Breaking New Ground Over In Oakland Unless BART Is On Strike
October 10, 2013
Bridge Housing will officially break ground on Mural at 40th Street and Telegraph Avenue over in Oakland on October 25, the second phase of MacArthur Station, the master-planned development on BART’s MacArthur Station parking lot.
Mural will consist of 90 apartments for households with incomes ranging from 30 to 50 percent of the area’s median income. And if BART, which still owns the land, happens to be on strike on the 25th, Mural’s groundbreaking will be rescheduled.
Comments from Plugged-In Readers
Comments are closed.
Good location for housing but I’m disappointed that there are no market rate units…
@Willow – there are market rate units in later phases of the overall project.
Yes on what chriso said. The project broke ground a couple of years back (to build a parking garage to replace the surface parking lot). The original intent was to break ground on both market and assisted housing simultaneously afterwards, but obviously financing dried up until very recently, and only Bridge was able to come up with the funds for construction. New market rate projects are just getting going in the East Bay, so hopefully there will be an announcement soon….
I think there is potential for many, many market rate units on the other side of the street, there are a lot of underutilized commercial properties. I’d like to see thousands of units, although this particular project got downsized due to anti-growth opposition.
Always glad to see other side of the bay developments; with 1400 homes proposed in Alameda, 1000 in Oakland (Brooklyn), 500 (?) in Oak Knoll –there’s a fair amount of interesting activity around the Bay. More coverage please.
Thanks for the updated info Chriso. Transit here is very good and I agree that this building should be a couple stories higher.
Criminal level of underbuilding for housing next to a multi-billion dollar piece of transit infrastructure.
Building higher at this location would have only provided the residents of upper floors with a view of the freeway – and subjected even more people to the toxic levels of pollution it produces. Completely get the importance of proximity to transit but the other quality of life impacts need to be addressed when locating any type of housing.
^Pollution? lol, ok. The amount of pollution absorbed in a potential 8th story is not going to be noticeably different than from a 4th story. If we start talking about 10+ stories, it’s going to fall and fall as you go higher (most dangerous pollutants fall, rather than rise).
As far as other “quality of life” issues like views of a freeway (lol) – I’d prefer to go ahead and allow building higher and allow the potential tenants decide whether they have to hold out for that better view.
Absolutely no downsides for building higher at this location.
Sorry, anon, there is nothing funny about small children living in this proximity to highly elevated levels of airborne pollutants.
^Feel free to provide some evidence that living on a potential 6th floor of this building would be more dangerous pollution-wise than living on the 4th.
Nice scare tactics though – “think of the children!”
lol lol
The point is that any housing on this site subjects all residents to elevated levels of airborne pollutants: http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/report04_highwayhealth/report.pdf
“there is nothing funny about small children living in this proximity to highly elevated levels of airborne pollutants.”
– Not even if the pollutants are being produced by a tiny car full of clowns?
I can’t believe air pollution is being cited as a reason to not build TOD -I love you Bay Area!
It wasn’t opposed by locals due pollution, it was fear of density. I followed this story years ago..you could find it on the web. Certainly agree that TOD should be very dense.
There may indeed be more exposure to pollutants on higher floors – I think it’s logical. For example, if there was no connection between pollutants, dispersion and altitude, smog would be at our ankles, not in the sky. Particulates would fall to the ground instead of staying in the atmosphere. Etc.
^Most particulates do fall to the ground, hence the soot that covers everything next to a freeway within days. Smog is only visible because you’re looking at a VAST expanse of sky, and specific particulates congregate at certain altitudes (all much higher than where humans live though – even in tall skyscrapers).
Lived a few blocks from 80 in SOMA and the amount of soot that accumulated was shocking. I really noticed I had less troubles with my sinuses and what I had considered “allergies” when I moved away to a more residential neighborhood that only had Geary Blvd near it and not a real freeway.
That said, the more we can locate housing on top of BART stations, the less pollution from vehicles will get generated.
anon, particulates also ascend into the atmosphere. “Most?” Depends on the source. You should know better than to make such blanket statements.
Vehicular exhaust also produces pollution that rises high into the atmosphere, e.g. SO2, perhaps you’ve heard of this phenomenon. Therefore there are obviously higher risks being 10 feet above an exhaust pipe compared to being at the same height as an exhaust pipe.
You must be fun at parties. You must argue with hosts about the placement of snack dishes and the orientation of chairs and tables.
@Frank C – my point was that “higher pollution” is not a valid excuse for not building a 5th or 6th story. Ascending into the atmosphere is very different from higher pollution levels at 65′ rather than 45′.
Even for rising pollutants, how is it more dangerous to be on a higher floor, when don’t the pollutants have to pass by (and expose the occupants) the lower floors before they reach the higher floors.
BRIDGE will not hold the groundbreaking on 10/25 as a result of the uncertainty about BART service earlier in the week.
UPDATE: Eight Acre North Oakland Development Set To Break New Ground.