Chinatown Senior Housing
Oakland, CA

Affordable Senior Apartments

SUMMARY: Oakland Chinatown Senior Housing is a 70 unit apartment project for senior citizens, situated near Oakland Chinatown adjacent to and on land currently owned by the historic Buddhist Church of Oakland. The client’s goal is to maximize the number of units and parking spaces, while providing classrooms and conference spaces for the church, and community spaces and other amenities for the Senior Housing.

A two-story parking podium is required in order to accommodate the parking spaces needed by both the church and the senior housing. A ground floor commercial space at the corner of Eighth Street and Alice Street will anchor the corner and fit well with the active urban fabric of the area.

One of the primary concerns for the project is the adjacency of the site to the historic Buddhist Church of Oakland. The main challenge is to provide a functional connection to the church while at the same time maintaining enough distance so that it retains it’s aesthetic integrity. Our design approaches this concern by incorporating a garden terrace above the parking podium adjacent to the church, allowing the tenants to enjoy their walks or Tai-Chi exercises on the terrace with the Church’s Chinese style roofline as a backdrop.

The building is being designed as a sustainable green building, with particular emphasis on indoor air quality issues.

Project Data:
Building: 70 units (52,000 s.f.)
Construction Cost: $9,300,000 (budget)
Site: 0.6 acres (117 units per acre)
Parking Spaces: 84 (1.2 per unit)
Features: Community room, 5th floor terrace, exterior walkways, elevator, classrooms

Project Team
Client: East Bay Asian Local Development Corp.
Principal Designer: Erick Mikiten, AIA
Project Manager: Radziah M. Loh, AIA

Orthographic View