A developer is proposing two senior housing towers of 31 and 25 stories on the Rockridge Trader Joe’s site at 5727 College Avenue in Oakland.
Align Real Estate filed the proposal this week for 415 senior-living units on the 1.5-acre parcel, which sits less than a block from the Rockridge BART station. The plan calls for 371 independent-living apartments, 18 assisted-living units, and 26 memory-care rooms. No replacement grocery space is included.
The project would dwarf everything around it. Rockridge runs on two- and three-story Craftsman buildings and tree-lined streets. A 31-story tower hasn’t been built anywhere in this part of Oakland, and the neighborhood will likely have plenty to say about that.
Align has been moving fast across the Bay Area, targeting grocery store sites with surface parking lots in dense urban neighborhoods. The company is already proposing redevelopments at four San Francisco Safeway locations, in the Fillmore, Bernal Heights, Outer Sunset, and Marina neighborhoods, with the Marina plan drawing the sharpest opposition so far. Last month, Align filed plans for a San Mateo Safeway that could yield 396 housing units. The Rockridge project would be the sixth such proposal in the region.
The College Avenue site is owned by Albertsons, Safeway’s parent company. The Trader Joe’s there opened in 2007, replacing an Albertsons store that had operated on the site for years. Align’s new filing, reported by SFist, puts fresh attention on just how broadly the developer is casting its net.
Align says it’s working with a Bay Area nonprofit on the senior living component, though the company hasn’t named the partner yet. The developer describes the organization as a “leading Bay Area nonprofit senior living organization with more than 65 years of experience serving older adults.”
David Balducci of Align told the San Francisco Chronicle the goal is keeping older residents in their communities. “This project is about helping seniors stay in the neighborhoods they call home,” Balducci said. “By placing senior housing near transit, services and shops, we’re giving older adults the opportunity to age in place with dignity and independence, while also freeing up family homes for the next generation.”
The pitch is straightforward. Seniors age in place. Younger families get housing stock. The healthcare system and family caregivers get some relief. Whether that framing holds up under community scrutiny is another question entirely.
Align appears to be counting on California law to smooth the path. The state’s Density Bonus Law and AB 130 both make it easier for large residential projects to move through the approval process, particularly those qualifying under affordable housing or senior living categories. Developers across California have leaned on these statutes to push projects past local zoning resistance, and the California Department of Housing and Community Development has been increasingly aggressive about enforcing the state’s pro-housing framework against cities and counties that drag their feet.
Oakland has its own complicated relationship with that framework. The city has been under pressure from the state to meet Regional Housing Needs Allocation targets, which gives projects like this one more legal footing than they might have had five years ago. That won’t stop neighbors from showing up to planning meetings.
Renderings for the project were done by SBC Architects and show two towers rising sharply above the low-scale commercial strip on College Avenue. The 25-story design alone would be the tallest structure most Rockridge residents have seen from their front porches. Paired with a 31-story companion, the project will almost certainly land in front of Oakland’s planning commission with a packed room and competing stacks of comment cards.
Align hasn’t announced a formal application timeline, and the Trader Joe’s lease situation at the site has not been publicly addressed by either the developer or the grocery chain.