Here is a fully updated list of the tallest 25 buildings in Oakland. We found a lot of factually incorrect and outdated list ranking high on Google so we decided to give you the proper information.
| Rank | Building | Height | Floors | Year Built | Site | Address |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ordway Building | 404 ft | 28 | 1970 | Site | 1 Kaiser Plaza |
| 2 | Atlas Apartments | 400 ft | 40 | 2020 | Site | 385 14th St |
| 3 | 1900 Broadway | 394 ft | 39 | 2023 | Site | 1900 Broadway |
| 4 | Kaiser Center | 390 ft | 28 | 1960 | Site | 300 Lakeside Dr |
| 5 | 17th and Broadway | 380 ft | 34 | 2019 | Site | 447 17th Street |
| 6 | Lake Merritt Plaza | 371 ft | 27 | 1985 | Site | 323 20th St |
| 7 | 601 City Center | 367 ft | 24 | 2019 | Site | 601 12th St |
| 8 | 1111 Broadway | 360 ft | 24 | 1990 | Site | 1111 Broadway |
| 9 | Kaiser Engineering Building | 336 ft | 25 | 1984 | Site | 1800 Harrison St |
| 10 | Clorox Building | 330 ft | 24 | 1976 | Site | 1221 Broadway |
| 11 | EM Harris State Office Building | 328 ft | 22 | 1998 | Site | 1515 Clay St |
| 12 | Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building | 328 ft | 18 | 1994 | Site | 1301 Clay St |
| 13 | 1200 Lakeshore | 325 ft | 25 | 1964 | Site | 1200 Lakeshore |
| 14 | Oakland City Hall | 320 ft | 14 | 1914 | Site | 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza |
| 15 | Tribune Tower | 310 ft | 22 | 1906 | Site | 409 13th St |
| 16 | 1330 Broadway | 297 ft | 18 | 1958 | Site | 1330 Broadway |
| 17 | Center 21 | 296 ft | 20 | 1984 | Site | 2101 Webster St |
| 18 | 555 City Center | 279 ft | 20 | 2002 | Site | 555 12th St |
| 19 | Oakland Marriott | 273 ft | 25 | 1969 | Site | 1001 Broadway |
| 20 | Park Bellevue Tower | 270 ft | 25 | 1969 | Site | 565 Bellevue Ave |
| 21 | 1717 Webster | 270 ft | 25 | 2020 | Site | 1717 Webster St |
| 22 | St. Paul’s Towers | 267 ft | 22 | 1966 | Site | 100 Bay Place |
| 23 | ZO 330 / 1700 Webster | 265 ft | 24 | 2019 | Site | 330 17th St |
| 24 | The Grand Apartments | 263 ft | 22 | 2008 | Site | 100 Grand Ave |
| 25 | Skyline at Temescal | 260 ft | 25 | 2020 | Site | 3883 Turquoise Way |
The Ordway building is the tallest building in Oakland and tallest building in the Bay Area outside of San Francisco. It is 28 floors high and was built in 1970.
The Architecture for this building was Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
It will remain the tallest building for a while, other buildings are in the works but have yet to gain approval.
There is a group of crybabies complaining about Oakland having tall buildings. Oakland is awesome, let it reach for the sky.
While gathering data for this factual article, we noticed an alarming trend. The office buildings are full of empty floors. Not just suites, but entire floors are vacant in every building. Lots of them.
The same for the apartment buildings, lots and lots of vacant units, yet they still ask $2,000 – $3,000 for a one-bedroom. The demand is not there, they are overpriced, but the companies would rather take massive monthly losses than price it at what they should be, less than $1k for a one-bedroom. One unit sits empty for 6 months at a time losing thousands upon thousands of dollars just to overcharge you several thousand when you finally rent it. Something must be done by local officials. It is a scam.
What leads to this? While researching the sales history of these top 25 buildings, we noticed that they are bought and resold over and over by “Asset Management Firms” and “Investment Groups” whose sole job is to increase the price without reason.
So one building can be sold as many as 5 times in a 10-year period and of course, the price can only go up. These companies are not improving the building but instead just holding a few years and selling based on an imaginary capital gain. All the while the only way to make money on the imaginary gains is to increase the rent and lease prices. It is a major scam being carried out on the American public and it is easy to see when you do local market research like we did for this article of the top 25 tallest buildings in Oakland.
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