October 15 Planning Commission is up. It's a big one next week, though only the first item is a real shocker.
1. The master plan for the Esplanade on the North Shore has landed!
Here's the presentation, and
here's the slightly longer full plan. Still looks to be a decent-sized project. Phase 1 will include the Ferris wheel building (which includes a restaurant and some retail), a 19-story/408-unit residential tower over podium retail, a three-story food/beverage-focused building, and a 650-unit garage. Later, they'll construct a 13-story building (office or residential), a 280-room hotel with an entertainment venue, a 14 story/126-unit condo building, and a 14-story 409-unit second apartment tower. They also plan a new marina with 112 boat slips and 17 units of "live-aboard community." While all of this looks great, I still worry this will be a folly. The amount of destination retail/entertainment onsite is way more than new residents can allow for, the garage is small, and neighborhood connectivity is bad even with the planned two-way conversion of Beaver Street. I don't see how it would thrive in the future unless they have the pull to get a T stop placed within a block or something. Still, glad this is still moving forward!
2.
Planned renovations of the May Building downtown. From a street perspective, this is a big trade up, fixing the mid-century remuddling of the first two stories and making the annex along Liberty not quite as hideous. The presentation also mentions 10 new accessible units, but I presume that's not an addition to the total unit count.
3. The planned North Oakland rezoning is going before the Commission next week as well. I don't see a formal presentation.
The zoning map is here, and
here are the proposed heights. Also,
here's the minutes from the DAM report where it was reviewed with OPDC - not a universally frosty reaction, but a couple of NIMBYs showed up. Regardless, I think this is a big trade-up. The noxious UC-E zoning is limited to a single block, and the UC-MU zoning is so much better than existing RM-VH, as it already eliminates the rules around units per square feet of lot space, making new apartments feasible before even the proposed citywide zoning changes go into effect.
4.
A proposed two-story restaurant on South Craig in Oakland. This is the site where years back a planned mini-apartment building was supposed to be constructed, but it failed to launch, whether due to financing or NIMBYs. We knew this was coming from OPDC presentations, but it's depressing nonetheless. Looks like the plan is only to replace the front building, though the rear will be knocked down for what looks like two units of housing later. Honestly, while this will be more attractive from a street level, in terms of structural density it's moving backwards from the chopped-up homes there now.
Edit: I also notice that in Lawrenceville there's
a planned parcel consolidation, joining together part of the Foundry at 41st lot with a small side lot with parking and a converted house (used for a restaurant in the past). This is a good sign for
a planned 100-unit apartment building we've heard nothing on for the past year, since the new lot in question seems to include the space needed for the building.
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