Heads-up if you happen to rely on the Douglas parking garage at 420 13th Street in Downtown Oakland. For as proposed, the nine-story structure, which was constructed in 1959, will be converted into an office building with an all-new façade. San Francisco-based TMG Partners is leading the charge.
Do garages usually have enough ceiling height to allow them to be converted to other uses, or is this building unusual?
The problem is usually the ramps more than ceiling height. Eyeballing this building compared to its neighbor to the left, ceiling heights seem sufficient. I’ve never been inside this garage, but it looks to be very inefficient…narrow and tall. There must be tons of circulation inside compared to the number of parking stalls.
I believe the circulation is via elevator, so it’s inefficient in the sense of time more than space.
As for the f2f height, it’s about the same as the building on the right, but a little less than the one on the left – both older buildings, obviously – so to the extent that older buildlngs have pre-HVAC heights, “Alai” seems to have a point (though one TMG must certainly be aware of).
ah, that makes sense! I was wondering how such a small building had room for ramps. AND, it makes conversion not prohibitively expensive. Win Win.
That’s correct re: elevator (which is at the back of the building and would be removed) versus ramps. And the average floor-to-floor height is 11 feet.
Too bad, I rather like the facade… simple, “authenic”. Will they be bringing back this, I wonder?
Anyway, as the garage was built in connection with – and hence serves – 1330 Broadway – I would think this move would damage the marketabilty of that building…must be a lot of surplus parking in DO.
Well, it probably will damage the marketability of that building… but not nearly as much as it’ll increase the marketability of this one. Net gain.
there is a huge surplus of parking in the downtown, and 1330 Broadway is literally on top of the 12th Street BART station to boot. This is a great reuse proposal.
It will be interesting to see if they retain some of the parking garage aesthetic. That could be kinda cool…
Speaking of Oakland parking, this article about an automated parking garage was interesting. The future of urban parking, I suppose.
Or the past.
UPDATE: The Plans for 420 (13th Street) in Oakland