Alameda County to Auction Arena Center Complex

They’re having another public auction in Oakland of publicly owned land—in another deal spurred by California’s expansion of the scope of its Surplus Land Act.

Shortly after they set a date for an auction of the former Oakland Raiders HQ this month, Alameda County’s Board of Supervisors disclosed they they’re queueing up the bidding for a trio of office buildings known as Arena Center in an auction that will be held in October.

The county board authorized the sale of a 200K SF office complex that sits on 11 acres in proximity to the Oakland Coliseum at 6775, 7001 and 7195 Oakport Street.

The Supervisors tapped CBRE to market the property, setting minimum bids of $40M, according to a report in the San Francisco Business Times. Written bids are due on Oct. 5. A live auction, at which oral bidders will be permitted to submit offers at least 5% higher than the highest received written bid, will be held Oct. 10.

Alameda County bought the property in 2014 from Zhone Technologies, a telecommunications equipment provider, for $32.5M and subsequently made $6.5M in improvements.

According to the Business Times, the county originally planned to use the three-building complex to house county workers but decided to sell the complex after California expanded the scope of its Surplus Land Act in 2019.

The Surplus Land Act, originally enacted in 1968, mandates the prioritization of affordable housing development whenever local government land is designated as “no longer necessary for public use.”

In 2019, the state legislature expanded the scope of the Act, widening the definition of what constitutes surplus land to include former redevelopment properties, and to apply it to economic development agencies.

The 2019 law also narrowed the definition of surplus land that was exempt from the Act; it required local public agencies to make public the availability of surplus land in a listings inventory maintained by the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), California’s state housing agency.

Earlier this year, California invoked the Surplus Land Act to order a San Diego suburb to put 300 acres it set aside for a university campus and innovation district on the market for sale or lease to affordable housing developers.

At least 65 prospective bidders have registered to participate in an Alameda County’s auction of the former Oakland Raiders headquarters, a 100K SF building at 1220 Harbor Bay Parkway with an adjacent 18K SF training facility.

The county, which jointly owns the 17-acre property with the city of Oakland, set a minimum bid of $35.8M when it voted last fall to auction off the property. The city and the county are planning to split the proceeds, with Alameda County allocating its share to a surplus property development trust.

Last fall, when it authorized the auction, Alameda County hired Dublin-based DCG Strategies to market the property. The former Raiders HQ is in proximity to Alameda’s Harbor Bay Business Park, which is zoned for commercial manufacturing and currently is occupied by several life science companies.

Several developers reportedly are considering acquiring the site for conversion to a life science facility, or for redevelopment as a ground-up life science facility, the Business Times reported.