OAKLAND — A data center and artificial intelligence complex is under consideration for a floor inside a four-story office building in downtown Oakland. The plan would bypass a key city permit.
At 415 Thomas L. Berkley Way – 415 20th St. – in the Uptown neighborhood, the building previously was a supercomputing operation for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Because of that, the owner said some permit requirements shouldn’t be necessary.
“We respectfully request a letter of determination confirming that the owner’s proposed continued use of the property conforms to the site’s zoning and general plan designations and may proceed without a conditional use permit,” Colin Behring, chief executive officer of the business affiliate that officially owns the building, wrote in a letter to city planners. “The property’s established prior use as a data and research facility supports the conclusion that the proposed use is a continuation of a long-standing use at the site rather than a new or intensified one.”
An “information technology” and “data” site would operate on the first floor of the 82,900-square-foot building and would be a “supporting use” of the tenant operations within the structure.
According to the proposal, the remaining three floors would be devoted to “general office” use. The building is currently classified as such, city planning files show.
Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown (left), Berkeley Lab Director Chuck Shank (center), and James Decker of the U.S. Energy Department Science Office (right) officially connect the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory supercomputing and data storage complex at 415 20th Street in downtown Oakland to the federal Energy Sciences Network, as seen in 2001 (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
Sign bearing the name of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory’s former Oakland Scientific Center, 415 Thomas L. Berkley Way in downtown Oakland, as seen in February 2025.
(Google Maps)
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Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown (left), Berkeley Lab Director Chuck Shank (center), and James Decker of the U.S. Energy Department Science Office (right) officially connect the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory supercomputing and data storage complex at 415 20th Street in downtown Oakland to the federal Energy Sciences Network, as seen in 2001 (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
From 2000 to 2015, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory operated a supercomputer and data storage complex totaling 20,000 square feet inside the building. When it opened, an IBM device there at the time was considered the world’s most powerful unclassified supercomputer.
Now that a new data center may be inside, a political organization is circulating a petition to oppose the project.
“Data centers leave behind this track record of pollution and degradation,” Eisa Al-Shamma, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, said in an interview with this news organization. “They have negative impacts on the communities that they are put in.”
At 20,700 square feet, the data center would equate to 1.5% of the total size of the multibuilding complex of offices, retail and other commercial spaces totaling 1.4 million square feet that Behring hopes will be an innovation hub for downtown Oakland.