Construction is moving forward for the new six-story student-oriented complex at 4400 Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Temescal, Oakland. The project, named theRefuge, will create 57 units with 155 beds near the MacArthur BART Station. Adam McClure of Portia+Rohm Development is listed as the project developer.
The Refuge apartment floor plan, illustration by PadStyler
4400 Martin Luther King Jr Way, image via Google Street View circa September 2023
The Refuge will offer studios, two-bedrooms, and four-bedrooms. According to the apartment website, studio rents will range between $2,098 to $2,350 for roughly 450 square feet. The two-bedroom units will ask for around $1,198 to $1,350 per person, including two private bathrooms and a shared kitchen with living space across 917 square feet. The four-bedroom apartments will each have four bathrooms and a shared kitchen with a living room across 1,373 square feet, asking for around $1,148 to $1,250 per person.
The project architect and engineering is not specified. The estimated timeline for completion has yet to be shared. The 0.44-acre parcel is located between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and State Route 24, just ten minutes away on foot from the MacArthur BART Station. The UC Berkeley Campus is less than 20 minutes away by bus.
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How do they get away with bedrooms with no windows?
It looks like there’s a window into the main living space by the door to each rear bedroom, this might be how they got away with no external windows.
Borrowed light bedrooms, each of those bedrooms has a window which recieves some “borrowed light” from the living room.
OH, borrowed light, like I saw in the Tenement Museum in NYC, except those rear rooms had bigger windows into the kitchen, e.g.
Bedrooms without windows opening to the outdoors should be illegal. This is greed over livability, exploiting a tight student housing market.
Very nice design!
This is a nice design, it gives up to 4 different units (bedroom/bath) in one with shared common rooms which is ideal for roommate situations, students, single people, or couples while being affordable.
How do they comply with the safety code with no window in a bedroom. In case of fire, there is no secondary egress.
The owner is trying to sell the unfinished building for $35 million. Construction took way longer than he planned and he ran out of money. I see the owner listed on other projects on this site. I wonder if those will be half-finished disasters too.