OAKLAND CITY COUNCIL APPROVES NEW UC HEADQUARTERS

In a move that will save the University of California substantial money, the Oakland City Council today (Wednesday, July 24) approved construction of the new headquarters building for the UC Office of the President (UCOP) to be built on city-owned land near the downtown Oakland City Center.

The council's action follows both approval of the new headquarters by the Board of Regents in March and UC's signing of an agreement July 19 with the developer, Lankford/Hensel Phelps Joint Venture of San Diego, for financing, design and construction of the building.

"The new building fulfills our goal of finding long-term, cost-effective space for the Office of the President," said V. Wayne Kennedy, vice president for business and finance. "This agreement will result in substantial savings for the university."

The building will include eight stories of office space on top of five levels of parking, one of which will be below ground level. It will contain approximately 225,000 square feet of office space.

The developers will purchase the vacant property, a 38,000-square-foot lot on Franklin Street between 11th and 12th streets, from the city of Oakland, construct the building and then sell it to UC for an agreed upon purchase price of $32 million.

In addition, the city of Oakland will purchase from the developer 150 parking spaces in the new building for $3.5 million and operate a city-owned parking lot on the site.

The new building will also include about 7,500 square feet of retail space in the ground floor lobby and an 11,000-square-foot roof garden over a portion of the 500-car garage.

The purchase agreement calls for the building to be completed by April 16, 1998. Pending completion of the environmental impact report and final approval from the Oakland Planning Commission, construction is scheduled to begin Oct. 1.
UCOP currently leases space in the Kaiser Center, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland. The 10-year lease for that office space will expire in May 1998.

The new building will house the majority of UCOP's staff. Remaining staff will be housed in leased space in the vicinity which has not yet been identified.

The Franklin Street site was chosen from among a list of six finalist sites -- five in Oakland and one in Berkeley -- because it most closely meets the requirements UC set out when it originally sought proposals last fall. Those requirements included low long-term costs, a Bay Area office location central to public transit and adequate parking.

Building architects for the project are Kaplan, McLaughlin & Diaz of San Francisco. The interior architects are Gordon H. Chong and Associates of San Francisco.

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