View Edit

City Center Plaza, Federal Building in rear
CC SA-BY Our Oakland

Oakland City Center is an office and retail complex in downtown Oakland, forming the core of the City Center neighborhood. There are a number of offices and retail establishments mainly catering to the 9-5 working crowd (most of City Center is closed and empty on the weekends).

History

Oakland City Center was a project of the Oakland Redevelopment Agency and was part of its plans to revitalize the downtown area. Work on the project broke ground in 1972. Then-mayor John H. Reading viewed the redevelopment of downtown as a major campaign goal and saw the beginning of the City Center project as a major component of that goal. The project was expected to create 1,500 construction jobs and thousands of full-time jobs once it was actually complete. Leslie K. Moore, chairman of the ORA at the time, championed the joint venture between the ORA, national construction firm Turner Construction Company, and Trans-Bay Engineers and Builders, Inc., a minority-owned Bay Area construction Firm. 2

Businesses in Oakland City Center

  • Quizno's

Links and References

  1. Gold! Gold in Oakland! Shorenstein’s 555 12th Street is now LEED Gold Certified San Francisco Citizen
  2. Oakland Redevelopment News, Vol. 5, No. 2, May 1972
Edit tags