Uber sells Uptown Station HQ to Oakland firm

Uber announced in August that it was putting Uptown Station up for sale without ever moving a single employee into its planned headquarters. The new mixed-use development, which was once the Sears building on Broadway, only recently shed its white plastic cocoon that enshrouded it during rehab.

And it didn’t take long for an interested buyer to start making eyes at the circa-1929 Beaux-Arts building.

Back in October, San Francisco Business Times reported that the Oakland-base investment firm CIM Group planned to buy the 356,000-square-foot building for $175 million.

As of Tuesday morning, CIM announced the sale via press release without mentioning the sale price. Spokesperson Karen Diehl tells Curbed SF, “CIM never discusses financial arrangements.”

Uber previously paid $123.5 million for the place, while putting millions more into the rehab.

According to CIM:

[CIM] will complete the redevelopment that is currently underway, transforming the 1929 era former department store into a 356,000-square-foot, eight-story Class-A creative office building.

[...] Uptown Station will also feature approximately 35,000 square feet of ground floor retail space. [...] The building will feature a multi-story atrium lobby and a grand paseo lined with shop space that is attractive to many retail and restaurant concepts.

The 1955 Broadway building started as an HC Capwell store in the 1920s, became a Sears in 1996, and then shuttered in 2014.

Lane Partners took on the job of renovating the dated and earthquake-battered building, conferring the Uptown Station name on it and trying to market the building as the hub of downtown Oakland’s future economy.

Ever since, the old place has existed in a limbo realm of remodel and redevelopment, gaining and losing Uber as a flagship tenant (and owner) before opening its doors.

CIM Group expects to finish renovations by late 2018.

• Uber To Sell Uptown Station [Curbed SF]
• Uber Takes Out $8 Million Permit In Oakland [Curbed SF]
• Uptown Station
• CIM Group To Buy Uber Building [SF Business Times]