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Overview

As part of an effort at reviving the economic fortunes of Downtown Oakland, private developers worked with the City of Oakland, the Oakland Convention and Visitors Bureau, and other agencies to plan and build a combined Hyatt Regency Hotel and Oakland Convention Center between 1981 and 1983. Most medium and large cities in the US had by this time started a competition to erect larger and larger convention centers to attract lucrative business and professional organization meetings. This injection of visitor dollars into downtown businesses was seen a fundamental to reviving urban cores during the 1980s.

Building History

Construction on the Hyatt Regency Hotel adjacent to the Oakland Convention Center began in 11/1981. An article in the San Francisco Examiner described the new hotel portion of the tandem project: “Ground has been broken for the 490-room, $50 million Hyatt Regency Oakland in downtown Oakland. The hotel is set for completion in spring, 1984. Hyatt Regency Oakland on Broadway between 10th and 11th streets, will be connected to the new Oakland Convention Center due to be completed in January, 1983. Both project are part of a redevelopment of downtown Oakland, which also includes a four-block square office and retail complex [the Trans Pacific Centre] directly across from the hotel site. In the hotel’s plans, a 20-story guest tower will be connected to a four-story atrium lobby partially covered in reflective glass and featuring a rooftop swimming pool. The hotel atrium will be connected to the Convention Center at both the lobby and second-floor levels. The hotel itself will offer meeting and banquet spaces, including two ballrooms. Also included in the plans are a restaurant and lounge on the top floor of the guest tower and an informal restaurant in the atrium lobby. Developers of the hotel are the Oakland City Center Hotel Co., Inc., and Grubb & Ellis Development Co. of Oakland. Chief architect is ELS Design Group of Berkeley, and associate architects are Guiterrez Martinez, Oakland, and The Ratcliff Architects, Berkeley. Interiors are being done by Hirsch, Bedner & Associates of Santa Monica, Calif.” (See “Groundbreaking for Oakland Hyatt Regency,” San Francisco Examiner, 11/22/1981, Travel Page [p. 129].)

The area around the hotel and convention center was targeted with a great deal of other development in the 1980s. Phases I and II of the Trans Pacific Centre, an extensive office and shopping complex was planned as were a number of residential and office towers in the City Center (a tract bounded by 11th, 14th, Broadway and Jefferson Streets). Additionally, city planners sought to build a petroleum-fired cogeneration plant to power the hotel, convention center and other new buildings in the city core. This cogeneration plant was seen as a critical feature of the downtown redevelopment, as it would offer developers low energy costs as an incentive to locate in Oakland. Lennie Isabel, writing in the Oakland Tribune stated in an article about the plant in 07/1983: "Oakland has been studying the possibility of a cogeneration plant downtown for more than two years. The idea is to reduce energy costs for developers of downtown buildings, thus giving Oakland a competitive edge in attracting new projects." (See Lennie Isabel, "Power plant proposed to serve downtown," Oakland Tribune, 07/18/1983, p. A-9.)

PCAD id: 24314