Projects Outside Urban Core Keep Developers Hopping

SAN FRANCISCO—Danville broke a 12-year market-rate apartment construction drought by allowing Trammell Crow Residential to begin a $90 million development of 144 higher-end apartment units called Alexan Downtown Danville. And, Trammell Crow is underway with several other Bay Area projects in various stages of planning, development and leasing.

In Oakland, Trammell recently commenced pre-leasing the Alexan Webster, a 234-unit mixed-use/mixed-income apartment community. The project is being developed in a public-private venture with the city of Oakland and also contains 15% mixed-income units. Alexan Webster sits on the site of a former city surface parking lot in Lake Merritt neighborhood between Webster and Valdez streets at 23rd Street. The new community includes a replacement parking structure owned by the city and an apartment community including 15,000 square feet of retail and a rooftop deck with a public art installation. KTGY Architecture + Planning is the project’s designer.

“We are excited about playing an important role in transforming this downtown Lake Merritt neighborhood into a new re-energized retail district and entertainment area as well as helping to meet the rising demand for both market rate and affordable housing, and neighborhood-serving amenities in Oakland,” Bruce Dorfman, senior managing director of Trammell Crow Residential, tells GlobeSt.com. “The Alexan Webster at 2330 Webster St. has a Walk Score of 98, making it a walker’s paradise. The first residents are expected to move in by late June 2019.”

Also, Trammell Crow is in the process of entitling an approximately 300-unit workforce project near Lake Merritt. Approximately 85% of the units are targeted for moderate-income residents (per HUD) and the rest are larger units oriented toward workforce housing.

At Alameda Point, Trammell Crow Residential is the managing partner of Alameda Point Partners, which is developing the $1 billion mixed-use transit-oriented waterfront development at the gateway to Alameda Point on the site of the former Naval Air Station Alameda. Alameda Point Partners closed escrow in March 2018 on phase one which contains 30 acres of the 68-acre site A parcel and the infrastructure for this phase is nearing completion. The infrastructure includes new water, sewer, electrical and gas lines, newly paved streets with bike and transit lanes, eight acres of new parks as well as a new terminal for a new ferry connection to San Francisco that is scheduled to be operational in early 2020.

Alameda Point includes 800 new housing units of which 25% are affordable. As part of this project, Trammell Crow Residential is also working with the Alameda Unified School District on a 90-unit faculty and staff housing community.

The faculty and staff housing project follows a template that Trammell Crow principals executed for several other school districts in the Bay Area, including the Casa del Maestro community for Santa Clara Unified School District as well as the Canada Vista and College Vista developments for the San Mateo Community College District. KTGY Architecture + Planning is the project’s designer for the AUSD project, and was the architect and designer for Casa del Maestro, Canada Vista and College Vista developments. According to Dorfman, once the property is developed, it will be owned and operated by the AUSD. The 2.5 acres for the property will be donated to AUSD by Alameda Point Partners. The rents in the property will be more than 30% below current market rents for Alameda.

Also at Alameda Point, Trammell Crow expects to break ground on Alexan Pan Am located on site A’s block 11 at the end of this year. Trammell, in a venture with Cypress Equity Investments, will be developing a 220-unit market-rate apartment community, which will have larger units offering views of the Bay and the city skyline. The new residential community will also include 15,000 square feet of neighborhood-serving retail and commercial space. The project is located across the street from the waterfront park on Seaplane Lagoon and close to the new ferry terminal. BAR Architects is the project’s designer.

In San Francisco, Trammell Crow Residential is under contract to acquire the development rights at 450 O’Farrell St. from the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist. Trammell Crow plans to build 176 apartment units, retail space and new facilities for the church. The city has approved the $140 million 13-story development named Alexan Union Square West. The new development will have a 16% mixed-income component. DLR Group | Kwan Henmi is the project’s designer.

The US Census Bureau reports that large city population growth has flattened and in some places retreated, while smaller cities are recording significant population growth. A report by Colliers International speculates whether Millennials are ditching the hustle and bustle of the urban cores to perhaps pursue the recession-delayed American dream of the two-car garage and white picket fence. Or maybe this population redistribution is due to softening home prices? Or, is it just that prices across the board are cheaper outside of the urban core?