Oakland tower deal shows that East Bay office market weakness persists

OAKLAND — An Oakland tower has been bought in a deal that shows values for East Bay office buildings remain depressed in the wake of waves of loan defaults, property foreclosures and high vacancy levels.

An affiliate of a credit union has paid $3.5 million for a 10-story tower at 1700 Broadway in downtown Oakland, documents filed on Dec. 18 with the Alameda County Recorder’s Office show.

That $3.5 million price tag is a stunning one-fourth of the $13.3 million that a real estate firm paid in 2017 for the 1700 Broadway office building, or a 74% decline in the property’s value.

Starting with that purchase eight years ago, the office tower has been through a loan default, foreclosure and several owners, including its lender.

HP Investors bought the 1700 Broadway building in 2017. However, in January 2024, the building went into default due to a delinquency on a $9.1 million loan.

In June 2024, Bank of Sierra seized the tower through a foreclosure that placed a $4 million value on the building. Right after the foreclosure, Fresno-based Agate Holdings paid the lender $2.8 million for the tower.

Now, the new owner is an affiliate controlled by North Carolina-based Self-Help Credit Union’s higher-risk lending unit, Self-Help Ventures Fund. The credit union and its venture fund are both nonprofits.

At the corner of Broadway and 17th Street, the building totals 31,500 square feet, which includes 3,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

The office tower was built in 1914, according to the Oakland Wiki website. Lucy Fay Thomson and William Edward Thomson, siblings who were children of longtime Oakland businessman and political leader Peter Thomson, financed the $200,000 development and construction of the office tower, according to a 1913 article by the Oakland Tribune.