Permits have been approved for an eight-story affordable senior housing project at 793 West Grand Avenue in the Ralph Bunche neighborhood of West Oakland, Alameda County. The entitlement is expected to replace an existing church and deliver 71 apartments on the corner lot. Community Housing Development Corporation is responsible for the application on behalf of the property owner, Joshua Christian Church.
The 94-foot-tall structure will include 71 units, a six-car garage, a nursery, a church space, a community room, and a fellowship hall. The dwelling sizes will be mostly identical, with 70 one-bedroom apartments and a two-bedroom dwelling for the on-site property manager.
793 West Grand Avenue bird’s eye view, rendering by Kodama Diseno Associates
793 West Grand Avenue ground-level floor plan, illustration by Kodama Diseno Architects
The development was streamlined with the city’s “By Right Residential Approval” process, as well as Senate Bill 330 and the State Density Bonus program. Affordability will vary with five units for extremely low-income households, 55 units for very low-income households, and ten units for low-income households.
Kodama Diseno Associates is responsible for the design. Illustrations show the facade frames each apartment window in a bold white grid pattern complemented with wood panels. The rooftop amenity deck in phase one will feature a raised pergola-capped focal point at the corner of West Street and West Grand Avenue.
793 West Grand Avenue, image via Google Street View
The property is located on the corner of West Street and West Grand Avenue on a block bound by 22nd Street and Brush Street. AC Transit provides several bus stops close to the site, while the 19th Street BART Station, just a fifteen-minute walk away, provides transit across the region. Demolition will be required for the three structures along Grand Avenue, including the primary two-story Baptist Church and two wood-frame homes owned by the church.
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If you look at pictures of West Oakland, there are dozens of locations that could use a density upgrade like this.
Lot’s of construction along Grand Avenue in this area too, the bird’s eye rendering doesn’t include the large apartment building at 2201 Brush that’s almost complete on the same block. That building along with this one will really round of this part of West Grand Avenue.
Let’s gooo!
Senior housing has never been more exciting!!
Let’s Gooooooooo!
West Oakland is about 100 years worth of projects like this away from being desirable, at its current pace. Demolishing 980 and connecting West Oakland to downtown would be a nice step.
Depends on what you consider deirable. Single family homes in West Oakland are often wildly expensive, even in this high interest rate, depressed economic situaiton. Affordable housing often has hundreds of applications for each availible unit.
Demolishing 980 won’t bring West Oakland any closer to downtown — but it WILL dump through traffic onto surface streets — including the proposed so-called “boulevard,” which will be far more hazardous to pedestrians than the current overpasses.
What’s this obsession with taking people out of the driver’s seat (choosing their own routes and schedules), preferring that they depend on a bus? What’s this obsession with density, where one person’s ceiling is another one’s floor?
A(n electric) car in every garage!
980 is expensive to maintain, and replacing it with a boulevard saves public money while slowing traffic to support local businesses and unlock land for housing, jobs, retail, and parks.
How could a boulevard with intersections, traffic control devices, crosswalks, landscaping (which needs to be maintained, watered and replaced), drainage, plus the road surface and sidewalks possibly be more expensive to maintain than a below-grade highway? As someone who has lived in West Oakland for close to three decades, I am confident there will not be any additional housing, jobs, retail and parks as a result of changing the use. There is vacant land all around the 980 area that does not need a change of use to be developed. No one walks in that area and no one will, even it is changed to a boulevard. In fact, I suspect a boulevard would just attract more homeless encampments and dumping, which will deter pedestrian use. We live in an all too real, actual world, not an ideological fantasy land.
Do you have any Studios available
There are studios available any many Arthaus properties in Oakland. Starting at $1300/mo.
I think this is a very clever move in general that we’ve seen a few churches do. With declining attendance and membership, church properties are more and more often sitting empty through much of the week, building up and using the same land for housing and other activities is a great way to activate space, bring in the neighborhood, and increase revenue flows to keep the ministries afloat.
They did the same at 1904 Adeline, which is not very far from this site. I agree that it is an appropriate and helpful change of use from being a barely and rarely occupied church.
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They did the same at 1904 Adeline, which is not very far from this site. I agree that it is an appropriate and helpful change of use from being a barely and rarely occupied church.