Wells Fargo Lends $82M for 119-Unit Oakland Affordable Project

Wells Fargo is providing Eden Housing and the Black Cultural Zone Community Development Corporation with an $82 million construction loan for the Residences at Liberation Park, a 119-unit affordable development in Oakland. The project, located at 2751 73rd Avenue in East Oakland near Eastmont Mall and the Eastmont Transit Center, will rise six stories and include studio to three-bedroom units. Rents are set for households earning between 20 and 60 percent of area median income, and 25 percent of units are reserved for formerly homeless residents or those with special needs.

The total budget of about $135 million combines the construction loan, $57 million in Low-Income Housing Tax Credit equity from the lender, and $78 million from public and private sources. Participants include Alameda County, the City of Oakland, the California Department of Housing and Community Development, the Oakland Housing Authority and the California Municipal Finance Authority. Wells Fargo also invested nearly $2 million in neighborhood revitalization plans around the site, and a larger retail and market hub is planned nearby.

Wells Fargo's multifamily capital head said tax-exempt bond financing was essential to closing the deal. Construction is expected to take about three years. The lender cited more than $6 billion in construction debt and tax credit equity deployed in California affordable housing since 2021.

For developers and lenders, the deal shows how layered public subsidies and tax-exempt bond financing continue to make deep-affordability projects feasible in high-cost Bay Area markets.