A 100-acre stretch of East Oakland shoreline is now the site of a plan to rebuild public access, add nonprofit office space, and restore tidal wetlands along San Leandro Bay. The project, known as the Oakport campus, sits across Interstate 880 from the Coliseum, on land long held by the East Bay Municipal Utility District.
Former Congresswoman Barbara Lee spoke about the project at the Oakport site, describing the area as a place that has been “fenced off, overlooked, and disconnected from the surrounding community,” according to NBC Bay Area. The plan calls for rebuilding one mile of shoreline and developing a 120,000-square-foot center that will house EBMUD operations alongside a distribution center for SupplyBank.org, the Oakland-based nonprofit that helps families with diapers, toiletries, and school supplies, per the station's report. EBMUD owns the underlying land and has leased it to SupplyBank.org for 65 years, the outlet notes.
A Nonprofit Hub Built in Phases
A second phase of construction would add a 160,000-square-foot center where other nonprofits could rent space at fixed, below-market rental rates, according to the same account. That second-phase building is designed as a five-story structure using sustainable mass timber construction, with a public lobby that directly links the campus to the San Francisco Bay Trail, according to Oakport.org.
SupplyBank.org describes itself as California's largest essential-goods charitable distribution network, serving more than 700 local agency partners.
Clearing Regulatory Hurdles
The project has already moved through several rounds of municipal and utility approval. The Oakland Planning Commission approved key site permits and environmental addendums in July 2023, and the EBMUD Board of Directors followed in March 2024 by approving the core 4.52-acre long-term site lease, according to filings logged with CEQAnet.
Even as new nonprofit and office space rises, EBMUD will retain a working presence on-site. Utility integration plans call for the agency to keep custom facilities including a new 10,000-square-foot weld shop, a 26,000-square-foot pipe rack structure, and a 12,000-square-foot storage bin for municipal water service equipment, according to planning documents filed with the City of Oakland.
Undoing Decades of Industrial Fill
The Oakport plan calls for permanently protecting 50 acres of seasonal wetlands, tidal marshes, and parklands integrated into the adjacent Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline, according to Oakport.org.
That shoreline spans 748 acres along San Leandro Bay and includes the 50-acre Arrowhead Marsh sanctuary, per Visit Oakland. Arrowhead Marsh provides bird habitat.
Getting Across the Freeway Divide
Project organizers have also pledged transportation fixes meant to address the access barrier created by I-880, which separates the shoreline from surrounding East Oakland neighborhoods. The development proposal commits to a privately funded BART shuttle to the Coliseum Station, along with public car-share and bike-share stations and EV charging facilities, according to filings submitted to Alameda County.
Hoodline has previously reported on a related but separate effort to connect East Oakland to this same waterfront: a $15M trail still years away from linking neighborhoods directly to the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline. Whether the Oakport campus's shuttle and Bay Trail connections succeed in bridging that freeway divide, and whether the second-phase nonprofit center can attract tenants at below-market rates amid a difficult commercial office market, remain open questions as the project moves through its multi-year build-out.
