Omni History

This page is currently a work in progress.

History of the building (overview)

Built in 1934 as the Ligure Club, a neighborhood center for the local Italian-American community, the building served as a social nexus predominantly for the Oakland Scavenger Association, the largely Genoese refuse collectors who formed one of the Bay Area’s first worker-owned and operated co-operatives. From this time until the early 1980s, it served as the site for not only countless social events (concerts, dances, banquets, weddings, birthday parties), but major civic gatherings and lectures. Public speeches by the likes of presidents (Richard Nixon) and supreme court justices (Earl Warren) filled the building to capacity, along with regularly-held forums on local politics. Even sporting events like boxing matches and bocce ball tournaments were regularly held at the building.

As the neighborhood changed, by the early 1980s the building transitioned first to a community-centered club called The White House before becoming the infamous Omni nightclub and grill from the mid-80s through the 90s. Focusing mainly on rock and local metal scenes, it featured innumerable local musicians as well as well-known performers as diverse as Dr. John, McCoy Tyner, Bad Brains, Primus, and Crazy Horse.

From the mid-90s onward the property was carefully stewarded by a thoughtful couple who returned the building to its more diverse traditional use - albeit on a smaller scale - with a mixture of occasional social events (dances, weddings, birthday parties) as well as civic ones (political forums, neighborhood meetings), while also making it their workplace and home.

Prehistory of the Omni Collective

In late September 2013, a few members of Sudo Room went to view the building at the invitation of a small burning-man-oriented group. The burning-man-oriented group were at that time seeking subtenants in advance of making a proposal to the owner to let or purchase the property. A brief discussion around the possibilities afforded by this offer was had within Sudo Room and no action was taken for a variety of reasons, mostly around in-depth conversations that were still ongoing regarding: whether to move at all, how, where, whom with, and so on. To the best of our knowledge, the burning-man-oriented group's proposal for the property was turned down by the owner (for reasons unknown to us.)

Sudo Room's internal discussion around whether to move into the Omni building specifically at that early time, was short-lived and did not extend to the Bay Area Public School. Sudo Room had, however, begun pursuing discussions around exploring new locations in general, to possibly share with the Bay Area Public School (who were also looking to move for similar reasons, while sharing common space with Sudo Room at the time), and Counter Culture Labs.

History of the Omni Collective - The overview

Emerging out of the Occupy movement, Bay Area Public School and Sudo Room had already formed a collectively-run space in downtown Oakland that, for approximately two years, was made freely available for meetings and events to all other local groups and individuals who shared a vision of a more equitable commoning of resources and meeting of human needs over private interest or corporate profit. When the opportunity to move to the far-larger Omni building presented itself, we started meeting weekly to build support for a far more ambitious version of what we then able to provide: To found a truly expansive Commons with a wide range of diverse resources and multiple meeting spaces for all of Oakland to participate in.

For seven straight months, we held open, widely-publicized meetings, reaching out to all aligned groups and individuals who might want to have a home with us at Omni. Through a consensus-driven process across a multiplicity of groups, many thousands of hours were put towards creating an effective, non-hierarchical internal working structure, assembling business plans and projections for each of the member groups, and building our collective fund. With no investors of any kind (and no profit motive), all the financial support for this project came entirely from within our own community in the form of donations and long-term, no-interest loans.

Beginnings of the Omni Collective - The details

In late October 2013, local Temescal poet and artist Zach Houston, who had known the present owners for many years, met with David Keenan of the Bay Area Public School (BAPS) regarding the building as potential new location for BAPS and Sudo Room. An appointment was made, and David entreatied Jenny Ryan and Marc Juul of Sudo Room to join, which they did. Zach had also contacted Emji Spero of Timeless Infinite Light (TIL) as another potential partner in the project, and these representatives from the three groups - Bay Area Public School, Sudo, and TIL - visited the building with Zach in late October.

Impressed by the building, later the same day David, Jenny and Zach returned to Bay Area Public School & Sudo's then-current space and proceeded to write up copy for a brief one-sheet proposal and create the first infrastructure for the group, working deep into the night. The proposal was then worked over into something properly presentable by Otis Pig of TIL, and from that point on regular organizing meetings and nearly-weekly visits to the property began. During this initial period, the bulk of organizing for the effort was done by Bay Area Public School and Sudo Room.

During the time we held organizing meetings, hackathons, pulled all-niters, and generally built support for this effort, several groups expressed interest in participating in our vision for a Commons - many stayed in it for the long haul; for others, their interest and energy could not be sustained through the intense 7 month process during which we worked to concretely define our shared values, our internal processes, and above all ourselves as a cohesive new entity, in order to turn our vision into reality. Other groups who subsequently joined during this period, and stayed on until moving in were: OMNIdance, Counter-Culture Labs, Backspace, Food Not Bombs, Black Hole Collective Labs, Oakland Nights Live, and Peak Agency.

In March 2014, the Bay Area Public School hosted, at the Omni, a one-day speaking event sponsored by PM Press, which primarily focused on the social need for a Commons, featuring writers Silvia Federici, Peter Linebaugh, and George Caffentzis.

In late April 2104, we received a form submission on our website from an email address we didn't know, informing us that the building had already been sold to an unnamed party who planned to make it into a venue and were looking to 'rent out the top floor', and that this buyer knew about our own effort. Asking after these presumptive buyers, we followed up with this person who said they would get back to us, but we never heard back. We subsequently talked with the owner to confirm the apparent sale. The owner informed us however, that the building had in fact not been sold.

From this point, we moved quickly to consolidate our financial commitments and refine our proposal for the building for the owner's review. This included complete business plans and thorough financials for eight community groups and constituted essentially a communal push for a 3-day all-nighter amongst all the organizers to complete and polish.

In early May 2014, we signed our first formal agreement with the owner of the building. For the next six weeks, the terms of the lease and our option to purchase were painstakingly negotiated on a daily basis with the owner (lease revisions stretched far into the hundreds).

By late June, the lease and option to purchase had been finalized and signed, and the Omni Commons assumed possession of the property on July 1 2014.

Others' efforts to acquire the building

For most of the two years that the building was known as being available to rent or purchase, it was not officially on the market, and by the time Omni Commons was involved there was no 'bidding' process as conventionally understood. Rather, the owner was approached directly and independently by a number of interested parties, enticed not only by the unique nature of the property but by the owner's unusual standing offer of a seller-financed loan. To qualify for the owner's loan, prospective buyers were to present the owner with business plans for his consideration. Likewise, those wanting to rent the property also had to present the owner with business plans. To the best of our understanding, it was these business plans as visions for the building, as well as the achievement of mutually-agreeable specific lease or purchase terms, that formed the basis for selecting a new occupant for the building.

Alternate proposed uses for the building that we by now have heard of variously included: a bowling alley, a movie theater, a live theatre, an orchestra rehearsal space, a co-working space, a thrift store, a burning-man-oriented live/work/party space, several kinds of music or event venues, restaurants, cafes, and bars.

During the seven months we worked to acquire the building, we assumed that there were also other actively-interested parties, but our knowledge of other parties was confined to previously-unsuccessful, relatively well-known attempts such as that of the New Parkway Theatre or the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse. Crucially, we never knew the identities of any other active parties, their specific plans for the building, nor the timing or financial aspects of whatever proposed purchase, lease, or any other contractual aspects they may have been in negotiations over with the owner. The owner kept all such information strictly confidential, and none of these parties came forward to us or otherwise made themselves known during all the time we met publicly prior to acquisition.