{"id":260354,"date":"2026-04-10T01:46:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T01:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/260354\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T01:46:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T01:46:24","slug":"bakersfield-luxury-apartment-plan-draws-skepticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/260354\/","title":{"rendered":"Bakersfield luxury apartment plan draws skepticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK\/KBFX) A planned luxury apartment complex in downtown Bakersfield is drawing fresh debate about what kind of housing the city needs most and what it\u2019s like for people already living in the area.<\/p>\n<p>Some residents responding to the project on the Eyewitness News Facebook page said they would rather see more affordable housing downtown. <\/p>\n<p>Comments included, \u201cYou can\u2019t pop up luxury buildings with homeless on the sidewalks\u201d and \u201cThousands of people in Bakersfield need affordable housing near essentials.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For at least one downtown resident, safety and quality-of-life concerns are part of the picture. <\/p>\n<p>Cordero Martin said he has had multiple negative encounters since moving downtown.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Bakersfield luxury apartment plan draws skepticism (KBAK\/KBFX){ }{p}{\/p}\" class=\"ImageEmbed_image__qZBo_\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4921167a-133f-4387-aceb-9b0613891bea-cue.jpg\"\/>Bakersfield luxury apartment plan draws skepticism (KBAK\/KBFX){ }<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I first moved here, I actually did get assaulted twice by two random individuals and I\u2019ve been verbally and racially accosted by just people driving across the road,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n<p>He said he is now looking to move away from the area.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve lived here almost two years. I would\u2019ve left earlier but I was going through some things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Downtown Bakersfield already has two luxury apartment complexes less than half a mile away from each other. <\/p>\n<p>The location for the new Greyhound Flats is next to the existing New Yorker Vintage Apartments.<\/p>\n<p>CSUB economics professor Dr. Richard Gearhart said the market for new luxury units may be tied to economic changes since the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPost COVID Bakersfield has actually seen a pretty significant explosion in both wages and incomes,\u201d Gearhart said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Bakersfield luxury apartment plan draws skepticism (KBAK\/KBFX){ }{p}{\/p}\" class=\"ImageEmbed_image__qZBo_\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4921167a-133f-4387-aceb-9b0613891bea-cue.jpg\"\/>Bakersfield luxury apartment plan draws skepticism (KBAK\/KBFX){ }<\/p>\n<p>Gearhart said the new apartments could cater to people who moved to Bakersfield from places like Los Angeles and the Bay Area during the pandemic and are accustomed to denser, urban living.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause that\u2019s usually where they\u2019re used to living and where they\u2019re used to working in more kind of dense urban environments than the suburban brawl we\u2019re seeing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He also addressed concerns about gentrification in downtown Bakersfield.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGentrification is not necessarily a bad thing if it&#8217;s paired to economic revitalization. Because downtown 10 years ago was essentially dead in the water,\u201d Gearhart said.<\/p>\n<p>He also noted that more locals could have incentives to live downtown due to more revitalization efforts.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Bakersfield luxury apartment plan draws skepticism (KBAK\/KBFX){ }{p}{\/p}\" class=\"ImageEmbed_image__qZBo_\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/70012178-22c7-48ea-b30c-e2e0c92401dc-17th.jpg\"\/>Bakersfield luxury apartment plan draws skepticism (KBAK\/KBFX){ }<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s because there is a lot of economic revitalization going on downtown, and there&#8217;s a lot more eating places, leisure places and it&#8217;s become a lot more walkable,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK\/KBFX) A planned luxury apartment complex in downtown Bakersfield is drawing fresh debate about what kind&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":{"0":"post-260354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bakersfield","8":"tag-bakersfield","9":"tag-bakersfield-headlines","10":"tag-bakersfield-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}