Developers are bullish on residential towers

12 are in planning or under construction

San Francisco Business Times – November 18, 2005 by Ryan Tate

Housing developers have a barely controlled mania for building skyscrapers in Oakland, despite showing no interest in such projects as recently as last year.

At least a dozen highrise condominium and apartment projects are in the works, and they have spread far from Lake Merritt, where the towers have traditionally clustered. They are now poised to pop up all along Broadway, starting in the Auto Row area well north of downtown, then dotting the street and its flanks along 30 blocks, through the city center, to Broadway’s southern terminus. At the Jack London Square waterfront, a proposed highrise is set to rise 20 stories or more.

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Forest City Locks into Oakland Uptown Project

Forest City boosts Uptown ambitions

Developer bucks trend, bids to build more apartments in Oakland

Ryan Tate

Forest City Enterprises, which has spent several years whittling down its mammoth Uptown development project in Oakland, now wants to increase it.

Redevelopment officials and Forest City confirmed the Cleveland-based firm plans to take to the City Council an increase in the project’s first phase, to 665 units from 590. The city expects the changes to ripple forward into the project’s second phase, growing the total apartment count beyond 700 units. The move is something of a surprise, coming amid a weak rental market that has brought Oakland apartment building to a standstill, even as condominium development continues at a frenzied pace.

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