By Jennifer Inez Ward

In Oakland, key landmark sites continue to sit undeveloped - for every Fox Theater, there is a Parkway Theater or a Kaiser Convention Center.

Across the city, these venues may attract interested developers, but all continue to sit with doors locked. Some of the properties are owned by the city, some are private, but all seem further than ever from opening their doors.

To be sure, Oakland has seen recent redevelopment success downtown. The Sears Building on Telegraph Avenue was revamped not too long ago, the Rotunda Building on Broadway Avenue and  the 1111 Jackson Street sites have all gone through extensive redevelopment.

City officials said historic sites don't differ much in the way of attracting developers.

"I don't think historic buildings are unique in having issues with development at this point," Gregory Hunter, redevelopment deputy director for Oakland, said. "As you're aware, we've had a number of sites ... that were scheduled for development projects (but) have been stalled in this economic downturn going on four years now."

Some of the local historic sites include:

Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center

Even before the recession some historic sites have struggled.

The Henry J. Kaiser Center is a prominent example of a historic building that continues to sit vacant years after shutting its doors. Recent reuse and sales deals have fallen through for one reason or another. Last year, Peralta Colleges seriously considered purchasing the historic venue, but couldn't come to a financial agreement with Oakland.

"The Kaiser Convention Center has been vacant and unused for about six years and it needs some basic systems work to make the building habitable," Blair Miller, urban economic analyst for Oakland said. "Plus, it would need a lot of cosmetic refurbishment to use it for the purposes it was meant for."

Miller said the city is now actively examining proposals from two marketing and real estate groups that would come in and do a full assessment of the Kaiser Center and determine the proper potential use.

"So we're still in the process of determining what the next steps are for those proposals," she said, adding that the main challenge will be the cost connected to rehabilitating the site back to use.

"In the current economy, there aren't a lot of people running around with the type of money needed to put it back into use," she said.

City officials said latest information indicated that it would likely cost $7 million to $10 million to totally rehabilitate the Kaiser Center. Built in 1914, the center - once known as the Oakland Auditorium - includes a large theater, a large ballroom and arena space. It once was the site of an Oakland roller derby team and many rock concerts and community events.

Parkway Theater

Another prominent vacant site is the old Parkway Theater. This landmark building on the eastern side of Lake Merritt is no where close to opening its doors. When the Parkway Theater shut down unexpected, many community members and city officials were confident the prominent site would soon open again. Fast forward three years later and investors are ready to open a site named "Parkway," but not in its original location. Consequently, Park Boulevard now has a large vacant site for the foreseeable future.

"The one thing you find out in the development business is that property owners are key to getting any project successfully developed," Hunter said. "If the property owner isn't cooperative, then the project is going nowhere fast."

Key System Building

Key System Building on Broadway Avenue has been a part of the city's downtown landscape for generations. Yet the historic building has not been opened for business for decades.

"It's a part of a development that is being looked at or proposed," Hunter said. "And has been in the thick of a number of RFP processes that major tenants have released to attract developers. Obviously the Metropolitan Transportation Commission was the most notable group looking at that site (recently). Since that project has decided to go to San Francisco, it was not necessarily the Key System component that stalled that project."

Half Glass Sites

There are also some historic sites around Oakland that are having trouble retaining tenants or they have a revolving door of owners.

The Cathedral Building lost the Crucible gallery as a floor level tenant and the Packard Lofts recently lost its anchor tenant Mimosa Champagne Lounge.

"I would not look at the regional tenants as an indicator," Hunter said. "Unless you have a credit tenant, which is more of a national chain-type tenant, you run the risk of having higher turnover, which is why a lot of building owners prefer a credit tenant."

The city's visual center, the Tribune Tower, has had a series of changes in the last 20 years that included a face lift, two ownership changes and its former mainstay, the Oakland Tribune moving out not once, but twice.

The building was bought in December by a call center service after the former owner defaulted on a $10 million loan. It's unclear if the 300 jobs the center expects to bring will be enough to fill the large historic building's offices.