Singapore investor buys Oakland’s Uptown Station
OAKLAND >> Downtown Oakland’s Uptown Station office and retail complex has been bought by a big real estate investor based in Singapore.
CIM Group, which has been renovating the iconic building at the corner of Broadway and Telegraph, said that it has sold the property.
The price was in the range of $420 million, according to property experts familiar with the transaction.
At $1,057 a square foot, that would represent a record-setting price for a building in Oakland.
Singapore-based Mapletree Investments, a big real estate investment firm,
is the buyer of the landmark complex, industry sources said.
The eight-story building totals 397,000 square feet, consisting of 362,000 square feet of offices and 35,000 square feet of retail. The building is located at 1954 Telegraph Ave.
Uptown Station’s offices are leased to Square, a financial services tech firm based in San Francisco.
Brokers Steve Golubchik, Jonathan Schaefler, and Darren Hollak with Newmark, a commercial real estate firm, handled the purchase of the property.
“CIM Group delivered on its vision for Uptown Station, bringing a truly modern creative office property to a burgeoning district, that quickly attracted a leading San Francisco technology tenant, with Square,” said Avi Shemesh, co-founder and a principal executive with CIM Group.
The building features a multi-story atrium lobby, expansive outdoor roof decks, and retail spaces whose tenants include Shake Shack and One Medical, according to CIM Group.
“This deal validates the Oakland market,” said Golubchik, vice chairman and head of capital markets with Newmark. “This shows how strong the interest is in the Oakland market.”
The purchases involving Uptown Station are also a reminder of the dramatic increase in Oakland property values in less than a decade. That’s shown in the steep appreciation in the price of Uptown Station:
• In 2014, Lane Partners paid $25 million for Uptown Station, which is the site of a former Sears department store.
• In 2015, Uber, acting through an affiliate called Zwuschen LLC, paid $123.5 million for the site. San Francisco-based Uber had intended to create a second headquarters site but eventually scrapped those plans.
• In 2017, CIM paid $180 million for the Uptown Station property and then set about to undertake a wide-ranging renovation of the complex.
Along the way, CIM landed a prized tenant, Square, which has signed a long-term lease for the entirety of the office space.
San Francisco-based Square is considered by analysts to be a robust tech company. The Square rental agreement potentially can provide the new property owner, Mapletree, with a steady revenue stream for roughly a decade.
The new owner of Uptown Station is a big company with a hefty financial punch. Mapletree during 2020 produced $2.9 billion in revenue and harvested $1.33 billion in profits after taxes and certain other items, according to its annual report.
Mapletree owns properties in 31 countries, including buildings in Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Redwood City, Newark, and Livermore, the company’s website shows.
The improvements that CIM undertook during the years that it owned the building helped to transform the complex into a property that enticed buyers, including the new owner.
“Investors want to own quality,” Golubchik said. “Uptown Station is one of the finest buildings on the West Coast.”