Welcome to 2022!  In 2019, we asked the question: What could a regenerative Black economy look like?  What would ground it, who would be a part of it, and what could sustain it?  Little did we know that our ambitious vision to liberate Esther's Orbit Room, a long defunct historic Black Jazz and Blues club, would touch such a critical place on the psycho-geographic landscape for new and old Oaklanders alike, and that support for a revitalized Black economy on 7th Street would come in like a rising tide hungry to replenish the parched land.

At the onset of 2021, amongst the most insecure periods in American history, we committed ourselves to the Esther’s Orbit Room Cultural Revival Project.  This campaign was sure to be a labor of love.  We thought that if we were lucky and diligent, by the end of 2021 we might own Esther’s Orbit Room, and squeak past our capital goals.  But our community blew this campaign out of the water!  Each and every one of YOU, our EB PREC community, came together to vision, share, champion, donate, buy shares, pray, dream, and lift up the importance of the Esther’s project not only for West Oakland, but for our nation; for our hopes to build an authentic, replicable, justice-based model for #LandWithoutLandlords. 

With a combination of equity investments, philanthropic dollars, and low- to 0-interest debt, we exceeded our original $4.9 million dollar goal, and acquired Esther’s Orbit Room!

THANK YOU to all our Community Owners, our Investor Owners, our kick-ass Staff Collective, and the mission aligned capital community authentically responding to our call for reparative capital.  We’d like to extend a BIG shout out to the Kataly Foundation, Chordata Capital, the San Francisco Foundation, Community Vision and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Center for Cultural Innovation, RSF Social Finance, and Candide Group, amongst many other generous supporters.  Thank you all—with your support, we now collectively own Esther’s together.

So what’s next for Esther’s?

With this groundswell of support, we are ready to implement all of our ambitious plans to revitalize the historic Esther’s Orbit Room. 

• We completed the purchase of Esther’s Orbit Room on September 30th, 2021!
• We are in the midst of a community design process in partnership with Architect Prescott Reavis from Kulima Design.  Are you a part of the West Oakland and Oakland Black Arts & Healing communities?  Stay tuned for online and in person engagements January through March; and check out this walk-through video to see the inside of  Esther’s.
• We are searching for our commercial co-owners who will operate, enliven, and co-steward the Esther's Orbit Room Cultural Revival Project. (email ojan@ebprec.org if interested)
  • We have raised over $600k in philanthropic dollars to support our future commercial co-owners’ tenant improvements, business development and runway to launch!
• We are preparing the space for activation in 2022 before the rehabilitation starts (like proper exit signs and smoke alarms for safety at pop-up events and movie screenings).
• We are working to complete  final design & permitting by the end of the year, so we can break ground on the rehabilitation in 2023.

What else does 2022 hold?

Because of the way you all have shown up for Esther’s, 2022 is sure to be one for the books—our 2022 goals include: 

• We seek to bring another $7 million worth of housing and land into collective Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Ownership through EB PREC’s land and housing fund.
  • We are searching for a 5-15 unit apartment building for our next acquisition.  Hit us up if you have any leads to share.
  • To learn more about how you can support our Fund, see our Investor page here, and our Offering page here.
• In Deep East Oakland, our new Anti Displacement team, partners in the Better Neighborhoods Same Neighbors initiative, is launching a resource space on 94th and East 14th (aka, International ;-).  This is an awesome expansion and rooting of the cooperative vision and infrastructure in the Deep East Oakland.  Check out our working wishlist here!
• Our staff and Community Owners have been building out our Owner Group process, making it easier for community members to join the cooperative and co-create a robust pathway to acquisition and collective ownership, launching in early 2022.  Become a Community Owner to participate, and stay updated by joining the Member Network and/or Community Listserv.
• We have raised a $100k fund to support small arts and civic improvement grants across West and East Oakland.  Program details to be announced soon.  Your projects are welcome!

Now here we are, these first weeks of 2022, with many successes and as the new owners of a historically Black mixed-use property saved from the brink of gentrification, exceeding our campaign goals in the process.  Do you know what this means?  This means we can do exactly what we committed to do when we launched back in December 2018.  We will liberate more land with more people.  We will pay a living wage for our staff members, and move at a respectful pace.  We will create community power and permanent affordability.  We will support more members of our community in creating cooperative, non-violent, regenerative practices, and commit to the long-term work of stewarding relationships with one another.  We will continue this journey of healing and transformation to embody cooperation, and the future we want to create together.

-- with love, gratitude and excitement, the EB PREC Staff Collective <3

EB PREC in the Media!

ARTICLE | This Oakland co-op wants to revive the legendary Esther’s Orbit Room and the Seventh Street corridor | Revitalization without displacement? The East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative is trying to bring back a thriving BIPOC economic and cultural hub in West Oakland.

ARTICLE | Historic Oakland Club to Get New Life as Housing Art Space

ARTICLE | Oakland Co-op Buys Historic Esther’s Orbit Room Space | The revitalization of Esther’s, and EB PREC’s mission, has a deep personal connection for Session, EB PREC’s executive director and a Black, third generation West Oaklander who has struggled to keep her childhood home.

ARTICLE | Meet the co-op activists who are changing Oakland’s real-estate game | Today, the real-estate cooperative’s community, investor and staff owners hope that their project will help restore the district’s vitality, necessity, and cultural glory.