Building Oakland, Making an Impact

By Rebecca Kaplan, Oakland City Councilmember At-Large–

It is important to support Oakland’s many needs throughout the city, and one of the ways we can build a stronger future is by expanding development that generates housing, jobs, business opportunity, social equity, and expands tax revenue. There are some significant and important projects proposed that can strengthen our community and our economy, for which we want to share some information about the goals and vision.

The Black Arts Movement and Business District

Oakland has a strong history of Black businesses, leadership, and community that has also faced decades of disruption, displacement, and other challenges. The City Council has affirmed and designated the Black Arts Movement and Business District (BAMBD) to provide for recognition and revitalization efforts in this area. This is a project of city wide significance.

The types of facilities proposed to be transformed include those that will support and strengthen the BAMBD. They include:

1. a series of public streetscape improvements, including public banners along Oakland’s Fourteenth Street corridor to honor, uplift, commemorate, and increase public awareness of important Black cultural, sports, arts, and historical people and institutions, and to help identify and uplift the corridor being known and recognized as the BAMBD;
2. and publicly owned and privately-owned property transformed by actions including tenant improvements, facade improvements, place-making improvements, space activation improvements, and accessibility improvements, among others, in the BAMBD for the purpose of providing support for arts, music, comedy, and cultural institutions in the BAMBD, to ensure the ongoing viability of historic, cornerstone African American institutions, and provide support to remedy impacted facilities.

Coliseum City

The Coliseum project will include housing, including substantial affordable housing, as well as commercial, hospitality, sports, entertainment, and other development, along with public sector facilities for public and governmental needs. This includes developing Oakland’s “City Hall East” project, to enable residents and businesses in East Oakland to have easy access to permits and other supports to advance community and business needs.

It is also intended to include safety and training facilities, such as a CORE training space, and a state-of-the-art 360 virtual training range. This also accommodates Alameda County’s needs for new space, to replace the older facilities in downtown.

In addition, the Coliseum development will include upgrades to the underlying infrastructure, including to remedy the impacts of sea level rise, to strengthen transit-oriented development, connectivity, new streetscape and pedestrian safety, and ease of access. This will help expand local jobs and business opportunity and provide for the activation of an area that is an adopted Priority Development Area in a heavily impacted community in the center of the greater region with strong transit access.

West Oakland BART Area Mixed Use Revitalization

The West Oakland BART station area has easy access throughout the Bay Area and serves a community that, for decades, has been undermined by projects that demolished long-standing homes and businesses—disproportionately taking away Black-owned and operated businesses, and neighborhoods cut apart from one another.

The area around this centrally located BART station has been primarily parking lots, with lack of access to community-serving needs. Now there is an opportunity to reconnect and support the community, with a project by the West Oakland BART Station, named Mandela Station, which will bring jobs and affordable housing and expanded economic opportunity and racial equity and access to vital needs for the surrounding community, including the West Oakland Health Center.

The community of Oakland and surroundings can also be well-served by including an up-to-date evidence lab and 911 communications dispatch center, which would provide improved environment and space for essential workers who handle these vital safety tasks, provide access to high-speed fiber optic data lines and with uninterruptable power supply, for more effective service, and help ensure that our community has effective and reliable safety service.

Councilmember At-Large and Council President Rebecca Kaplan, who is the Vice Mayor of Oakland, was elected in 2008 to serve as Oakland’s citywide Councilmember; she was re-elected in 2016 and 2020. She also serves on the Alameda County Transportation Commission (ACTC). Follow Councilmember Kaplan on Twitter @Kaplan4Oakland (https://tinyurl.com/2dtjmazc) and Facebook (https://tinyurl.com/2p9dd5ta).

Out of the Closet and into City Hall
Published on April 4, 2024