BRIDGE Housing and Sun Light & Power teamed up to build a solar-powered affordable housing project at Central Station in Oakland.

Solar-powered affordable housing complex opens in Oakland

Ironhorse at Central Station stands at the center of a major reintegration of some 29 acres of abandoned former industrial land into the surrounding residential neighborhood. Central Station is a new master-planned undertaking by several developers, including BUILD, a BRIDGE affiliate. A total of more than 1,200 new homes will be constructed, along with new neighborhood-serving retail and the anticipated restoration of the historic 16th Street Station.

The general contractor on the $41.4-million Ironhorse project is J.H. Fitzmaurice Inc. of Oakland. Sun Light & Power is a design/build solar firm based in Berkeley.

Ironhorse provides 99 apartments for families earning up to 50% of area median income (ranging from $18,000 to $50,000). Ironhorse offers private decks, a community room, classroom space, laundry facilities, secure on-site parking and landscaped garden area and courtyard. Just adjacent to Ironhorse, 14th Street has been fully reconstructed to include a traffic-calming pocket park and pedestrian amenities.

Designed by architect David Baker + Partners of San Francisco, Ironhorse includes many sustainable building and landscaping measures, including vegetated “green roofs,” solar hot water panels to pre-heat domestic hot and two vegetated swales, which naturally filter and percolate rainwater captured from the roofs into the water table.