The preliminary plans for a 374-foot-tall tower to rise at 1261 Harrison Street, at the corner of 13th in Downtown Oakland, have been scrapped.

Instead, Pinnacle Red Group is now pushing forward with plans for a seemingly split 460-foot-tall tower to rise on the site, the formal application for which was filed with the city today.

As designed by Lowney Architecture, the 36-story tower would yield 185 condos over 120,000 square feet of office space and 12,000 square feet of restaurant/retail at its base.

And while the site on the edge of Oakland’s Chinatown is currently only zoned for development up to 275 feet in height, the project team is planning to leverage a State Density Bonus in order to achieve the extra height for the 1261 Harrison Street tower as proposed.  We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.

29 thoughts on “Plans for a Seemingly Split 460-Foot-Tall Oakland Tower Revealed”
    1. Yeah – or more like YEAH !!! – I noticed that too, but I don’t think that top most one – above the Phone Co. buildings, presumably next to the Fox – is actually being proposed…to be honest, I’m not sure when that was ever proposed, I don’t remember it.

    2. Smart move, really gives context to the height on what Oakland can be vs what it is now and should help getting through planning. Good catch, the differences are staggering

      1. To be fair, the area shown with the future proposed highrises is currently the hole in the donut of downtown Oakland. Lake Merritt Financial District and the City Center/Frank Ogawa Plaza Area have plenty of highrises. These new buildings will bring the two highrise areas together to create a contiguous and vibrant DTO.

    1. one office tower and one residential tower are currently under construction. one additional office tower is apparently breaking ground very soon. Think that’s it, but not completely sure.

  1. This is a beautiful building. This will definitely be a landmark building for Oakland and for the Bay Area. I also love the repurposing of the charming brick alley way used to frame the iconic Tribune Building. Loads of character and charm.

    1. The Chronicle seems to give a lot of column inches to claiming people oppose something in Oakland (Uptown Station, the Mac Bart Project, …). Cynical people might almost believe they have ulterior motives in doing so.

      1. The Chronicles long time bias against Oakland seems to be lessening. Which is nice since Oakland has had enough issues without the SF mouthpiece constantly denigrating it’s neighbor…

        1. Let’s face it, the vast majority of the corporate media are promoters for everything San Francisco. They constantly promote SF events and give much more exposure to SF’s economic development and architecture. Anything about Oakland always comes with interjected negatives or is told in a SF-centric manner.

      2. Oakland’s NIMBYs are gonna NIMBY regardless of what the Chronicle writes. I’m not in love with the Chronicle, but it’s just the messenger.

        The Oakland Heritage Alliance is the one that is fighting this.

        1. The issue is who they choose to be a messenger for: there are 6B people in the world, and several thousand NGO’s, so it’s always a matter of giving a voice to a select few of them; the EBT story for example, found an entirely different set of people. That having been said, I found this particular Chron piece to be fairly balanced. I did note that it was handled by John King – the “urban design” writer – rather than a real estate writer, and one could make something of that, I suppose; but as he seemed to avoid his usual penchant for pushing freakishness, I’ll leave it alone.

          The OHA I find a mixed bag: sometimes useful ideas, sometimes frivolous ones….at least they don’t have their hands out, so we don’t need to second guess their motives.

      3. This is actually a recent (last 15 years or so) change from long-time Chronicle position of hating on SF itself, and having a staff composed almost entirely of East Bay suburb dwellers.

  2. As a long time Oakland resident – 25+ years – hearkened to see buildings like this proposed – it is about time that Oakland has its day – I am a YIMBY all the way !!

  3. This is a great building design for the Bay Area. Our architecture is generally pretty bland compared to NYC, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, etc.

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