A sprawling, century-old factory in West Oakland that once churned out Shredded Wheat by the boxcar has changed hands, with an affiliate of California Cereal Products paying just under $5.6 million for the property at 1267 14th Street in the Oak Center neighborhood. Documents recording the sale were filed with the Alameda County Recorder's Office on November 6.
A Deal Decades in the Making
The seller was J. Nikima Co., which had owned the factory property since buying the plant in 1994, according to The Mercury News, whose reporting on the transaction forms the backbone of what's known so far about the sale. California Cereal Products has said its cereal and grain products are sold nationwide under gourmet brand labels, and the company also expanded in 2006 by opening a larger facility in Macon, Georgia.
The factory itself has operated continuously for decades producing grains and related products, with one notable exception: a three-year hiatus that began in 1991. California Cereal Products said it began restoring and retrofitting the historic Oakland manufacturing facility in 1994, reopening the plant in the mid-1990s after the shutdown.
From Shredded Wheat to Modern Cereal
The building's roots stretch back more than a century. According to the Pacific Coast Architecture Database, the Shredded Wheat Company factory was built in Oakland between 1915 and 1916, opening its West Coast bakery in 1916 to begin production. The plant represented a total investment of $500,000. A 2012 account in the Mercury News described the March 15, 1917, event as marking the opening of the new Shredded Wheat Co. plant on 14th Street.
The factory was designed by architects Lewis P. Hobart and Charles Cheney, per the database, and features a Gothic-Revival exterior style, most notably around its entryway. The building is considered an Oakland landmark and historic resource and is included on a city study list for preservation, according to the Mercury News reporting.
The plant began operations at a moment when breakfast cereals were gaining popularity across the United States. Oakland wasn't universally thrilled at first: the Oakland Tribune ran a 1914 headline declaring “Factory Invades a Residence Section” about the then-proposed plant. Despite that alarm, the Tribune also reported that nearby property owners had made practically no complaints about the factory's location in a residential district, and local residents were described as sanguine about having the plant near their homes.
Nabisco's Decades-Long Run
Ownership of the Shredded Wheat Company itself changed in December 1928, when it was purchased by the National Biscuit Company — the firm now known as Nabisco, according to Oakland LocalWiki. Nabisco went on to operate the factory for decades until its 1991 shutdown, the same closure referenced in the Mercury News's historical account of the plant.
Tours have reportedly been allowed at the plant over the years. A 2011 blogger, Lisa Lau, described visitor rules that included wearing shirts with sleeves and hairnets, while cameras and jewelry were not permitted inside.
The reported transaction does mark another chapter for a building that has stood at the corner of Oakland's industrial and residential history for well over a century, having weathered a corporate sale, a multiyear closure, and a 1990s revival before this latest change in ownership.
