East Bay Asian Local Development to Build Oakland Apartments

East Bay Asian Local Development, Strada Investment Group and Bay Area Rapid Transit are poised to break ground on a project with 557 homes at Lake Merritt BART station.

Locally based EBALD will launch the first phase this summer with a 97-unit affordable senior housing complex at 51 9th Street, near Laney College, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The three-phase project, approved in 2022, will include 557 homes, including 233 set aside as affordable, 500,000 square feet of offices, ground-floor shops and restaurants and a public paseo across two blocks near the Lake Merritt BART station at 800 Oak Street.

The total project was estimated five years ago to cost between $400 million and $500 million.

The first phase will construct affordable housing, the second phase will build a market-rate apartment highrise and the third phase will feature an office tower and more affordable units.

EBALD is slated to break ground on the seven-story senior apartments, which received more than $70 million in financing from six competitive funding awards, including 4 percent tax credits and tax-exempt bonds. The state’s Strategic Growth Council committed $16.5 million to the project.

On the same block, San Francisco-based Strada plans to build the 28-story, 360-unit residential highrise, with 36 affordable units. But the tower is on hold until market conditions improve, Strada Managing Director William Goodman told the Business Times.

“Being able to deliver an affordable senior building in this neighborhood … is awesome, especially during a challenging time in the market,” Goodman said. “We’re really supportive of their efforts.”

At some point, Strada and EBALD plan to develop the second block at 107 8th Street with the 19-story, 500,000-square-foot office building and a seven-story, 100-unit affordable housing apartment complex.

It’s not clear how the rest of the project will be financed, though Strada and BART have said some of their investments would go directly towards part of the Lake Merritt project.

The project at Lake Merritt BART station is among several projects coming out of BART’s push to build transit-oriented projects, according to the Business Times. The transit authority has already completed 22 projects near 15 stations across the Bay Area, with eight more projects in the pipeline.

— Dana Bartholomew