Bay Area Real Estate Currently “In Transit”

By Alex Girda, Associate Editor

A series of major projects are underway in the Bay Area, bringing together private companies and city officials. Among them, the BART Transit Village project has stirred by far the most buzz. The project, which has been the subject of discussion for a whopping 17 years, finally broke ground this past week in the presence of local officials from the North Oakland area, as well as residents that have backed the development.

The MacArthur BART station area will be receiving an extreme makeover, which will turn the surface parking lots into a more dynamic community aimed at pedestrian traffic. The main developer for this major housing and commercial project is Bridge Housing Corp. Specs for the finished development include around 42,000 square feet of commercial and retail space, as well as 624 units of housing. Being that the project is oriented toward BART users, around 100 of the total units will be sold well below market rate as affordable housing.

The Oakland Tribune quoted Lynette Sweet, the area’s Bart director, as saying that the MacArthur station was chosen for this project because it is the geographic center of the BART service. The hope for the development is that it will become an exciting transit village, as Jane Brunner observed in a San Francisco Business Times story on the project.

Also making headlines this week was the massive building portfolio sold by the renowned Silicon Valley developer, the Sobrato Organization. The 10 properties that comprise the portfolio brought the real estate company a total of $80 million. The value of the deal suggests that investors are betting on the fact that Silicon Valley is about to make a comeback, which bodes well for the tech sector in the San Francisco area.