Buyer, Equity Sought for Mid-Rise Residential Building

OAKLAND, CA-Municipal bond dealer and underwriter Grigsby & Associates of San Francisco is seeking a purchaser and/or $40-million equity investment for the second phase of Thomas Berkeley Square on behalf of the locally based Strategic Urban Development Alliance. The development encompasses an eight-story mid-rise residential building with approximately 90 residential condominium units, 5,000 sf of street-level retail space and 123 parking stalls. Investors will be provided a secured interest in real property and development rights that are owned free and clear by SUDA, according to an announcement by Grigsby & Associates. Construction is expected to begin in mid-2006. Company CEO Calvin Grigsby did not return a Monday phone call seeking comment.The overall Thomas L. Berkley Square project is a 242,000-sf mixed-use development spreading over 1.56 acres in the uptown area of Downtown. The purchase of a key portion of the project site from community activist and former Oakland Post publisher Thomas L. Berkeley was completed in March 2000. In 2001 SUDA purchased the historic Hotel Royal and in 2002 and 2003 completed the assembly of three additional parcels. Last year, Grigsby & Associates sourced $52 million in funding for the completion of Phase I, which got under way in 1999. The $70-million first phase, now under construction, includes a four-story, 100,000-sf office building that will serve as the new home of the county’s welfare offices, a parking structure and 5,000 sf of retail space on 1.5 acres on San Pablo Avenue between 21st Street and Thomas L. Berkley Way, formerly 20th Street. The buildings are expected to be completed in late 2005.Grigsby & Associates provides financial advisory and investment banking services to state and local governments, real estate developers and corporate entities. Since its founding in 1981, the company has assisted local governments in raising well over $400 billion in tax-exempt capital and has additionally raised over $10 billion in public and private corporate offerings.