The plans for a modern six-story Oakland development to rise at the corner of 51st Street and Telegraph Avenue, with 204 apartments over 34,000 square feet of ground floor retail space, including 28,000 square feet for a full-service grocery store, could be approved by the City’s Planning Commission in two weeks time.
In addition to the grocery store, the remaining 6,000 square feet of commercial space is proposed to be split between 3 to 5 locally owned restaurants and retailers, with a greenbelt pedestrian connection through the development connecting Frog Park and the Temescal neighborhood.
A two-level underground garage has been designed to provide 150 parking spaces for the residences and 140 spaces for the retailers.
And atop the development at 5110 Telegraph, a one acre urban farm to be run by Top Leaf Farms will produce hyper-local organic produce which could be retailed below.
If approved, the Nautilus Group is planning to (re)break ground by the end of the year (the site was recently planted with a temporary farm) and have the 5110 Telegraph development ready for occupancy by the end of 2018.
Wow, gorgeous.
This is the most prominent corner and vacant site in Temescal, which is a neighborhood that has really come up (it reminds me of the way the Mission *used* to be, like last decade, or like what some of the hipper east side neighborhoods in LA feel like today).
I love the area and was hoping for something transformative to take this big parcel, and this will do just fine.
Temescal is too small and low density to feel like the Mission. I know it is obvious but even spatially International Blvd in Fruitvale feels a lot more old Mission to me
fruitvale compared to the mission of old….for sure for sure…..temescal is already beyond return….its hipsterville. it’ll never be like the old mission (& never was??) & I agree doesn’t really compare. Its still a great hood though, but more like a hipster/punk/artist scene vs a latino influenced cultural area.
this building is great! it has looked like there is activity due to begin there soon already, driving by there frequently. there is also a nice multi unit / multi story going up about a block away on claremont, and 2 huge developments going on at 51st/broadway….AND with mcarthur station coming along….AND with downtown berkeley seeing some life…AND all the big projects getting pushed through in downtown oakland, oh AND brooklyn basin……its looking like a pretty big boom taking root finally in the central core of the east bay, which I consider to be emerville+DT oakland to the grandlake on the N & JLS (soon to be pushed to brooklyn basin though! on the south), the up to downtown berkeley.
NICE EAST BAY NICE!
Hasn’t this already broken ground? Demo is complete, and equipment is moving around the site as we speak…
[Editor’s Note: What does it say in our last paragraph above?]
Extends a loooooooooooooooooooong way back from Telegraph into what is a neighborhood of single-family houses (aka 1-2 stories)… can’t think they’ll be too happy about having a 6-story building for a neighbor.
They won’t have six stories; on Clarke St it drops to 4, maybe 3 in parts, and the massing is broken up. On paper at least, it looks quite sensitively done. But still catnip to any self-respecting NIMBYite.
[Editor’s Note: See the second rendering in the aerial gallery above.]
OK I stand 1/3 – and in some spots 1/2 corrected 🙂 but we seem to be in agreement it may be a source of discord; and I don’t know that labeling it NIMBYism is correct: it doesn’t seem (to me at least) unreasonable for people to expect new development to be in scale with what it replaces….which, as noted, was series of small commercial structures oriented to Telegraph (before 51st was widened, there was a firehouse on the site – which may have had a hose tower – but that seems to be stretching precedent…as it were). At least on the southern half of the property: I would concede greater density on Telegraph.
We’re in agreement it may be a source of discord; however I think it’s entirely unwarranted.
This is a mostly empty tract of land, 10 blocks from BART in very nearly the geographic heart of a 9-county metropolitan region of 7 million people that urgently needs more housing, and urgently needs to stop metastasizing beyond its already-distant edges. If we can’t greatly increase density in relatively underbuilt areas at the core of this urban agglomeration, we don’t have a future. So yes, I think it’s unreasonable for people to expect new development on this site or any other site this centrally located and this under-used to be “in scale”, if that means 2 stories high because the house across the street is one story high.
(This isn’t, by the way, an issue of “in scale” with what it replaces, since that’s nothing. But I would also happily argue that 4 stories is perfectly in scale with one story. For truly out-of-scale, you could go to some of the taller apartment buildings erected in Oakland’s lakeside neighborhoods in the 1920’s and ‘30’s. Which look fabulous.)
Excellent: we can savor that small safety island of accord. And we can we can see what – if anything -transpires in the CPC process: this seems like a fairly simple case, and the fact that the developers have scaled down the rear of the property suggests they have anticipated concerns and tried to accomodate them (although, ironically and unfortunately, that leaves them little to work with in a “Let’s Meet Halfway” scenario).
guess they’ll have to understand that we’re in a crisis and they should get over themselves
I’ll miss the Christmas tree lot (and already miss the hilarious 1960’s former bank building that was just demolished on part of the site) – but this looks fantastic to me.
I hope its very low-rise bungalow neighbors don’t oppose it because it’s too dense, too tall, too modern, or will displace its time-honored and possibly landmark use as a Christmas tree lot. Nautilus has been planning this for a long time; there are more renderings at Nautilus Group’s site, plus two other Temescal projects (4801 Shattuck and 4700 Telegraph) in some stage of planning that I’d love to see made real.
I live quite near here; the other day on a short errand I realized I could see 3 sets of construction cranes across the wider neighborhood. I felt almost giddy with excitement.
It was also the site of the infamous Pussycat Theater from the late 70s until 1989 when the theater building was damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake.
do we know who designed it?
it was an in-house design. nautilus has their own design team. prior to this proposal, they had solicited concepts from fougeron and saitowitz, the latter of whom is working with them on their garden village project in berkeley.
Update – it appears Nautilus is reorganizing into a group called RAD Urban – they’ve got a much more succinct identity, and are partnering with Dan Germain, a former SS|NA employee, who will be leading the design arm out of Chicago.
All modules have been lifted into place, complete with subfloor, drywall and windows.
Of note: Whole Foods Temescal!
Suggested discussions topics:
– Why can’t SF do (more of) this??
– Criminy!! there’s another WF just a few blocks away…
– I still miss the Xmas tree lot!! 🙁
But remember to mention this thread when you visit (and get your next order at full price !)