb, in whose district the project sits.
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