Today, the City of Oakland announced the hiring of Alexa Jeffress as Real Estate Managing Director within the Economic & Workforce Development Department (EWDD). She will be responsible for management, disposition, and development of the City’s real property assets. Alexa will start work on April 22, 2019.
“Alexa is the ideal manager to step into this new position, given her leadership experience in both asset management and real estate development,” said Mark Sawicki, Director of EWDD. “Her unique combination of public and private sector experience will help guide the City’s efforts around real estate management and development and promote the Department’s commitment to equity and inclusive growth.”
Alexa comes to Oakland from BRIDGE Housing in San Francisco, where she oversaw the development of affordable and mixed-income real estate projects in San Francisco and the East Bay. While at BRIDGE, she directed the implementation of the HOPE SF Rebuild Potrero initiative, a master plan development that includes replacement of over 600 units of distressed public housing while integrating up to 1,000 new affordable and market-rate homes with infrastructure improvements and new open space.
Before joining BRIDGE Housing, Alexa served as the Asset Management Director for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Multifamily West Region in San Francisco where she managed a team of federal employees in four regional offices servicing a portfolio of over 200,000 affordable housing units in California, Oregon, Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, and Idaho. During her more than seven years with HUD, Alexa directed the West Region’s preservation efforts, working to preserve more than 32,000 units of affordable housing in high-cost, low-vacancy rental markets in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Portland.
Alexa is an attorney and member of the California State Bar. A native of the East Bay, she holds a Juris Doctor from the University of California Hastings College of the Law. She was a Presidential Management Fellow and completed a clerkship with the U.S. Department of Justice in San Francisco. Prior to her career in real estate, she worked in software development and information management in Oakland and Silicon Valley after earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University in New York.
Alexa will oversee the combined Public/Private Development and Real Estate Asset Management divisions of EWDD, directing a staff of 20 engaged in developing and managing City assets; negotiating real property transactions including leasing, acquisition, disposition, development, and financing agreements; and facilitating the valuation, inventory, and third-party use of City assets.