Avalon Bay: Another 100% Rental Housing Project Proposed for Emeryville

The San Francisco Business Times reports on the impending Avalon project, another 100% rental residential project slated for Emeryville.   San Pablo Avenue's Maz project, the Market Place development and the Sherwin Williams project are all new housing projects proposed at 100% rental.  Rental real estate is the new craze among profit seeking developers since the return on this kind of housing is so high right now.  Condos have been shown to be profitable in this market as well, but not as much as rental projects.  
So rental projects are what we're getting in Emeryville.  
Years from now people will look back on this latest construction boom and ask why there were so many 100% rental projects built during this time.  The answer will be that because of specific market peculiarities in the years 2013 and 2014, rental units turned out to be the best way for developers to maximize their profits at the time.
  
Read about the latest development to happen without planning oversight in our town as reported by the SF Business Times: 

Dec 12, 2013, 2:45pm PST

Avalon Bay dives into Emeryville with 260-unit project

 Blanca Torres

Reporter-

San Francisco Business Times

AvalonBay is working to entitle a 260-unit, eight-story apartment building in Emeryville that could break ground in 2015.

The developer is in contract to buy a 2.3-acre site at 6701 Shellmond St. and expects to get city approvals for the project by the middle of next year.

“The Emeryville, Oakland, Berkeley corridor is appealing,” said Jeff White, senior development director for AvalonBay. “We see good opportunities to provide as good or better quality of living as in San Francisco at substantially less cost.”

The project, right by the Ashby exit off Interstate 80, is next to Ex’pression College of the Arts and across Ashby from Berkeley's Aquatic Park.

MBH Architects came up with design to fit on a triangular site that is now home to a warehouse occupied by Nady Systems, a designer and maker of wireless microphones and other audio equipment.

The building will contain units ranging from studios to three bedrooms ranging from 770 to 1,525 square feet with views of the Berkeley Hills to the east and the bay to the west.

AvalonBay is also building a 94-unit building at the corner of Third and Addison streets in Berkeley, which is also off of Interstate 80 just one exit up from the Emeryville site.

The Berkeley project is next to an Amtrak station and within walking distance to the 4th Street retail corridor. The project was started by Archstone, a company that sold all its assets to Equity Residential and AvalonBay last year.

Blanca Torres covers East Bay real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.