The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) board of directors recently approved the purchase of a building in Oakland for its police headquarters, with renovation and seismic upgrades potentially pushing the price to more than $125 million when the agency is faced with approximately $300 million in annual operating deficits and unfunded capital needs of nearly $16 billion over the next 10 years.
The agency made the decision after discussions regarding renovating its current location on 8th Street in the Lake Merritt area of Oakland, where it has been since 2017, was dismissed.
“Total costs of the proposed building will exceed $1,000 per square foot when complete, for a 42-year-old structure that will still be a 42-year-old structure when upgrades are complete,” BART Director Debora Allen told The Epoch Times Dec. 1. “The board’s approval … represents a continuation of poor decision making I have witnessed from the seven-member majority of this nine-member board over the last seven years.”
BART is in the process of purchasing its new location, currently owned by Kaiser Permanente, at approximately $245 per square foot—with renovations expected to increase costs by 307 percent.
The agency is agreeing to buy the new 105,000-square-foot property with a five-story building built in 1982 located downtown at 2000 Broadway, near Chinatown, for approximately $26 million—with estimates of nearly $100 million for retrofitting and facility upgrades to accommodate the agency’s police headquarters.
Some transit officials believe a move is needed to fulfill agreements made with the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation—a nonprofit commercial and housing developer—in January 2019.
That agreement is to demolish the existing police headquarters to develop a 500,000-square-foot office building and about 500 housing units, approximately 25 percent of the prior and 40 percent of the latter designated as affordable, according to agency documents.
The Lake Merritt location was developed in 1984 between BART, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and the Association of Bay Area Governments, with BART buying out the others in 2017 to use the site temporarily as its police headquarters until it could be developed as commercial and residential, BART’s general manager wrote in a May 2016 memo to the board.
Critics of the new plan—including two dissenting boardmembers Ms. Allen and Director Liz Ames—questioned the cost of changing locations and recommended renovating the existing headquarters.
They received pushback from agency officials who argued that costs would be approximately equal for either option.
Asked to vote on a proposal with limited budget estimates provided, one director described the process of obtaining information from agency staff as frustrating, suggesting inquiries that she and Ms. Ames introduce are, at times, deflected.
“All of this comes back to a tremendous lack of transparency and response by the BART staff to certain directors,” Ms. Allen said. “We can’t get our questions answered, and when we do, it just gives us even more questions.”
Having come to the board with a real estate and accounting background, she noted a need for more thorough discussions and debate regarding the transit agency’s operating and capital budgets, saying there is a lack of oversight pertaining to real estate data.
“The integrity of BART’s real estate data is very poor, in my mind,” Ms. Allen said.
Ms. Ames urged the board to prioritize the $20 billion in infrastructure needs facing the agency and said the group has a fiduciary duty to thoroughly investigate cost savings opportunities on all proposals.
“We have a moral commitment to invest in our existing infrastructure,” she said during the board meeting. “We have an immense backlog, and we’re using … money to finance a new facility, but we never looked at rolling back the [project] or using the [existing] building as an option.”
Such proposals should be clearly outlined for public review, with accurate estimates and cost projections included, she said.
“I wanted to see these options to show the public we did our due diligence,” Ms. Ames told fellow directors. “I don’t see how the public is going to gain confidence in our managing of our finances.”
According to BART, the figures used to determine the costs—where both buildings need renovation and seismic upgrades—were approximations and not based on quotes or proposals from contractors.
“The upgrade costs are only rough estimates at this point,” James Allison, BART’s media relations manager, told The Epoch Times by email Dec. 1. “There are no documents or comparison quotes at this stage.”
Some questioned the approval of the new location without having comprehensive documentation supporting claims of similar costs for the projects.
The agency’s media team, however, called the move a “game-changer” and a significant opportunity for transit and housing in the area.
“In general, the relocation of BART police headquarters represents a rare win-win opportunity for rider safety and affordable housing,” Mr. Allison told The Epoch Times in an email. “Moving to a new state-of-the-art headquarters in the heart of downtown Oakland will allow the BART [police department] to increase its overall effectiveness and responsiveness.”
While negotiating the buyout of the existing building, it was seen as a good fit for the police, according to a November 2016 memo sent from Robert M. Powers, BART’s assistant general manager, to the board of directors.
“This purchase will provide adequate space and facilities for [BART police] that meet their needs and requirements,” Mr. Powers wrote. “The building was selected because it provided the best location and building amenities to meet [the department’s] space criteria.”
At the time, they agreed the location would be temporary, with plans for development initiated in 2018 and agreements with the development company signed the following year that some feel should be honored.
“We have a commitment to the community to allow [the development firm] to redevelop,” Val Menotti, BART’s chief planning and development officer, said during the meeting.
BART police supported the measure and said such a change was necessary, suggesting that the renovated new facility would allow the department to retain and recruit talent.
The purchase is expected to close in August 2024 after the current tenants evacuate the building.
Those critical say the agency’s budget woes need to be considered before such large outlays of cash are approved, especially given low ridership numbers—less than half pre-pandemic totals, according to BART data—that continue to plague operating budgets.
“I fully support the operations and expansion of the operations of our BART police department. However, we must make decisions based in the reality of BART’s current death spiral financial picture for both operating and long-term capital needs,” Ms. Allen told The Epoch Times. “On one hand, we see BART’s scarce financial resources being diverted to yet another real estate re-development deal by this board; on the other hand, we have BART conducting an enormous PR campaign to convince legislators and taxpayers that BART needs another $300 million annually just to fill its ongoing transit operating deficits, in perpetuity.”
