The nonprofit has now returned with plans to build a six-story, 119-unit apartment complex for households making between 30% and 80% of area median income as well as a three-story, 35,000-square-foot commercial building to include a market hall, cultural performance space and co-working and office space. The space would support community vendors, entrepreneurs and artists, BCZ Community Development CEO Carolyn “CJ” Johnson said Wednesday.
“We want to create neighborhoods,” Johnson said. “If you just build affordable housing, and there’s no way to build your strength economically, affordable housing will always have to be built for you. I don’t think that is our goal. Our goal is to build economic independence for folks that need below market rate housing.”
The project will retain the popular roller rink, Johnson said. A pre-application was submitted to the city Nov. 22. The Liberation Park project marks the first such proposal from the group, which has a goal of creating 10 Black cultural hubs, like the one it has proposed on Foothill Boulevard, in East Oakland. Black Cultural Zone Community Development wants to build at least 2,400 homes between those 10 projects, Johnson said. The group is currently looking for underutilized properties that could host between 80 and 300 homes, she told me.
BCZ Community Development is working toward a January 2024 groundbreaking at the Liberation Park site, Johnson said. It will seek to finance the development through a combination of tax credit financing and philanthropic donations, plus commercial loans to fill potential funding gaps.