GRAND APARTMENTS

376 Grand Avenue
Oakland, California

The Grand Apartments are a good example of the kind of property sought by Urban Development Partners. Typical of the architecture from the early 1900s through the 1940s, the building had a lot of inherent charm—attention to craftsmanship and detail was obvious in the construction. Aesthetically, the Grand Apartments only needed to be restored to have a beautiful building.

The Grand Apartments were purchased from a lender after there had been a default on the property loan. Few investors were interested in the property: following the 1989 earthquake, old brick buildings were required by California law to undergo expensive seismic retrofitting. Such buildings typically needed extension ties between floors, walls, and roofs, steel or concrete walls to eliminate lateral weakness, and steel or wood braces if walls weren't sufficiently thick relative to their height. Avi Ben-Zaken (one of UDP's principals) specialized in seismic retrofitting, and his company made all such improvements and more, restoring the Grand Apartments to the condition you see above.