At the corner of Broadway and 23rd Street in Oakland, construction crews are hammering away on the Hive, a mixed-use development with space for 104 apartments and 100,000 square feet of office and retail, aiming to capture the Uptown buzz. A couple of miles away, Brooklyn Basin, a 3,100-unit new neighborhood, is gearing up to start construction in February for the first major waterfront development in Oakland after Jack London Square.
Behind both of those projects — and a few others — is Signature Development, a firm jumping headfirst into Oakland’s recent development comeback.
“We’re going to create a waterfront community, it’s not traditional anything,” said Mike Ghielmetti, head of Signature Development. “We see a lot of opportunity in Oakland.”
Some people label Oakland as a perpetual “city of the future,” but its time is now, said Ghielmetti. The firm’s total pipeline and scope of projects has the potential to bring more than 4,000 new housing units to Oakland and craft entire neighborhoods.
Signature is developing Brooklyn Basin, formerly known as Oak to Ninth, with Concord-based Reynolds & Brown and Beijing-based Zarsion Holding Co. Ltd. It encompasses 65 acres slated for 3,100 homes, 200,000 square feet of commercial space, 30 acres of new parks and a marina.
“If you look at (Brooklyn Basin) from a historical perspective, it’s a great responsibility and a huge opportunity to change the landscape and do something positive,” said Dana Parry, CEO of Reynolds & Brown. “It’s 65 acres on the water. Where else can you get that in the Bay Area?”
The Hive will offer more space to house residents, companies and entertainment vying to be in Oakland’s burgeoning Uptown neighborhood. The commercial component is already 90 percent pre-leased to tenants such as Numi Tea, restaurateur Chris Pastena, Drake’s Brewery, Hub Oakland and Balfour Beatty Construction. The project will wrap up by early 2015.
Signature is also working on a plan to re-use the former Oak Knoll naval hospital site with the potential for more than 900 homes. Beyond that, the developer recently bought a residential development site entitled for another 35 units of housing in Temescal.
“Mike is enthusiastic, optimistic, hangs in there, he’s reliable,” Parry said. “As a group, we kind of knew (with Brooklyn Basin) that we burned the boats on the beach and it was conquer or die. … We still have a long way to go, but we have a little bit of wind at our back, just a little.”
Ghielmetti said Signature, a company that established itself building suburban-style home developments, is a believer in Oakland and its urban attributes: Lake Merritt, diverse population, public transportation, historic architecture. He launched his company, a spinoff of Signature Properties, in Oakland in 2010.
Signature’s office, near the intersection of Broadway and Grand Avenue, is across the street from its $55 million Broadway Grand project, a 132-unit condo project with 20,000 square feet of retail housing tenants such as Ozumo, Pican and Starbucks on the groundfloor.
Broadway Grand exemplifies the transformation that has already happened in Oakland. The units hit the market just as the housing market was going sour so Signature converted some units to rental in 2008 and then switched back to condo in 2012. Whether as apartments or condos, the units filled up as Uptown blossomed into Oakland’s hippest arts and entertainment district, flush with dozens of new bars, restaurants, art galleries, and sold-out shows at the Fox and Paramount theaters.
“We see a good group of potential employees and partners that we can recruit form this area,” Ghielmetti said. “Within Oakland itself, there’s wonderful diversity. … There’s an optimism and an energy that we really gravitate to.”
Brooklyn Basin could take up to 15 years to build out, which is almost the time it’s taken to get the project through entitlements and approvals from the city, state and federal agencies as well as beating lawsuits and securing Zarsion as the capital partner with a $1.5 billion commitment over the course of the buildout.
Zarsion’s initial $28 million investment will help kickstart the infrastructure and site preparation work next year with the first phase of homes breaking ground in 2014 or 2015.
“(Brooklyn Basin) is a real game changer for Oakland — it’s the first major residential project out of the gate since the economic meltdown in 2008,” said Rachel Flynn, Oakland’s planning director. “Jack London Square is more about entertainment and retail. This is more about housing and creating a whole new neighborhood where none exists.”
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