The New Gold Rush: How AI Is Quietly Reshaping Oakland

Two of the biggest names in tech just leased space in the same West Oakland building — 48 hours apart. Here's why I think that matters more than the headlines let on.

In one wild week this August, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk both signed leases at the American Steel Blocks industrial campus in West Oakland — Bezos' Project Prometheus took 100,000 square feet, and Tesla followed just a day later with 40,000 more. Days after that, Behring Companies unveiled a new AI compute facility in Uptown. This follows OpenAI's earlier robotics lease across the bridge in Richmond.

Brokers are calling it a turning point after years of a sluggish post-pandemic commercial market. I've had clients ask me for two years whether West Oakland was worth a second look. This is the first time I've been able to say yes with real conviction.

The number that tells the real story

Here's the detail that stands out to me most: Behring bought its Uptown building for roughly $81 per square foot in December 2025. Hines paid $433 per square foot for that same building back in 2019, before scrapping plans for a 39-story office tower there in 2023. That's an 81% drop — and it's exactly why this cycle feels different. Sophisticated capital isn't speculating on office space anymore. It's buying real infrastructure at the bottom, betting on a new use for spaces that couldn't pencil out before.

Why this isn't just another "Oakland moment"

Longtime clients will remember Uber's big Oakland bet in 2015, which fizzled before the company ever moved in. Fair to be skeptical — but this time it's not one company's HQ decision that a single board vote could unwind. It's multiple independent players — Bezos, Tesla, Behring, and OpenAI — all chasing the same scarce resource: power capacity and big-floorplate industrial space that simply doesn't exist in San Francisco anymore, at any price.

Where I'd watch first

West Oakland is where the real spillover from this cycle is going to show up. It's not a neighborhood I'm guessing might benefit down the road — it's the actual site of the investment, the jobs, and the capital. Areas like Uptown, North Oakland, Temescal, Rockridge, and Berkeley are already well-established and highly competitive markets in their own right. West Oakland is the one place in this story that's still early.

The bottom line

This is still early-stage — not an overnight boom, and I want to be straight with you about that. But real infrastructure, real capital, and real jobs are exactly the kind of fundamentals that shift a neighborhood's long-term trajectory. If you're thinking about buying in West Oakland in the next few years, this is the moment to start paying attention.

Reach out and I'll walk you through where I'm seeing the earliest signals.

Nash Mittelman

Vanguard Properties

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