$95 Mil Mixed-Use Project Planned Around Rapid Transit Station

OAKLAND, CA-Plans for a $95 million mixed-use project at the MacArthur BART station were laid out yesterday by the city and BART officials. Still in the planning stages, the project could include as many as 800 apartments, along with retail and office space and space for community groups and nonprofits. A day-care center also is planned for the site, as well as employment programs for at-risk youth.

Jones Lang LaSalle, based out of Chicago, and L.A.’s Creative Housing Associates will be developing the project. Groundbreaking is expected in 2003. BART owns seven acres of the proposed 10-acre development, much of it the existing MacArthur BART parking lot. Plans for the new MacArthur Station development are slated to include a parking structure with 1,500 spaces.

The proposed development is bounded by 40th Street and MacArthur Boulevard to the north and south, Telegraph Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the east and west. Community groups have high hopes for the new development and its potential impact on the neighborhood. Lynne Horiuchi, representing the West MacArthur Neighborhood Council called the project “an excellent plan. People in the community are very pleased.”