Second Massive Oakland Deal Falls Through
A second big office deal in as many weeks has fallen apart in Oakland.
New York-based investment behemoth Blackstone Group has exited a $405M acquisition of Uptown Station, losing out on a $20M nonrefundable deposit in the process, The Registry reports.
Blackstone's purchase of Uptown fell through due to changes in the lending market as opposed to bearishness on Oakland, according to sources familiar with proceedings.
The ill-fated deal for Uptown Station, which is nearly 400K SF, would have come out to over $1K per SF, setting a record for Oakland. Still owned by CIM Group, which paid Uber $180M for it in 2017, Uptown Station is leased in its entirety by digital payments company Square.
The news of Blackstone's decision follows a week in which Kaiser Permanente canceled highly anticipated plans for a new $900M Oakland headquarters about a block away from Uptown Station, which is located at 1955 Broadway.
Blackstone Group declined to comment, and spokespeople for CIM Group didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Uptown Station property functioned as a Sears department store for much of the time since being first constructed in 1929.
Lane Partners, the developer of the massive office project Kaiser backed out of last month, originally set out to turn Uptown Station into a tech campus. It purchased the building in 2014 for $24M.
