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Oakland Attractive to Young Tech Companies

Designed by Bill Valentine, this 27-story building has 490,000 square feet of office space and a spectacular view of Lake Merritt and the San Francisco Bay.

Though the details of the deal were left undisclosed, there is much speculation that Oakland is on its way to becoming California’s newest developing tech hub.

With San Francisco nearing capacity many start-ups and small to midsized tech companies are beginning to recognize Oakland as an attractive alternative and with much cheaper rent.

Executive Editor at GigaOm, Tom Krazit, says that Oakland is in the perfect place to attract companies that would like to maintain their urban setting without going broke from outrageous rent prices.

Krazit believes that Oakland shouldn’t underestimate itself as far as its potential for attracting major tech companies. Though he’s fairly certain tech giants like Google and Apple probably won’t go anywhere, he believes younger companies Box or Evernote could help create a trend by setting up shop in the Oakland area.

However, not everyone is fully on board with the notion that Oakland will fully transform into the kind of tech hub imagined by Krazit. James Robinson, Oakland resident and writer for PandoDaily, believe that Oakland is simply too dangerous and too hard to get to for commuting San Franciscans.

Whether you happen to side more with Robinson or Krazit, it will be interesting to see what kind of transformations Oakland will witness this year.

By Michael Bain is an analyst for Better New Homes: http://newhomes.move.com/