Development of Former Oakland Army Base

摘要

The development of the former Oakland Army Base (Project) by the Port of Oakland and City of Oakland has required innovative funding, adaptable delivery methods and persistence in the face of extreme challenges to successfully bring the Project to the point of construction and delivery. This $1.2 billion Project will boost rail access and capacity at the Port, provide infrastructure to target near-term opportunities in manifest and bulk cargo and develop advanced intermodal container handling facilities to poise the Port of Oakland to take advantage of its deep channels and existing rail connections. The resulting global trade and logistics center is a project of national significance. The Port of Oakland is the only international trade gateway for the northern California mega-region; it is the leading U.S. export gateway on the west coast and it is the fifth-ranked U.S. seaport by containerized cargo movements. The federal Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission closed the Oakland Army Base (OAB) in 1993. The land was transferred to the City of Oakland (City) and Port of Oakland (Port) from 2003-2006. After two decades of strategic planning for the redevelopment of the base and the surrounding lands, the implementation of a bold vision to revitalize Oakland's working waterfront is nearing fruition. In order for the Port and City to implement this development in the midst of a global economic recession, they created a strategy of project phasing and multi-party public-private-partnerships (PPP). The Project is phased to focus initially on basic rail infrastructure; mainline connections, support rail yard and bulk/manifest delivery facilities (Phase 1). The plans for future Phase 2 include a wide-span gantry intermodal yard, necessary rail access enhancements to support the intermodal operations and other industrial land uses. The PPP includes City, private developer participation, as well as state and federal funding, which imposed stringent scheduling requirements on the Project. In order to meet these schedule milestones, the design-build delivery method was employed for portions of the Project. The design-build delivery method allowed the Project to be bid and initial elements of the construction to be underway in time to meet funding milestones. The Port has been planning for the redevelopment of the former OAB for decades and refers to the Port's portion of the Project as the Outer Harbor Intermodal Terminal (OHIT), which is the focus of this paper. The delivery of Phase 1 of OHIT required extensive coordination and collaboration among the Port, the City, private development partners, UPRR, BNSF and affected public and private utilities. This paper describes the intricate development and provides details of the engineering challenges that had to be addressed.