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The Home Depot pulls out of proposed North Oakland site

Neighbors opposed big-box store, Councilman Dan Kalb wants more upscale retail

A Home Depot proposal to redevelop a demolished shopping center in North Oakland has packed up its tools and gone elsewhere.

The Home Depot, based in Atlanta, has pulled out of a preliminary plan to build a big-box hardware store and parking garage at 5050 Broadway, the East Bay Times reported.

Oakland Councilman Dan Kalb, who opposed the project, said someone close to the negotiations told him the retailer is “not pursuing” the plan.

The Home Depot had floated a plan to construct a store and a four-story parking garage on 4.6 acres of the demolished 15-acre Rockridge Shopping Center at Broadway and Pleasant Valley Avenue, west of Claremont Country Club.

The two nearest Home Depot stores are almost two miles away in Emeryville and almost five away in east Oakland. Smaller AceHardware stores, two in Oakland and one in Piedmont, are a mile away.

But local neighborhood groups had pushed back against The Home Depot, preferring housing and retail over paint, lumber and tools.

Although never officially proposed to the city, the housing/retail plan proposed by Newport Beach-based developer Terramar Retail Centers couldn’t find any anchor tenants to finance the deal, according to the East Bay Times.

The property owner, Alvin B. Chan, prohibits residential development in its lease agreement with Terramar Retail Centers, despite the site being zoned for commercial use with housing.

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Kalb, whose district includes the former shopping center, had said nothing would likely happen at the site until the Home Depot idea is “off the table. It’s got to play out.”

Kalb said 99 percent of emails opposed it.

The proposed Home Depot would have included a 102,000-square-foot store and garden center, plus parking for 421 cars. Oakland planners ruled last month against the plan, saying zoning laws didn’t allow the sale of building materials.

A Home Depot representative declined to comment.

Kalb said he would like to see an upscale shopping center, such as what was initially planned after Safeway moved to its new location next door at a Shops at the Ridge center. While housing is important, he said, he’d like to see more shopping options.

“I’m looking to maintain a shopping center feel in a well-developed, attractive, architecturally pleasing way,” Kalb told the East Bay Times. “People in Oakland go to Walnut Creek and Emeryville to do their shopping. We want them to come to Oakland. We’re losing tax revenue.”

— Dana Bartholomew

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Commercial Real EstateNeighborhood Opposition