A distressed commercial property in Oakland found a buyer after a string of loan defaults and foreclosure threats.
An affiliate of Bay Area real estate investor Edward Hemmat bought the Leamington building at 1814 Franklin Street for $14.4 million, the Mercury News reported. The price pencils out to $121 per square foot.
The 119,000-square-foot building in downtown Oakland traded hands for 24 percent less than the $19.1 million its previous owners paid in 2019.
The price is 58.3 percent less than lender CIT Bank’s $34.5 million valuation of the historic property in January 2025, when it took the building via deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.
The building opened as a hotel in 1926 before it was converted to an office building. Amelia Earhart had an office in the building as she planned the journey that wound up being her last, the outlet said. The building has ground-floor retail and was designated an Oakland landmark in 1987.
The buyer is no stranger to Oakland. Hemmat sold the Palace Theater at 1445 23rd Avenue for $2.2 million in 2023, the Mercury News reported. That performance venue gave way to Bay Area Technology School.
Distress is still rippling through East Bay cities.
Last month, Highbridge Equity Partners defaulted on a $2.7 million loan tied to 1540–1544 Broadway, a multitenant building in the city’s core. Highbridge defaulted on $111 million in debt tied to Oakland’s Tribune Tower, the Financial Center building at 405 14th Street and offices at 1500 Broadway, leading lender Rialto Capital Management to sue for foreclosure in January.
In January, lender Parkview Financial seized the 102-unit residential property at 1919 Market Street for $37.5 million, with unpaid debt at the time of foreclosure at $58.5 million.
That same month, a Deutsche Bank AG affiliate, took over three office towers in downtown Oakland from Starwood Capital through a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. Those structures, linked to a total unpaid debt of $442.1 million, are at 2101 Webster Street, 1901 Harrison Street and 2100 Franklin Street. — Chris Malone Méndez
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