Company Worth Billions Forcing Oakland Non-Profit’s Relocation
ScanlanKemperBard (SKB), a Portland based real estate development company, has chosen to end a license agreement that will soon force Attitudinal Healing Connection (AHC), a Black led arts education non-profit, to leave West Oakland’s American Steel Studios.
On November 2, AHC received a notification from SKB informing them December 3 would be the last day they’ll be allowed to continue occupying the space where they currently do administrative work and host classes. The non-profit’s leadership is frustrated with the timing of the forced move and the manner in which they say SKB is handling the situation. Over three dozen local businesses, non-profits, schools and individuals including Youth Spirit Artworks, Hoover Elementary and District 3 City Council Member Carroll Fife have signed on to support them in their objections.
“These kinds of businesses are coming in without any thought of community benefit,” said AHC’s Executive Director, Amana Harris. “I feel like them giving us a 30 day notice during the holidays is unacceptable.”
SKB’s Principal President, Todd Gooding, said that after purchasing American Steel Studios in late September, the company needs onsite office space to manage 30 million dollars worth of demolition and reconstruction. It’s the first move in a project that will eventually transform the entire site into spaces for software and science manufacturing companies, high end artists, and a few restaurants. AHC happens to be in the space Gooding says his company urgently needs to occupy first.
“We’re not singling them out,” Gooding said. “The building they’re in is not very well occupied and it happens to be the first building that we’re going to start work on.”
While they both want to use the same space, SKB and AHC are different in terms of their size, purpose, and who they work with. SKB has over 4.7 billion dollars of assets. They claim to have established relationships with 20 institutional partners that manage over two trillion dollars in combined investments. Their website says they “acquire, manage, and transform commercial properties into profitable, risk-adjusted returns for select high-net-worth individuals, family offices, trusts, and institutional investors.” They boast that they have “a single minded commitment to create and preserve wealth” for their investors and themselves.
Compared to SKB, AHC’s wealth is tiny. Tax documents show the non-profit had about $630,000 in assets in 2020. Their mission statement says AHC “empowers individuals to be self-aware and inspired through art.” Since their founding over 30 years ago in West Oakland, the non-profit says they’ve served about 60 local at risk schools and their communities and over 50,000 children, youth and families.
One person AHC has served is a young artist named Nikko Cabrera. He first connected with their programs in Oakland’s West Lake Middle School, and continued to work with them until he graduated high school.
“I feel like a lot of young artists struggle with motivation,” said Cabrera. “But whenever I went to their programs I was able to just dive right into my art.”
During Cabrera’s freshman year, when his older brother died tragically, he made an art project through AHC about the situation that helped him heal. He thinks AHC has helped him not only with art but with confidence and connection to nature.
According to Harris, AHC had already been planning to leave American Steel Studios before SKB showed up. She thinks ownership of a space will offer AHC more stability and opportunity to thrive, so the non-profit started looking for a place to buy, instead of rent, about six months ago. They found a spot they feel will work well, and they’re about to launch a fundraising campaign to purchase and renovate it. To ensure a smooth transition, AHC had planned to take a little over year with the campaign and renovations. Originally, January 2023 was their projected date to leave American Steel Studios.
SKB has proposed a different plan. They’ve offered to pay to move AHC into a space in The Peralta Building, another nearby building the company has purchased. The space is around the same size the non-profit currently occupies and rental costs would be the same.
“We bent over backwards to accommodate them,” said Gooding.
But Harris disagrees and sees being forced to move by December 3 as interrupting the classes they teach and their fundraising work.
“I feel like we’re being jerked around without consideration for the kind of work we do,” said Harris. “It’s mid-year and we’re in the trenches of our programming. And we’re moving into the season of giving that non-profits rely on for fundraising.”
Gooding and Harris also disagree on the suitability of the new space SKB is having the non-profit move into. Gooding claims that since it’s close by and a similar size and rental cost to the space AHC currently uses, it’s a good option for the non-profit. But Harris describes it as “dirty and really rough,” and that it would take a lot of cleaning to make it serviceable for the work AMC does.
When this writer visited The Peralta Building space, they saw stained carpets, dirty floors, peeling paint, as well as a few holes in the walls. During the visit, an SKB representative said that the company planned to clean the place up and repaint it before AHC moves in, but that they couldn’t start that work until the exiting tenant, Starline Supply Company, fully moves out at the end of this month. Harris is doubtful SKB can make the place serviceable for AHC’s needs by December 3 and thinks fixing it up would take months of work.
Unsatisfied with SKB forcing them to suddenly move and the solution the company has proposed, Harris is asking that AHC receive financial recompense. SKB, in turn, is unhappy with the amount Harris requested.
“Once she said AHC wants half a million dollars, the conversation broke down,” said Gooding. “We’re willing to work with her. But she was so entitled with her demands that the discussions broke down.”
Harris feels her ask was reasonable and that half a million dollars is not much money for a multi-billion dollar company, although it’s an amount that would do tremendous good for helping AHC to stay and thrive in West Oakland.
“I think they need to understand that they don’t get to just come in and roll over the community as they please,” said Harris. “If we can give back to this community and we don’t have billions of dollars, so can they. [SKB] should give back in a meaningful way.”
Note: A similar version of this article will soon appear on The Post News Group’s website, and a shorter version will appear, in print, in The Oakland Post.