Tidewater pitches 289-unit apartment project near West Oakland BART Station

Tidewater Capital filed early plans for almost 300 new apartments a block from the West Oakland BART Station, an area slated to become a transit-oriented, live-work hub.

The San Francisco developer is seeking to build an eight-story building at 533 Kirkham Street with 289 studio, one- and two-bedroom units and about 3,000 square feet of room for shops and restaurants on the ground floor, according to the city of Oakland’s online permit center. It would replace more than an acre of surface parking.

The proposal is the latest for West Oakland’s Prescott neighborhood, which has attracted a wave of development interest after almost 50 years of underinvestment, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The Business Times reported details of Tidewater’s plans earlier.

The development is sandwiched between three projects that have about 2,300 apartments, offices or labs and room for shops and restaurants, San Francisco YIMBY said. The two largest are Mandela Station @ West Oakland, which would turn BART-owned parking lots surrounding the West Oakland station into more than 700 apartments, 300,000 square feet of offices or labs and more than 50,000 square feet of street-level retail. The other is 500 Kirkham, named for its address, which would include more than 1,000 apartments and 35,000 square feet of retail on a surplus parking lot, the Business Times and SF YIMBY reported.

Tidewater, which acquired the Kirkham Street site for about $5 million in March, declined to comment on its plans to the Business Times. The company intends to create only 24 parking spaces for its project’s residents and retail workers, following several other developers that have included minimal parking in West Oakland proposals, the Business Times reported.

[San Francisco Business Times] — Matthew Niksa