Tim Lewis Seeks Extension on 600-Home Project in Alameda

Tim Lewis Communities, hampered by economic conditions with its plan to build a 589-unit waterfront retail village and marina in Alameda, has put the project on hold.

The Roseville-based developer seeks a three-year extension of key milestones in its agreement with the city for its Encinal Terminals project at 1521 Buena Vista Avenue, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The City Council will consider it on Jan. 7.

The project, seven years in the making, no longer pencils out, Tim Lewis executives say. The developer cited higher interest rates, high building costs and cap rates, soft market conditions and declining rents as immediate roadblocks to breaking ground.

“Due to circumstances beyond our control, specifically an economic environment that has obliterated the present residual land value of the property, we wish to propose amendments to the (development agreement) and master plan to allow us and the city to complete our respective obligations,” Michael O’Hara, director of forward planning at Tim Lewis, said in a letter to the city.

“Residual land value has been decimated and rendered this project infeasible to finance and build at this time.”

The city will decide whether to amend its development agreement with Tim Lewis. If its request is granted, the developer will have to submit biannual progress reports and make progress on establishing an assessment district or identifying an equivalent funding source.

The extensions would not change the 2037 end date of the agreement, nor change the design or scope of the project, according to a city staff report. Without the extensions, the agreement would expire, threatening the entire project.

Tim Lewis Communities bought the 32-acre Encinal Terminals site along the Oakland Estuary in 2013 for $12.5 million.

Plans call for a mixed-use development of 589 apartments, condominiums and townhomes, 80 of them affordable, plus 50,000 square feet of shops and restaurants, a 160-berth marina and 4 acres of waterfront parks.

Encinal Terminals, on the north side of the East Bay island city, was carved out of marshland a century ago and was one of the first places to use shipping containers.

The potential development site has sat for a decade because of a 6.4-acre triangle in the middle of the terminal designated as “tidelands” for strictly maritime use. The city owned the land in trust from the state.

A state law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023 allowed North Waterfront Cove, a unit of the Roseville-based developer, to redevelop the blighted industrial site by allowing for a land exchange. The developer got the tidelands triangle to build the homes, and the city got the waterfront to build the parks.

But with apartment rents falling between 10 percent and 16 percent since 2022, the project is now on hold.

The same economic turmoil also caused the San Francisco-based Emerald Fund to pause plans this fall to redevelop the former California College of the Arts in Oakland into nearly 450 homes.

— Dana Bartholomew