OAKLAND — A downtown Oakland office tower that is known as an “original highrise” for the East Bay city has been bought for an ultra-low price that represents a nosedive from the property’s prior values.

The Syndicate building at 1440 Broadway in downtown Oakland was bought for $5.5 million by an affiliate controlled by Frontline Realty Capital, according to documents filed on Jan. 27 with the Alameda County Recorder’s Office.

Entry lobby of The Syndicate office building at 1440 Broadway in downtown Oakland. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group)

The $5.5 million price that Frontline Realty Capital paid for the office tower is in stark contrast to the prior values for the 10-story office building, which was constructed between 1903 and 1911 and totals about 91,000 square feet.

Street-level view of The Syndicate office building, a 10-story highrise at 1440 Broadway in downtown Oakland. (Google Maps)

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The seller in the recent deal was an affiliate of BrightSpire Capital, which in 2023 took ownership of the highrise through a streamlined foreclosure process. The building’s value was $25.5 million at the time of that transaction.

Even the price paid by BrightSpire was a huge decline from the $43.5 million that the prior owner, Tidewater Capital, paid in 2018 to purchase the building.

Tidewater bought the building before the onset of the coronavirus in 2020 and the resulting business shutdowns that emptied countless office buildings nationwide.

Because of an uneven pace for employees to return to their work spaces, many office buildings continue to suffer brutally high vacancy levels and flat rental rates, which has helped to erode the value of the properties in numerous instances.

The 1440 Broadway office building is a fresh example of the region’s slumping property values.

California businessman and real estate executive Francis Marion “Borax” Smith constructed the building.

Smith made his fortune in the late 19th century by hauling borax from rich mines in Death Valley and Nevada, employing 20-mule teams across harsh deserts, arid valleys and forbidding mountain ranges.

Buoyed by that fortune, Smith turned his attention to creating a real estate empire in Oakland. Smith and his partner Frank Havens constructed numerous buildings, notably the Claremont Hotel, Hotel Oakland and the 1440 Broadway building.

The 1440 Broadway tower became the headquarters for The Realty Syndicate, a real estate and development firm that Smith and his partner founded. Smith and Havens also were the prime movers behind the famed Key System railway lines.

Yet even after The Realty Syndicate ceased operations during the 1929 stock market meltdown and the Key System’s last train crossed the Bay in 1958, the 10-story office tower on Broadway remained, a silent witness to some of Oakland’s rich history.

Among the ground-floor tenants in the historic tower: Oaklandish, a high-profile apparel store; Edible Happy Pizzeria; and Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken.

Orton Development, one of the building’s previous owners that in 2010 bought the historic tower and revamped it, praised the structure’s merits.

“This building, located in the heart of Oakland near city, state, and federal government offices, BART, and AC Transit, boasts Carrera marble interiors, high ceilings, large operable windows, and historic light fixtures and oak finishes,” Orton Development stated in a web post.