Nearly eight years after the Ghost Ship fire killed 36 people, we have our first look at the plans for the two-building, five-story affordable housing complex being built to replace it in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, and it will have an on-site memorial.
We’re coming up on the eight-year anniversary of the tragic 2016 Ghost Ship fire that claimed the lives of 36 victims and led to years of courtroom drama. But we learned in May 2023 that the site of that ramshackle illegal warehouse-apartment and underground party space had been finally torn down, and the land purchased by a community development nonprofit called the Unity Council, who were planning to build an affordable housing complex at the Ghost Ship site at 3037 International Boulevard.
And now, 17 months after that announcement, the Chronicle reports that Unity Council has filed applications with Oakland’s Planning Department and has revealed their plans for the affordable housing complex at the Ghost Ship site. Renderings are seen above and throughout this post. According to SFGate, the two-building complex’s design comes from a Seattle-based design firm called Mithun, and a “Bay-Area-born, BIPOC architecture firm” called Yes Community Architects, which is headquartered in Berkeley.
While they have submitted renderings of what the apartment complex will look like, they have not revealed what the planned memorial to the 36 Ghost Ship fire victims promised as part of the complex will look like. That’s because they have not yet decided on a design for the memorial.
“The Unity Council, Mithun and Yes Community Architects are working collaboratively with this diverse group on the nature and location of a commemorative memorial element, and welcome additional involvement,” Mithun project architect Logan Kelley said in a statement to the Chronicle. “Details and design are not finalized and further coordination is ongoing.”
But the general architecture plans are finalized. Both buildings are slated to be five stories (60 feet) tall, and connected to one another by sky bridges. The parcel site is just shy of 19,000 square feet, while the housing project is an overall 77,000 square feet. There will be 58 units overall (22 one-bedrooms, 16 two-bedrooms, and 20 three-bedrooms), all of which will be “affordable,” or rather, priced to be affordable to those making 80% or less of the Area Median Income (AMI).
The submitted plans include a request for a tree-lined curb extension that “honors the victims of the warehouse fire tragedy with new growth, providing a respite to appreciate a commemorative art element that will be regionally visible from the BART trains and adjacent busy streets,” according to Kelley. The design also features a community courtyard between the two buildings that Kelley says “allows events to spill onto the street.”
These are all just submitted plans, and do not yet have a timeline attached. But this project is unlikely to be stalled by high construction costs and interest rates like so many other Bay Area housing projects. “As is typical with affordable housing,” Kelley told the Chron, “funding will come from various federal, state and local sources, as well as traditional construction loans.”
Related: Building That Was Site of Ghost Ship Fire Finally Razed, Site May Become Affordable Housing [SFist]
Image: Mithun and Yes Community Architects
