ALAMEDA — Three “flex space” buildings, so-called because they can offer a mix of office, manufacturing and warehouse space, are on track to be built at the Harbor Bay Business Park near Oakland International Airport.
The single-story buildings, approved by the city Planning Board on June 24, will total 310,945 square feet. They’ll rise on the 1300 and 1400 blocks of Harbor Bay Parkway.
Planning Board members unanimously approved the project with little comment.
Original plans for the 30-acre site — approved by the city in April 1985 — called for five two-story office buildings, according to David Sablan, a city planner. But just two buildings got constructed and the leftover land, totaling about 18 acres, has remained vacant.
The current developer is Joe Ernst of srmErnst Development Partners, an Oakland firm that built the Peet’s roasting facility at the Harbor Bay Business Park and refurbished the former I. Magnin art deco building on Broadway in downtown Oakland, among other projects.
The firm is also part of the team of developers known as Alameda Point Partners, which is developing 64 acres of the former Alameda Naval Air Station with 673 housing units, eight acres of parks and 93,000 square feet of retail space. The site will include a new ferry terminal.
The overall former base, now known as Alameda Point, totals about 1,560 acres.
“Flex-space” buildings emerged in the mid-1980s and are often converted warehouses or former research and development buildings. They are especially popular with start-ups because they allow a company flexibility in how it occupies a space, such as sharing it with another business that operates on a different schedule as a way to cut rental costs.
Ernst told the board that about 20 acres of the business park remain to be developed after this project.
The three proposed buildings would have 711 parking spots, Sablan said.
Along with the Peet’s coffee roasting facility, other businesses at the park include the Oakland Raiders, Penumbra and Southwest Airlines.
