Posts from — August 2007

This Saturday, from six to eleven at night, Old Oakland will host the Nite Souk. It will be something of a coming-out party for Oakland’s most up-and-coming ‘hood. It will be centered on Ninth and Washington streets. I hope to see you there!

The 1333 Broadway building (whose retail tenants include CitiBank and Gap) is undergoing a makeover. The 238,000sf office high-rise, originally built to match the Clorox building in 1972, was acquired by Prentiss Properties (now Brandywine Realty Trust) in 2005 after a heated bidding war. Brandywine owns much of the office stock in the Lake Merritt high-rise district, including Oakland’s tallest building, the Ordway (404ft). They are stripping the dull beige tiles from 1333′s monotonous ten-story facade, revealing shining silver concrete. The Brutalist in me wants them to keep it stripped, but a source who works in the building says that’s not to be. He received a letter from Brandywine that the facade will be “retextured,” possibly removing the beveled detailing shared with the formally dissimilar Clorox Building, and recolored either pink, green, or blue.