Preservation of Oakland’s 16th Street Station Takes Big Step Forward with NPS Historic Register Listing

February 1, 2025
4
4 mins read

West Oakland’s crumbling 16th Street station took a big step forward toward possible preservation and reactivation thanks to the recent efforts of The Oakland Heritage Alliance.

OHA announced the news in their January 24 newsletter that the structure had been accepted on the National Park Service Register of Historic Places. This small victory comes following their ongoing advocacy including an online petition and other community engagement efforts over the past year.

“Oakland Heritage Alliance and West Oakland organizations have been calling for the reuse and restoration of the station and its signal tower since the 1980s,” provided OHA President Daniel Levy. “This national designation is an important milestone in securing its future.”

And while this listing is significant, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee the structure’s preservation or provide any direct funding for its rehabilitation. In fact, it doesn’t even provide for a plaque to recognize the significance of the structure which OHA is busy privately fundraising for.

Photo Courtesy: John Signor.

“Ellis Island for the African American Community”

The Beaux-Arts style station was designed by notable architect Jarvis Hunt. Hunt has an impressive resume that includes many other still-standing and renovated stations including Kansas City Union Station, the Dallas Union Station and the Joliet Union Station in Illinois that the Oakland station bears a striking resemblance to.

Construction on the station began in 1911 and it was opened the following year. It features 40-foot-high stone structure covered in terra-cotta tiles. It’s elevated tracks are considered an early example of intermodal design by accommodating both interurban electric trains as well as freight and transcontinental routes.

Former Oakland Mayor and congressman Ron Dellums credited the station for its role in The Great Migration calling it the “Ellis Island for the African American Community.”

The 16th Street Station at its peak of use (Photo Courtesy: John Signor).

The station’s vast history includes being the epicenter for labor organizing by the Pullman Porters who founded the first Black Union and are credited with boosting the Black middle class. Dellums’ uncle, Cottrell Laurence “C.L.” Dellums, was among the organizers of these efforts and is honored with a statue at the Jack London Station that reads “I am the Master of my fate / I am the Captain of my soul.”

The effort of the Pullman Porters are frequently cited by activists as the inspiration for modern movements that Oakland holds dearly including The Black Panthers.

A more comprehensive history of the station can be listened to on KQED’s Bay Curious Podcast.

A plaque at the JLS Amtrak Station honoring the efforts of C. L Dellums (Photo: HMdb.org).

1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake Damage Leads to Closure

The station was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and service was discontinued a few years later. New stations were built in Emeryville and Jack London Square mitigating the reliance on the former station for transit.

The site has since been used for television filming, private events, music videos, and even a Halloween attraction.

Much of E-40’s “Tell Me When To Go” music video was filmed at the station.

In this span, it’s been excessively tagged, vandalized, stripped, squatted in and ravaged by the sands of time.

Because of the deteriorating condition of the space, liability has become prohibitive to renting it as an event space.

The site currently stands as evidence to the “demolition by neglect” practice where restoration ultimately becomes financially unfeasible allowing local governments and developers to demolish these structures and avoid the additional expense and efforts of preservation.

Previous Restoration Efforts Thwarted

This is not the first time there has been optimism around preserving the station only to be thwarted.

Affordable housing nonprofit BRIDGE Housing acquired the site in 2005. Bridge intended to leverage redevelopment agencies to help foot the bill for the estimated $50 million needed for seismic retrofitting and historic restoration.

Redevelopment Agencies were eliminated by Governor Jerry Brown in the wake of the 2008 recession putting this and many other local projects in limbo.

Since then, the site has languished and slowly developed into the site of the region’s largest homeless encampment that the city and Caltrans have been fighting for years to dismantle.

Renderings of “The Signal” housing project proposed by City Ventures.

The site was next acquired by City Ventures in 2022 who want to build a 77-unit townhome project on the site dubbed “Signal House.”

OHA has attempted to engage with City Ventures and push for the adaptive reuse of the station into their plans. While not opposed to building housing on the site, OHA worries about the encroachment of the design and lack of a definitive plan to restore the station. “The [current] design does not respect the station or neighborhood,” Levy provided.

OHA is hoping to convince City Ventures to explore utilizing the federal tax credits this historic designation opens up as part of their vision for the space. Similar incentives have helped revive East Bay landmarks such as Oakland’s Fox Theater and Richmond’s Craneway Pavilion.

A recent tour by OHA showed the disrepair, but potential, of the facility (Photos: Daniel Levy).

Next Steps

The history and opportunity for the space are undeniable. Unfortunately, the costs for restoration might be prohibitive without help. Its unlikely this massive price tag will pencil out even for deep pocketed developers without some massive state and federal subsidies or an altruistic investor.

Brooklyn Basin developers renovated a portion of the 9th Avenue Terminal as part of their multifamily housing project.

OHA has also engaged the Academy of Art University Architecture program to come up with alternative designs for the station. They also held a recent community meeting to help activate interest in advocating for their ideas of adaptive reuse.

These current ideas for its reuse include an event space, technology hub or small business incubator.

With the proximity to a recently renovated Raimondi Park (home of the Ballers Pioneer League team) and the forthcoming Prescott Market Hall, it’s not difficult to imagine the area as a centerpiece of West Oakland’s renaissance.

Keep up with and support OHA’s efforts by joining their email list or becoming a paid member.

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Rob Arias

is a third generation Californian and East Bay native who lived in Emeryville from 2003 to 2021. Rob founded The E'ville Eye in 2011 after being robbed at gunpoint and lamenting the lack of local news coverage. Rob's "day job" is as a creative professional.

4 Comments

  1. The station is a reminder of the grandeur of buildings of the past – and imagine it being built in just a year. This is in stark contrast to the boring, tacky boxes being erected all over our cities today, seemingly inspired by the stacked containers on container ships.
    The reference to the Craneway Building in Richmond is a cautionary tale: the structure recently used for conventions and exhibits today has devolved into a pickleball court.

  2. Rob, after reading your great article I was encouraged to visit your web page. Lovely but the Contact link-https://rariasjr.com/contact/ – is broken.
    And site could use an update; marvelous material but nothing fresh.
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  3. A big step forward would be funding

    “Preserving” something that is crumbling is really just adding restrictions to the imaginary improvement process

    Is this something to pat ourselves on the back about ?

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