LIVE THE TOWN.

Dear Oakland,

We love you. There we said it. Feels much better to come right out with it before we say anything else. We love you for so many reasons - you’re diverse, passionate, and creative - you make us feel special. You make the Bay Area feel special. You stand for equity and opportunity while the world around us seems to just stand by as equality and opportunity pass by. We’d do anything to be with you. So we’re giving you our heart, our imagination, and our soul. Please meet The Town Hotels.

EcoArt Lodge inside Redwood Water Tank

Regenerative Hospitality

The EcoArt Lodge is a “Regenerative Hospitality” hotel suite at the O2 Artisan Aggregate (O2AA) community in West Oakland. O2AA was purchased by our team of women and BIPOC community leaders in 2022. O2AA is a 20-year-old eco-industrial park, home to a network of 40+ artisans and manufacturing entrepreneurs working to collectively develop environmentally regenerative projects. Surrounded by a rooftop urban farm, the Lodge will be built using recycled woodmill lumber inside a giant reclaimed Redwood water tank––many of which are being replaced as California upgrades its wildfires defenses. The farm will have an organic vegetable garden, chickens, a vintage windmill, and a view overlooking the Bay Bridge and the entire 2.25-acre property, which includes an event venue, cafe, plant nursery, wood mill, soba restaurant, and other sustainability startups, like Biobank (fabricating biogas-capturing composting toilets) and ALL Power Labs’ carbon-negative energy system supplying all the electricity and heat for the Lodge using woodmill waste while sequestering carbon in the form of biochar soil enhancer. The diverse community of artists, craftspeople, builders, producers, and residents of West Oakland gathers at O2AA. The Lodge profits will support O2AA as a neighborhood town square offering publicly-accessible, curated experiences of West Oakland’s creativity and vitality. EcoArt Lodge will be an ecologically-regenerative, socially-uplifting hospitality experience and Oakland landmark.

Floating ArtLodge: Xochimilco to Oakland

Immersed in Culture

The Floating ArtLodge Project, the collaborative design & construction of a hotel stay on Oakland’s Lake Merritt, creates an unforgettable experience for adventurous SF Bay Area visitors and residents alike. The project celebrates local Chicano culture and creates a unique tie between Oakland and Mexico City via artisan cultural exchange. Boatbuilders from Xochimilco and local Oakland artists and builders will work in residence at the historic Lake Merritt Sailboat House to design and build an eco-friendly lodging room inspired by the Trajinera, a traditional brightly colored party-boat for visitors and locals cruising the canals of Xochimilco, Mexico City’s ancient water gardens. The lodge will be designed for use in both Oakland and Mexico City - and guest/resident artists will host hands-on workshops for both the local community and Floating ArtLodge guests. Like the Trajineras, the ArtLodge will be adorned with local flowers and built with reclaimed materials to harmonize with the natural environment. Future plans include creating floating wetlands that pay tribute to the Chinampas of Xochimilco and benefit the Lake’s ecosystem. Guests waking up on the water will have all they need to cruise scenic Lake Merritt, a uniquely located oasis in the heart of Oakland. Have breakfast overlooking the bird sanctuary, float the day away in your hammock, or take in the sunset & stars by lantern light with friends, music, and local cuisine after a busy day exploring the Bay.

Porters & Poets

Revolutionary Heritage

West Oakland was home to not just one but two foundational organizations of the civil rights movement: the Black Panthers and the lesser known, International Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. The Porter’s West Coast Headquarters was Oakland’s historic Central Station on 16th Street in West Oakland. The legacy of the Porters has been documented in books, films, scholarly articles, and in museums. Porters & Poets will animate this legacy in the form of a social enterprise pop-up hotel that will serve as proof-of-concept for a potential permanent redevelopment of the Station. The Central Station legacy and its site provide the chance to create one of the most unique destination experiences in the Bay Area, including a one-of-a-kind hotel, only-from-the-East Bay retail, and Made-In-Oakland food and beverages. This initial phase of Porters & Poets consists of a restored Pullman Porter sleeping car. The sleeping car will be situated in an oasis of outdoor rooms shaped by stands of bamboo pods and to be used for performances, film screenings, meetings and gatherings, and art exhibits. The existing permanent structures (the Baggage Wing, the Waiting Room, the Platforms, and the Tower) will be managed for one-off and temporary uses, e.g. a community resource fair in the Waiting Room, a pop-up beer garden on the Platforms, and an art exhibit in the Baggage Wing. Porters & Poets demonstrates the possibilities for communities to design and lead  inclusive neighborhood-revitalization.

The RidgeLine

Fresh Perspective

Merritt College in the Oakland Hills has a spectacular panoramic view of the Bay Area, facing due West and looking out almost directly across to the Golden Gate. At 873 feet above sea level, the RidgeLine Hotel at Merritt will be the highest elevation hotel in the Bay Area and offer unrivaled views spanning past Silicon Valley and beyond Mount Tamalpais. The RidgeLine is a first-of-its-kind NatureBnB Training Hotel. It builds on the educational offerings of Merritt and its sister school, Laney College, including Hospitality, Culinary Arts, Landscape Horticulture, Arts/Communication, and Business & Real Estate. It will nurture a next generation of farm, nature, and open space-based hospitality operators, giving diverse and underrepresented entrepreneurs hands-on training so they can develop their own unique NatureBnB experiences that weave together nature and hospitality. RidgeLine guests will enjoy a suite built into a 70’-tall reclaimed wildfire lookout tower perched high above the San Francisco Bay. It will sit alongside the Landscape Horticulture fields, where NatureBnB operators-in-training will be able to design and cultivate their vision for unique experiences giving guests a glimpse of hospitality magic. Laney’s Culinary Arts Program will work with operators-in-training to design food and beverage programs based on what is grown on site. Just minutes from downtown Oakland and SF,  yet a world away, the RidgeLine will become Oakland’s unique version of Single Thread Farms.

Legendary Palace

Legendary Stay

Legends, modern and mythical , woven into the art, décor and ambiance of this hotel which is destined to be the flagship hotel of the Legends Hotel Concept – hotels that celebrate the legends of communities. The Legendary Palace is a landmark , built in 1924, in one of the world’s oldest Chinatowns – in Oakland, California. The building itself has a colorful history as the hangout for local community leaders as well as mob leaders. Guests at the hotel can let their imagination flow and visualize walking straight into a legendary experience simply by taking in the design and the interactive art installations. Guests staying at the Legendary Palace will be immersed in thousands of years of Chinese mythical legends and invited in to celebrate the more modern Chinese American Legends of Oakland and the Bay Area : Bruce Lee, Amy Tan, Maxine Hong-Kingston, Ally Wong, Frank Chin, Kristen Chen, Jeff Chang… The Legends Hotel concept is about celebrating the heroes of the many cultures that have influenced American culture. The Legendary Palace’s architecture and central location make it the ideal location for leisure travelers as well as business travelers. It is walking distance to Jack London Square, retail shopping areas , business offices and some of the best restaurants. Guests who would rather spend time inside the hotel will also be able to enjoy dining at the upscale Singaporean Hawker alley food experience and cocktail bar. The hotel alone is the experience, the location makes it even better.