OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) — An Oakland City Councilmember says reports that Oakland is getting a massive data center are simply untrue. At a news conference Friday, Councilmember Carroll Fife was joined by the project’s developer to separate fact from fiction.
“We know of all of the concerns that have happened across the country with these large-scale mega facilities coming into low-income communities, people of color communities that don’t have the resources to push back,” Fife said. “That is not what is being proposed here,” she continued.
The project’s developer says what’s being proposed for 415 20th St. in downtown Oakland is an IT/data center on the 20,000-square-foot ground floor of the building, with offices on the top three floors for a yet-to-be-determined AI or tech company.
“The IT capability of the one single floor at the bottom is to try and attract a lot of people to come to downtown, set up shop, and then just have access to this as an amenity to keep their businesses up,” said project developer Colin Behring.
That type of development is not new for this building. In fact, for years, the ground floor housed a supercomputing research and data center for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, with researchers on the top three floors.
“Nothing has changed, and our proposal at this point is to use the same building, doing what it used to do the same way,” Behring said.
But talk of a data center has conjured up fears of a massive facility taking up acres of land. Now, an online petition has started circulating opposing all data centers in Oakland.
“We think that people should decide what’s in our communities, not these companies run by the ultra-rich,” said Aditi Varshneya, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation. “I’m sure if you ask most people who live or work or go to school in downtown Oakland, like I do, they say that they want something that actually benefits the community in that space, like affordable housing or a grocery store, not a data center.”
Councilmember Fife emphasized that is not what is happening here.
“My goal is to protect the community but also enhance the potential of economic development in my district,” she said.
The proposal remains in its early stages, and what goes in the building, who leases it and what role the City Council will play in reviewing it are all still to be determined.
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4.