Oakland has long been one of the nation’s largest underserved trade areas for comparison goods. Comparison goods are defined as merchandise sold in apparel; department, specialty (such as jewelry shops and gift stores) and home furnishing stores for which consumers typically shop by comparing quality and prices. Unlike other mid-size cities that draw shoppers from surrounding areas, Oakland stores do not even serve the demand from its own residents.  Oakland currently exports 75% of its potential sales in this category or roughly $1 billion in sales every year to neighboring communities. While the City has many fine merchants, it lacks many larger retailers and a critical mass of retail selection.  This dearth of retail options discourage residents from shopping locally. This directly diminishes Oakland’s tax base that supports road maintenance, clean parks, and functional city services.

To address retail leakage, the City of Oakland has completed a year-plus-long Citywide Retail Enhancement Strategy (Implementation Plan), composed of four components. In December 2007, the Oakland City Council reviewed Phase I of the Strategy and endorsed the preferred alternative of the Upper Broadway Strategy – A Component of the Oakland Retail (Report) and directed staff to develop a Specific Plan for the area.

Phases II and III of the Strategy looked at the 53 retail nodes (other than Broadway) around the city to develop a profile of each including demographic and sales tax trends, opportunities and what role they play in Oakland's retail scene. Five (combined to four) "exemplar" nodes were further analyzed to develop retail enhancement strategies which can be used in the exemplar nodes and elsewhere.

The Broadway/Valdez District Specific Plan represents an effort to guide City officials in developing strategies to provide destination retail and mixed use development along Broadway between 23rd Street and Interstate 580 (Project Area Map).  Broadway is viewed as the City’s “Main Street” and is significant due to its proximity to downtown, its location near two BART stations, a major AC transit bus route, as well as its relationship to adjacent residential neighborhoods, the adjacent medical campuses of Kaiser (Plan) and Summit/Alta Bates (Plan), the successful existing Piedmont Avenue retail street, Telegraph Avenue, the revitalization of Uptown, and a variety of development project in the plan area and the edge of Lake Merritt.  The Upper Broadway Strategy estimates that potential development of this 50 acre section of Broadway could result in approximately 1 million square feet of retail space and 834 residential units with estimated revenue generating floor area of 2.37 million square feet with the potential to create $3 million  annually in sales tax revenue. 

The Broadway/Valdez District Specific Plan will be developed in a three-phase process over approximately a two year period which began in January 2009. Through a series of community stakeholder meeting and public workshops hosted by the city of Oakland, citizens will be encouraged to be involved at every stage – developing the project goals, planning concepts and validating the final Plan. Recommendations will then be forwarded to the Landmarks Advisory Board, the Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission, and the Oakland Planning Commission for final review and City Council for its adoption. Reviews of the Plan’s environmental impacts are required and will occur during the later stages of the plan development process.

Benefits to the Specific Plan include:

• Creating a level of certainty to both the community and developers by providing a framework to support development and enhancement of  existing resources
• Balancing land-use goals with environmental, economic, preservation and quality of life related interests
• Provisions for improved, sustainable infrastructure (utilities, roads, and parks)
• Providing a certified environmental document which will expedite the entitlements process

From January -
June 2009

Community Stakeholder Group

April 16, 2009

Kick off, Issues and Opportunity

June 25, 2009

Existing Conditions & Market Demand

October 8, 2009

Project Precedents

December 16, 2009

Project Alternatives

January 14, 2010

Project Alternatives

February 11, 2010

Public Realm, Streetscape, Transportation & Access Design Concepts

Spring 2010

Preferred Concept

Summer 2010

Darft Specific Plan

Fall 2010

Final Specific Plan

Public Workshops

All Public Workshops are held in the First Presbyterian Church, 2619 Broadway from 6:00-8:00 p.m.

May 7, 2009

Vision & Goals

July 9, 2009

Existing Conditions & Market Demand

January 28, 2010

Project Alternatives

Spring 2010

Access Plan and Street Streetscape Design Concepts

Spring 2010

Preferred Concept

Summer 2010

Preferred Concept

Late Fall 2010

Specific Plan

Precedents Report - Cover & Introduction

A Specific Plan is a tool for the implementation of a city’s General Plan. A Specific Plan guides specific development proposals within a defined area toward the goals and policies of the General Plan. The Specific Plan must be consistent with the General Plan, and can encompass an area as small as a single acre.  A Specific Plan may be as general as setting forth broad policy concepts, or as detailed as providing direction to every facet of development from the type, location and intensity of uses to the design and capacity of infrastructure; from the resources used to finance public improvements to the design

guidelines of a subdivision.

The technical components of a Specific Plan include:

• Text and diagrams showing the distribution, location and extent of all land uses, including open space.
• Proposed distribution, location, extent and intensity of major components of public and private transportation, sewage, water, drainage, solid waste disposal, energy and other essential facilities needed to support the land uses.
• Standards and guidelines for development, and standards for the conservation, development and utilization of natural resources, where applicable.
• Program of implementation measures including regulations, programs, public works projects and financing measures.
• Statement of Specific Plan’s relationship to the General Plan.

2.  Why is the City developing a Specific Plan?

In order to achieve a successful shopping place as described in its Upper Broadway Strategy Alternative 1 concept, the City understands that it must offer a significant incentive to developers.  Typically for a redevelopment project such as this, a redevelopment agency would directly acquire a number of real estate parcels and sell them in turn to developers.  In this case, the Broadway/MacArthur/San Pablo and Central District Redevelopment Project Areas have insufficient funds to conduct land acquisition for this project since the required land acquisition is estimated at $191.5 million (including acquisition cost, hazardous materials remediation, demolition, relocation, 10% contingency). 

An alternative incentive—which developers agree is worthy—is for the City to create a specific plan and an accompanying environmental impact report for the Broadway/Valdez District.  Specific plans have been used elsewhere to proactively lay out a city’s vision for an area and how to achieve the vision.  Furthermore, being a comprehensive guidebook which addresses a number of planning, zoning and environmental issues upfront and sets the required fees and mitigations in advance, the specific plan provides a significant amount of certainty for developers.  Developers have indicated this would be a valuable tool for implementing projects in the area. 

The City has determined that an EIR is required to be prepared under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).  The EIR evaluates a proposed project's impacts on the physical environment, such as traffic, air pollution, historic and archeological resources, biology, geology, public services and utilities, and hazardous materials. An EIR also recommends steps to avoid or minimize those impacts, called mitigation measures. Possible alternatives to the project are considered as well, including the option of not doing the project.  The EIR process provides the public, as well as other government agencies, a number of opportunities to participate in the preparation of the EIR by commenting on the scope of the environmental review and a draft EIR during public hearings before the City Planning Commission.

The City of Oakland has established redevelopment powers through its Redevelopment Agency in several areas within Oakland, referred to as “redevelopment project areas”. The purpose of redevelopment is to redevelop or rehabilitate public or private facilities and remove blight conditions in the redevelopment project area. The Redevelopment Division of the Community and Economic Development Agency is responsible for administering these redevelopment project areas and works with developers, local businesses, and residents to build new housing, retail, office, parks, streets, and streetscape improvements, or to rehabilitate existing facilities.

State law allows a redevelopment agency to obtain funds using "tax increment financing." Here’s how it works: on the date the City Council approves a redevelopment plan, the real property within the boundaries of the project area generates a certain amount of total property tax revenue. If this total property tax revenue increases after the redevelopment plan is adopted, then most of this increase goes to the Redevelopment Agency. These funds are called "tax increment."  The Redevelopment Agency uses the tax increment funds during the life of the redevelopment plan to rehabilitate properties, purchase land, stimulate private development, and create investment to accomplish what could not be done by other public or private means. The Broadway/ Valdez District falls into two redevelopment project areas: the Broadway/MacArthur/ San Pablo Redevelopment Project Area, adopted in 2000, and the Central District Redevelopment Project Area, adopted in 1969. 

The Broadway/MacArthur/San Pablo Redevelopment Project Area consists of two distinct sub-areas. The Broadway/MacArthur sub-area incorporates Broadway Auto Row and Telegraph Avenue between 27th and 42nd Streets. The San Pablo sub-area incorporates the portion of San Pablo Avenue from 53rd to 67th Street. 

The Central District Redevelopment Project Area encompasses a 250-block area bounded by Embarcadero to the south, 27th Street to the north, Lake Merritt to the east and Interstate 980 to the west.

The Specific Plan will be developed over a 24 month period beginning in January 2009.  The draft plan and a summary of the project will be presented in a series of eight public meetings. All interested parties are encouraged to attend. The tentative schedule is included on the project homepage, but please check the website as the dates approach to confirm a date or meeting time change.

The boundary for the project area is generally defined as the portion of Broadway between West Grand Avenue and Interstate 580 (approximately .8 miles in length) including stretches of 27th and Valdez Streets.  (Project Area Map)

7.  What are the current zoning and general plan designations for the

     Broadway/Valdez District area?

The Broadway/Valdez District is currently designated as Community Commercial in the General Plan.  The Community Commercial classification is intended to identify, create, maintain, and enhance areas suitable for a wide variety of commercial and institutional operations along the City’s major corridors and in shopping districts or centers.  Community Commercial areas may include neighborhood center uses and larger scale retail and commercial uses, such as auto related businesses, business and personal services, health services and medical uses, educational facilities, and entertainment uses.  Community Commercial can be complemented by the addition of urban residential development and compatible mixed use development.  The maximum Floor Area Ratio (FAR) for the Community Commercial classification is 5.0.  FAR is the ratio expressing the relationship between gross floor area of a building to the area of the project site.  For example, a maximum FAR of 5 on a 50,000 sq ft (100’ x 500’) site means that a building with a maximum gross floor area that is five times the lot area (5 times 50,000 = 250,000 sq ft) can be constructed on it.  Maximum residential density is 125 units per gross acre.

The majority of the Broadway/Valdez District (Broadway from 23rd Street to Hawthorne Avenue) was recently included in an S-5 overlay zone on an interim basis to give the City an opportunity to develop a specific plan designed to create a regional retail center along this stretch of Broadway.  The S-5 overlay zone modifies the following base zones in the Planning Area:

• The C-40, Community Thoroughfare Zone is located along Broadway in the Planning Area.  This is an auto oriented zone that the S-5 significantly modifies to preserve ground floor retail activities.
• The R-90 Downtown Apartment Residential Zone is located in the area generally bounded by Valdez, 23rd, and 27th Streets.
• Two parcels facing 23rd Street between Valdez and Waverly Street are currently zoned C-55, Commercial Core Commercial Zone.

The S-5 overlay zone preserves the ground floor of buildings for storefront businesses which generate pedestrian activity such as retail sales, consumer service businesses, and medical services.   New construction in the area would be required to have a storefront appearance, including ample window area, minimum12 foot ground floor ceiling heights, and a prominent entrance oriented toward Broadway. 

New automobile sales, auto repair and servicing, and light industrial activities are limited by the overlay zoning.  The S-5 overlay zone represents a major change for an area that has been a center for these types of activities for many years.  Given the City’s deficit of comparison goods sales, staff believes that this trade-off is critical to developing the area as a regional retail center.

The Upper Broadway Retail Strategy calls for anchored, continuous comparison goods retail at ground level along major arterials of Broadway, 27th Street and Valdez Street, as the primary use, with residential and/or office development above the ground level retail creating approximately 1.1 million square feet of total retail space.

Based on city planning principles, input from city departments, stakeholders, Neighborhood groups, and Oakland residents, the city will work with the selected consultant team at WRT, Inc. to integrate concepts from the Upper Broadway Retail Strategy, Alternative I with additional analysis and community feedback into a preferred plan to be adopted by the City Council, after a series of public workshops and hearings before the City Planning Commission.  The Plan will include a series of recommendations including land use and urban design alternatives, a market demand analysis, a transportation and parking demand and access plan, an infrastructure plan and a financing and implementation strategy.

Comparison goods usually serve a regional trade area and include apparel, home furnishings and department stores, as well as toys, sporting goods and so forth.  Oakland can likely support one or a small number of the kind of comparison goods shopping places that are envisioned for the Broadway/Valdez District.  Thus, the district can be viewed as a regional shopping place for the whole city and beyond.

A lifestyle retail center is defined as a shopping center or mixed-used commercial development that combines the traditional retail functions of a shopping mall but with leisure amenities including restaurants, bookstores, and entertainment venues.

Destination retail provides development opportunities for consumer shopping concepts that are new to a region and introduce new markets to the trade area.  In the case of the Broadway/Valdez District, the trade area consists of much of Oakland as well as central Berkeley to Oakland’s southern boundary, and from Oakland’s eastern border in the hills to Alameda.

Project E-Mail:

broadway-retail-plan@oaklandnet.com

Project Hotline:

510.238.7905

Kerry Jo Ricketts-Ferris

Project Manager, Planning

Keira Williams

Lead Retail Specialist, Economic Development

Kathy Kleinbaum

Lead Urban Economic Analyst, Redevelopment