Closing Oakland university offers housing opportunity

Holy Names University in Oakland, which opened 154 years ago, announced that it will close its doors after the completion of the spring semester, citing challenges from Covid-19 as the primary cause. Real estate professionals could be eyeing the 40-acre plot of land it sits on as housing development opportunities.

“HNU had a strong five-year strategic business plan and secured long-term financing, but the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated and exacerbated existing challenges,” Steven Borg, board chairman, said in a statement.

As students and staff start preparing for life without the university, the question of what to do with the campus arises. The answer could be to demolish the old buildings and build housing during a shortage in the Bay Area. Some think that larger housing units could be in play.

“It could be a candidate for single-family housing or condominiums,” Tim Warren from Nai Norcal, told TRD. “Apartments would be unlikely given its proximity to downtown Oakland and public transportation.”

Others see an opportunity to develop multifamily buildings along with single-family homes.

“It could be a very large residential development with several types of housing including multifamily, townhomes and possibly some single family,” a representative from JLL said. “It will be interesting to see what happens.”

A housing development makes sense due to the site currently being zoned for residential use, according to public records. However, Warren added that any possible development would be “a ways down the road if it did go that direction.”

The property is currently valued at $36.4 million, according to property records. For comparison, the site of a Los Angeles University recently sold for $80 million. UCLA purchased the 24.5 acre Marymount California University in September in its largest acquisition of another university.

Holy Names is a private Roman Catholic institution that had nearly 1,000 students enrolled in the fall of 2022. That number took a sharp drop and had less than 500 students enrolled for the spring semester. The university entered into an agreement with the Dominican University of California in San Rafael to accept students transferring after the spring semester.

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