‘Hands off my Trader Joe’s’: Oakland neighborhood reels from plan to replace store with housing

Rockridge never saw it coming.

Residents and elected officials in the Oakland neighborhood said they were blindsided by the news Wednesday that a San Francisco developer had submitted plans to shutter the neighborhood’s two-decades old Trader Joe’s store on a tree-lined stretch of College Avenue, and replace it with two residential towers, the taller of the two soaring to 31-story stories.

• Read more: Popular Trader Joe’s in Oakland could be replaced by two apartment towers for seniors

The project developer, Align Real Estate, said the ambitious proposal is an effort to address unmet demand for senior housing in a neighborhood where many retirees and empty-nesters are stuck in big homes that would be better suited for families. The lack of new multi-family development has contributed to a shortage that has driven the median cost of a Rockridge home to $1.7 million.

In addition, the towers will be operated by a non-profit — although it’s unclear what percentage of the units will be affordable.

With the vast majority of Bay Area housing projects stalled due to lack of financing, it will likely be another two years or more before the grocery chain closes. Still, if anyone doubted the hold that Trader Joe’s has on Rockridge, its potential disappearance landed like the loss of a neighborhood landmark.

“Hands off my Trader Joe’s! I’ll go fight about it,” said Cindy Wilson, 67, who has called the neighborhood home since the 1990s and said it doesn’t need “the twin towers of Rockridge.”

“This Trader Joe’s is a neighborhood institution and it would be a shame to replace it with an eyesore,” said Wilson, while shopping inside of the store, now a future development site. 

The planned 415 units could free up scores of homes for larger households, and Align said it expects that two-thirds of renters will come from surrounding communities. But residents said the developer’s assurances and Rockridge’s desperate need for housing didn’t make up for a project that would wipe out a beloved grocery store and replace it with glassy towers that would look out of place in the neighborhood.

For Align, it was bound to be an uphill battle, where even carefully framed promises of senior housing and nonprofit stewardship — the developer didn’t disclose the identity of the campus’ future operator — were unlikely to outweigh Rockridge’s deep attachment to its quaint retail fabric, small-scale buildings and the everyday rituals anchored by a dependable grocery store. 

Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee declined to comment on the proposal, which still needs to be reviewed by city planners. Oakland City Councilmember Zac Unger said he had just learned about the project from the Chronicle story.

“We just found out about this today so we are doing our research on what the plans are,” Unger said. “We need to figure out what the proposal is before we have anything to say about it.”

In a statement, the board of directors of the Rockridge Community Planning Council, a powerful group that has been a vocal advocate for other housing developments, said they were “surprised” by the news and “disappointed that the developer did not engage with the community before submitting their application to the city.”

The group said “higher density can be appropriate at sites located directly adjacent to transit,” but that the proposal is wildly out of scale with the surrounding community.

“The proposed project exceeds current zoning by more than 20 stories, and eliminates Trader Joe’s — a vital part of the community — in the process,” the council said. “It is the only affordable grocery option in the neighborhood, and it is the first unionized Trader Joe’s in the country.”

The group urged Align “to pursue a project that better respects Rockridge’s scale, provides affordable housing, and retains Trader Joe’s as a foundational, street-level use.”

Faunus Lucas, who owns Ain’t Normal Cafe on College Avenue, said losing Trader Joe’s “would be a pretty big blow to the neighborhood.”

“The reason why College Avenue is so successful is because the whole thing is a shopping district — retail stores, restaurants, groceries. You can get pretty much anything you need on College Avenue,” he said. “It’s a synergistic thing.”

Lucas said there are multiple large empty lots where dense senior housing could go, including the former California College of the Arts campus and 5200 Broadway, a 4.6-acre, mostly flat, fenced-in lot next to the Ridge shopping center.

“There are so many vacant lots that could be developed,” he said. “Why not build on one of those?”

Other Oakland residents celebrated the ambitious plan. 

“It’s a shame that we’d be losing this grocery store, but there are other food options in the neighborhood, such as Safeway a half mile away and Market Hall across the street,” said East Bay For Everyone board member Sarah Bell. “It’s such an important opportunity to house people so close to BART. Rockridge needs to do its part in solving the housing crisis.”

Bell, who injured her knee and has been disabled for a year, said the fact that the project would house seniors was especially important given its location.

“The ability to live near BART is incredibly freeing if you are disabled, especially for people trying to age in place, retain independence and not drive,” she said. “Just imagine all the people who could be housed there.”

Resident Ken Rich, who lives within a 15 minute walk of the store and headed up development in San Francisco under mayors Ed Lee and London Breed, said he was "happy to see the proposal" but would "really like the developers to figure out a way to bring the Trader Joe's back into the new development."

"Change is never easy in a neighborhood as beautiful and well established as Rockridge," he said.  "But additional housing at scale is a huge need in Oakland and senior housing is particularly appropriate at this location and in this neighborhood." 

Oakland resident Sonya Trauss, executive director of YIMBY Law, said the project “sounds so cool.”

“Rockridge has plenty of grocery stores,” she said. “If people really want to be able to age in their neighborhood, they need a lot more housing.”

The Trader Joe’s on the development site was abuzz with shoppers Wednesday. Walking out with a bag of groceries, Sally Harris, 67, said the neighborhood simply can’t support a development that size.

“Take a look at the roads around here, take a look at the homeless and garbage,” she said. “It’s crazy to want to develop more.”

Harris has lived in the neighborhood for more than three decades, and is totally opposed to the development, saying it does not match the character of the neighborhood.

“They’re trying to make this a big city and we don’t want it,” she said. 

Self-described “traditionalist” John Wells, 70, is also skeptical. He said he understands the need for more housing, but doesn’t appreciate what he called the lack of traditional forms of development and architecture.

“Maybe it’s my age but I grew up with a respect for those things,” he said.

The Rockridge property has long been owned by Safeway parent company Albertsons, which, over the past year, has partnered with Align to propose major housing plans to four of its sites in San Francisco and one in San Mateo, where Safeway stores currently operate.