Media
January 2019

Kaiser Announces 3 Initiatives To Fight Homelessness During Event With Mayor Schaaf

From SF Gate
Kaiser Permanente leaders on Tuesday announced three major initiatives aimed at improving health outcomes by creating stable housing for homeless people in Oakland and across the country. Bernard Tyson, the chairman and chief executive of Kaiser, which is based in Oakland, said, “Housing security is a crucial health issue for vulnerable populations.” Joined by Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and others at a news conference at City Hall, Tyson said, “Access to affordable housing is a key component to Kaiser Permanente’s mission to improve the health of our members and the communities... View article
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January 2019

Kaiser Permanente to spend $5.2 million on affordable housing in Oakland

From East Bay Times
OAKLAND – Kaiser Permanente announced Tuesday it will spend $5.2 million to purchase a 41-unit apartment building in East Oakland, the health care giant’s first step in its aggressive effort to shelter the homeless and improve health care for the poor. The Oakland-based company also revealed plans to partner with the city and community aid groups to identify, house and provide services for 500 vulnerable homeless people over the age of 50. “Kaiser Permanente believes that in the 21st century there are certain things we should resolve and certain principles we should stand... View article
Media
November 2018

Bites: Truffle season is here, homebrew competition at Old Kan, Crave BBQ

From Berkeleyside
BBQ IS INN A historic hotel in West Oakland will soon become a new spot for blues and BBQ. The California Hotel once hosted blues and jazz greats back in the day, but it fell under hard times and disrepair over the decades. Since 2011, it has been under the management of the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), a nonprofit community development organization which has been working to bring the building, now a low-income housing and social services space, back to its former glory as a visual and performing arts hub. Late last... View article
Media
November 2018

Crave BBQ to Open in West Oakland’s California Hotel

From Oakland Magazine
In partnership with the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), Bay Area native chef Rashad Armstead announced today that he will move his restaurant, Crave BBQ, to the historic California Hotel and into the newly established California Hotel Live! Visual and Performing Arts Cultural Hub — a community gathering place outfitted for locals to be entertained, meet, and eat, located in West Oakland’s San Pablo Avenue Corridor neighborhood. “We are so pleased that Crave BBQ has found a home in West Oakland where Rashad and his family have such deep roots,” said EBALDC director... View article
Media
November 2018

A Black Cultural Corridor Takes Shape on Oakland’s San Pablo Avenue

From KQED
On a recent Sunday, in the parking lot behind the California Hotel on Oakland’s San Pablo Avenue, the Harvest Festival is bustling. Parents line up for plates of barbecue; kids decorate pumpkins in the pumpkin patch; and neighbors of all ages hang out while a DJ spins funk, soul and old school R&B. The scene is just one example of how longtime, mostly African-American West Oakland residents are revitalizing a formerly blighted stretch of San Pablo Avenue with the help of East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation (EBALDC), one of Oakland’s largest affordable... View article
Media
October 2018

Oakland’s Historic California Hotel Will Soon Become a Barbeque Destination

From Eater San Francisco
West Oakland’s historic California Hotel is in the midst of a major revitalization project, and with it will come a new destination for barbecue. The space’s central, 1,800-square-foot restaurant will be Crave BBQ, which got its start in 2017 as a pop-up. Rashad Armstead grew a following for his slowly smoked meats and classic sides out of an old gas station in West Oakland — best known now as a common pop-up location for Horn Barbecue — but stopped after less than a year to start looking for a permanent brick-and-mortar. Prior to Crave, Armstead ran a private... View article
Media
October 2018

Investing in West Oakland

From East Bay Express
Community Foods Market, slated for a December opening (formerly called the People’s Community Market), is making a final push for public investors before the grocery store opens in West Oakland, long considered a food desert, and where there hasn’t been a full-service grocery store for more than 40 years. The project was one of the first in California to offer this counter-model to IPOs. Community shareholders, who are California residents and mostly small-scale investors, can buy in for a minimum of $1,000. West Oakland residents who qualify can receive financial assistance... View article
Media
September 2018

Former crime-ridden West Oakland liquor store to become community center

From KRON4 News
OAKLAND (KRON) – A former liquor store, once the hub for drugs and crime, will soon be a destination for young people learning how to make it in the music business. It is part of a major neighborhood makeover. San Pablo Avenue between 34th and 35th streets is ground zero for SPARC, the San Pablo Area Revitalization Collaborative in West Oakland. The Oakland landmark California Hotel is SPARC’s revitalization centerpiece. “The California hotel was built and opened in 1930,” Associate Director of Neighborhood Collaborations at East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation Romi Hall... View article
Media
September 2018

BART to build 519 new homes at Lake Merritt

From Curbed
Last week, the BART Board of Directors voted to advance a plan to develop hundreds of new homes near the Lake Merritt BART station, a proposal that’s been in the works for years and continues the agency’s foray into transit-adjacent housing on potentially choice plots of land it owns throughout the Bay Area. Technically, the motion at the board’s September 13 meeting (which passed unanimously) only authorizes negotiations with potential developers, a process that could take up to two years. A press statement from BART provides some additional details:... View article
Media
September 2018

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

From San Francisco Chronicle
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.... View article
Media
September 2018

BART Board Approves Stronger Surveillance Oversight, Lake Merritt Housing

From CBS SF Bay Area
OAKLAND (CBS SF) – BART’s Board of Directors approved a new ordinance governing oversight of surveillance technology as well as a new transit-oriented residential and commercial real estate development near the Lake Merritt Station during a busy meeting Thursday morning in Oakland. The new surveillance rules, which were proposed as a policy, but passed through a unanimous vote as an ordinance, will require annual reports on the use of each specific surveillance technology the district uses.... View article
Media
September 2018

BART seeks to construct massive new mixed-use complex at Lake Merritt station

From Hoodline
BART is seeking to build a massive new housing, office and retail complex around its Lake Merritt station in Oakland. This week, the transit agency’s Board of Directors approved an exclusive negotiating agreement with two developers to construct four new buildings on BART-owned lots above the station. As proposed, the buildings would include 519 units of housing — 44 percent of them designated as affordable — and 517,000 square feet of office and retail space. 20 percent of the office and retail space would be offered at below-market-rate prices for “community-serving organizations and... View article