BART trading parking for housing, offices at Oakland’s Lake Merritt Station

With nary a word of opposition, BART has green-lighted a high-rise housing, office and retail development at its Lake Merritt Station that will probably completely transform the area around Oakland’s Laney College.

“I’m on cloud nine,” BART Board President Robert Raburn said after the board voted 8-0 to enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement with the East Bay Asian Local Development Corp. and Strada Investment Group.

The goal is a transit-oriented development that includes a plaza and a pair of apartment and office high-rises — one 27 stories and the other 21 stories. One tower would be located on the old Metropolitan Transportation Commission headquarters site and the other on what is now the BART station’s parking lot.