420 13th Street Oakland

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.

12 thoughts on “Parking for More Desks and Fewer Cars in Downtown Oakland”
  1. Do garages usually have enough ceiling height to allow them to be converted to other uses, or is this building unusual?

    1. 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.

      1. 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).

        1. 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.

  2. 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.

    1. 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.

  3. 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.

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