1538 E 12th St
5,100 SF for sale in Oakland, CA.
The property sits within Oakland's San Antonio district along the E 12th Street corridor, home to the city's Vietnamese American business community informally known as Little Saigon — an established, active retail and small-business trade area with a local chamber of commerce pushing for formal district recognition and a Business Improvement District.
Located minutes from I-880, the property gives an owner-user or tenant fast connections to the Oakland Port/West Oakland industrial core, the Coliseum/San Leandro industrial corridor, and the broader East Bay and Peninsula markets — a locational advantage in a submarket where freeway-adjacent small-bay product is limited.
The site is within reach of both Fruitvale BART and Lake Merritt BART stations, giving employees, customers, and delivery/service staff a transit option uncommon for small industrial and flex buildings — a meaningful draw for owner-users with a walk-in or service-based customer base.
At roughly 5,100 SF on a 6,500 SF lot, this building fits the small owner-user/flex size range that is chronically undersupplied in Oakland — most available industrial listings in the East Bay skew toward larger multi-tenant or big-box product, making a building this size a comparatively rare offering for an owner looking to occupy rather than lease.
Building specifications
San Antonio District — Oakland's Little Saigon Corridor
E 12th Street runs through Oakland's San Antonio district, a large, diverse neighborhood stretching east from Lake Merritt toward Sausal Creek. The immediate stretch of E 12th Street is anchored by a dense concentration of Vietnamese American-owned restaurants and businesses — informally known as Little Saigon — with local advocates actively working toward formal city recognition of the district and a dedicated Business Improvement District to strengthen its commercial identity.
The location benefits from strong regional access: I-880 provides a direct freeway connection to the Oakland Port and industrial corridor to the south and downtown Oakland/I-980 to the north, while Fruitvale BART and Lake Merritt BART stations put the property within reach of the region's rail transit network. This combination of freeway proximity, transit access, and an established, walkable commercial corridor supports both owner-user industrial/flex use and small business or service-oriented tenancy.
Oakland/East Bay Industrial: Investment Sales Surge Even as Absorption Stays Negative
Kidder Mathews' Q2 2026 Oakland/East Bay Industrial Market Report shows a submarket still working through softness at the top but showing renewed investor conviction underneath. Direct vacancy rose to 8.7% (up 60 basis points year-over-year), and the market posted negative net absorption of roughly 731,000 SF for the quarter — though that was a marked improvement over the 1.3 million SF of negative absorption recorded in the same period a year earlier.
The more notable signal was on the capital markets side: investment sales volume reached 2.8 million SF year-to-date, up 84.3% year-over-year, even as average direct asking rents slipped to $1.44/SF/month NNN (down 13% from the prior year). With only about 512,000 SF under construction across the East Bay, limited new supply continues to support long-term fundamentals — a backdrop that has increasingly pulled buyers back into the market for well-located, smaller-footprint industrial buildings even as large-block leasing stays soft.
Source: Kidder Mathews, Oakland/East Bay Industrial Market Report, Q2 2026
How we'd position this listing
Headline vacancy and absorption numbers mask a more constructive story underneath: investment sales volume nearly doubled year-over-year even as rents softened, and with under 512,000 SF in the East Bay construction pipeline, well-located small-bay product is not being replaced at any meaningful pace. A 5,100 SF owner-user building on a 6,500 SF lot sits squarely in the size range that institutional buyers largely ignore — which is exactly why it tends to hold value and attract genuine owner-user competition.
This property's specific advantage is location: the San Antonio/Little Saigon corridor combines an active, established small-business trade area with freeway access to I-880 and proximity to two BART stations — a combination that is difficult to replicate elsewhere in the East Bay at this price point and size. We'd expect the strongest interest from owner-users currently leasing elsewhere in Oakland who want to convert rent into equity while pricing on comparable small industrial/flex product remains attainable.
Get rent roll detail, floor plans, and comparable sales for 1538 E 12th St.
Let's talk about 1538 E 12th St.
jida@lee-associates.com
Brendan Gallagher — (760) 846-1736
242 California St, San Francisco, CA 94111