Lake Merritt BART Block One Plan Shifts to Fully Affordable Eight-Story Project

Updated applications have been filed for the Lake Merritt BART redevelopment in downtown Oakland, Alameda County. The new filing covers the second half of Block One and swaps an earlier plan for a 28-story tower, which mostly offered market-rate apartments, for an eight-story complex that would be fully affordable. The project is named One Fallon.

East Bay Asian Local Development Company, known as EBALDC, is the applicant. The wider transit-oriented master plan was filed alongside EBALDC and Strada Investment Group. Building B on Block One is nearing completion.

The proposed 85-foot building would contain 112 apartments across studios, one-, two- and three-bedroom layouts, plus about 7,620 square feet of ground-floor retail and community space. Of the units, 62 would be deed-restricted for very low-income households and 49 for low-income households, with one manager's unit at market rate. Solomon Cordwell Buenz is the designer.

The filing relies on Assembly Bill 2011, Senate Bill 330 and the State Density Bonus law to speed approval and secure waivers on ground-floor height and bulk. The site is a 0.44-acre lot on 9th Street near the BART station and Laney College. Construction cost and timing have not been disclosed.

For developers and lenders, this shows the state streamlining laws being used to shift a transit site toward deed-restricted housing.