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July 19, 2004

Downtown development project nears final approval

OAKLAND

It's taken decades of arguing, years of planning and millions of dollars to study.

But Oakland is on the verge of transforming a moribund part of downtown into a huge new project that includes a mix of homes, restaurants and stores.

On Tuesday, the City Council is expected to give final approval to a plan to add more than 1,000 new residents to downtown as well as giving them places to shop and eat.

The project, which will require $61 million in public subsidy, is the centerpiece of Mayor Jerry Brown's so-called 10K initiative to build housing for 10,000 new residents downtown.

"It's a great project, and it's long overdue,'' Brown said. "It's taken so many years to come up with a plan that will work and everyone can agree on. ... But the people of Oakland deserve an exciting, vibrant downtown. This will reshape the city on its own, and it will really stimulate growth there."

The idea of 10K is that all those new residents, including many young professionals, would enliven downtown and draw new businesses. For decades, Oakland's center has become desolate at 5 p.m., when the thousands of office workers leave for the day. City leaders have struggled for 25 years with ideas to bring more people there.

Brown, who has lived in or near downtown since becoming mayor in 1998, has made the enlivening city center his quest. Two years ago, the mayor rejected a plan to build a baseball-only stadium for the Oakland Athletics on the site in the uptown area, saying housing was more important.

Under the deal, the city would provide a $61 million subsidy to help Forest City Enterprises build nearly 1,000 dwellings, 14,500 square feet of retail and a 25,000-square-foot public park on a wedge of land between Telegraph and San Pablo avenues.

The project is only a block from the 19th Street BART Station. Most of the area now is covered with parking lots, two residential hotels and three auto-repair businesses.

The current project has been scaled down from earlier proposals that called for 2,000 units of housing and nearly 80,000 square feet of retail at a public subsidy estimated at more than $85 million.

The $61 million public subsidy remains a source of controversy.

"I would never say this is a good deal," said Councilwoman Jane Brunner. "It's a lot of money -- $61 million -- but it's probably going to be good for that area."

Brunner has been skeptical of the project for years but said that after the developer agreed to several changes, including adding 70 more affordable apartments, she will vote for it on Tuesday.

"Oakland really needs retail. But we're not going to get retail until we have a 24-hour downtown," she said. "We need to have that housing there."

The project has also drawn the support of environmental groups, such as the Greenbelt Alliance and Urban Ecology, that have successfully argued for changes in the plan.

"The plan that has come forward now is really in the interest of Oakland, '' said Tom Steinbach, director of the Greenbelt Alliance. "It's going to create a really vibrant neighborhood with people living and working and shopping and recreating in the same neighborhood.

"The previous plans for that uptown area have not really taken an approach toward creating a neighborhood and a community," Steinbach said. "It's a great location -- you won't need a car to live there."

Council President Ignacio De La Fuente said that for decades most of the site has been wasted space.

"This has been around for a long, long time,'' De La Fuente said. "We've been talking about this for the past 20 years. We can either keep talking about it for another 20 years or finally do something."

E-mail Jim Zamora at jzamora@sfchronicle.com.

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