The owners of a 24-story office tower at the heart of downtown Oakland have defaulted on a loan carrying an unpaid principal balance of $194.1 million, according to documents filed with county officials this week. The affiliates, controlled by Swift Real Estate, bought the building at 1111 Broadway for $327.5 million back in 2021 — a price that now stands in stark contrast to the distress reflected in the new filings.
According to The Mercury News, the documents were filed with the Alameda County Recorder's Office on October 21, confirming that the owners of the landmark tower are in default on the multimillion-dollar loan. The loan, which had an original principal of $218.5 million, was provided in 2021 by a business entity based at the New York City offices of investment firm Brookfield Partners, the same report states. The size of the tower itself has been described differently across public records — The Mercury News has cited figures of 572,300 square feet and, in a separate photo caption, 564,700 square feet, while a 2021 announcement from Swift Real Estate put the total at 565,877 square feet and property-records site PropertyShark lists 617,980 square feet — but the scale of the default is not in dispute.
Part of a Wider Pattern of Downtown Distress
This default is not an isolated event. The Mercury News reports that multiple other office buildings, apartment towers and hotels in downtown Oakland have suffered failed financing or foreclosures in recent years, a trend the outlet says poses a threat to property values and the tax revenue streams crucial to public agencies.
Among the most visible casualties is the historic 22-story Tribune Tower at 409 13th Street, whose owner is also in loan default. That building has been forced into receivership and faces foreclosure, per the same report.
Marriott and Clorox Buildings Already Changed Hands
Other downtown towers have already passed to their lenders. The 500-room Oakland Marriott City Center at 1001 Broadway is now owned by a lender after foreclosure of its site loan in July 2025 valued the tower at just $70.2 million. A lender also now owns the 24-story Clorox Building at 1221 Broadway following a foreclosure in June that placed a $258.3 million value on the property, according to the same Mercury News account — a valuation that The East Bay Times attributes to an affiliate of Heitman Capital Management as part of a foreclosure the outlet describes as one of the latest signs that loan failures and fading values have begun to affect a growing number of office buildings in the city.
The distress extends beyond office towers. In Uptown, the 98-unit Telegraph Arts apartment building was acquired by a subsidiary of CW Capital at a foreclosure auction for roughly $31.1 million — nearly 50% below its assessed value in January 2025 — according to a separate Mercury News report. And the historic Parker Electric Manufacturing building at 221 Washington Street was seized by its lender through a foreclosure process tied to a failed real estate loan, the East Bay Times reported in September.
Vacancy Pressures and a City Weighing Its Options
The owners of 1 Kaiser Plaza also defaulted on a loan during the week of July 22, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, which listed the Clorox Building, the Zo Oakland apartment building and three office buildings owned by Starwood Capital Group among the properties that have gone through foreclosure. The Chronicle reported downtown's vacancy rate at 30% in the prior quarter, a sharp rise from single-digit vacancy in 2019, while the Mercury News separately reported that downtown office vacancies climbed to 26.5% in the first quarter of 2026, up six percentage points from two years earlier.
The backdrop to all of this is a city budget still reeling from years of depressed transfer-tax revenue tied to the broader downturn, though a $1 billion real estate transaction in 2025 pushed Oakland's total annual transfer tax revenue 26.5% higher than projected, according to the nonprofit policy group SPUR. San Francisco officials floated a comparable foreclosure tax in June, estimating it could generate roughly $67 million annually in its first three years, per the Chronicle's reporting.
Property records tied to defaults like the one at 1111 Broadway are filed with the Alameda County Recorder's Office, which indexes accepted documents for public retrieval under California law. Members of the public can search those real-property records in person during office hours, and anyone unable to visit can send a representative or work through a title company, according to the Alameda County Auditor-Controller's office.
