Oakland's Panoramic Interests Maximizes Walkability in New Pedestrianized Streets
About Panoramic Interests, Oakland, CA
Panoramic Interests specializes in innovative, infill development. Panoramic Interests has been building high-density infill development projects in the Bay Area since 1990. Its work in downtown Berkeley and San Francisco includes 15 projects, adding more than a 1,000 new units of housing, and 100,000 square feet of commercial space.
From 1998-2004, Panoramic built seven new mixed-use apartment buildings in downtown Berkeley, becoming the largest private landlord of UC Berkeley students. Equity Residential REIT purchased the portfolio in 2007, the largest real estate transaction in Berkeley’s history. Panoramic installed the first independently accessed, stacked, parking lifts in a commercial development in the U.S. (1995). It was also the first developer to incorporate on-premises City CarShare in its buildings (2001). All of its rental projects had rooftop gardens, energy-efficient designs, and ground floor retail space reserved for local businesses.
Panoramic has spent the last four years developing a design for stylish and efficient housing called CITYSPACE®. Its research included construction of a full-scale working prototype and construction of a four story pre-fab micro-apartment project at 38 Harriet Street, San Francisco. These units are Affordable by Design. The firm is currently building a car-free, high rise, micro-apartment building called The Panoramic, at 1321 Mission Street in San Francisco, one block from Twitter’s headquarters.
Challenge:
500 Kirkham is Panoramic’s proposed new workforce housing development, adjacent to the West Oakland BART station, in Oakland, CA. The project will comprise 1,032 apartments and 35,000 SF of flex/commercial space, in three buildings, separated by two new pedestrian streets. Panoramic Interests was challenged to find a unified metric system that could analyze and maximize the walkability and quality of place of two new proposed pedestrianized streets beside the new housing development.
Solution:
Panoramic Interests used the all-in-one State of Place software to analyze base conditions, create a scenario of their current development plan, and recommend improvements for walkability and ROI. State of Place also assisted Panoramic Interests in producing a scenario analysis of which a people-first public space alongside pedestrianized streets was imagined.
Results:
Using State of Place, Panoramic Interests is able to take full advantage of its proximity to the newly revitalized downtown Oakland, as well as the nearby BART station that directly connects residents to every station in the Bay Area. Ultimately, Panoramic Interests was able to conduct a baseline assessment of the urban design(s), create scenarios for optimal community and infrastructural impact, increase ROI, and improve walkability, safety and sense of place.
