The auction for the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital complex, which stretches
along Interstate 580 just south of Keller Road and north of the Oakland Zoo,
was expected to go as high as $50 million or $60 million. The final bid of
$100.5 million stunned federal and local real estate officials.
“We are pleasantly surprised — this was more fun than eBay,” said David
Haase, a realty officer with the federal General Services Administration, which
oversaw the auction. “We knew the market had increased, but this has certainly
exceeded our expectations.”

Although anyone could monitor online bidding, the actual names of the bidders remained anonymous. The name of the winning bidder will not become public until the bid is formally accepted, possibly as soon as next week, Haase said.

The City of Oakland offered $2 million for the site eight years ago, and by 2002 it upped its offer to $11 million. The federal government rejected the city, which had planned to turn the site over to a developer to build about 575 homes, saying that Oakland’s development plan did not qualify as a public use and therefore the property could not be sold at the below market rate. Seven acres were sold to an old Navy credit union and the Seneca treatment center. The rest was put up for auction.

Three years ago, the site was auctioned for $22 million, but the winner, a church that hoped to develop the property, didn’t have enough money to close the deal. The second-place bidder was the Seneca group, which offered $19 million but declined to buy it for $22 million.

Posted: 11|6|05 at 11:22 am. Filed under: US News.