Oakland's Preservation Park: Planning for the Future

Abstract

Preservation Park in Oakland is an anomaly. It is neither a green park nor strictly an office park, 16 historic homes, carefully renovated and maintained, are arranged around an internal way and studded with a central fountain in the Victorian style. Seeds for this park were initially planted by the city's Landmark Preservation Advisory Board in 1976 and with fits and starts, it opened in 1991. As Interstate Highway 980 was built, the park was created as a way to save a few of the most beautiful homes under threat by the Oakland Redevelopment Authority's urban renewal clearance and construction of the highways. Interstates 580, 880, and 980 were lashed across Oakland to bring suburban commuters over the bridge to San Francisco, cutting up a city of neighborhoods and destroying thousands of homes and small businesses. Oakland envisioned this acre and a half as a permanent site for community based organizations and non-profits to revitalize the edge of downtown and West Oakland.

Since 1991, the office space has been rented to tens of non-profits and hosted hundreds of weddings, conferences, and other public and private events. In 2004, the community development corporation, East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation purchased the park from the city and continued to manage the property as a successful office park and event space. The COVID-19 pandemic irrevocably changed how many people work, and for the first time, Preservation Park vacancies increased and have remained substantially below 100%, presenting a challenge to EBALDC and its portfolio. This thesis seeks to provide the client with a framework to assess possible redevelopment and reprogramming schemes which is sensitive to the community goals of EBALDC and requirement for the property to sustain itself. By considering, financial feasibility and partnerships, a multi-phase roadmap with a 20-year time horizon is presented to EBALDC to consider. This will also provide a potential framework for more non-profit firms to pursue commercial real estate management and redevelopment as a strategy for community wealth-building and neighborhood stability.