OAKLAND — Nearly a year after the Oakland City Council earmarked $14 million to purchase a single-room occupancy hotel to use for transitional housing for homeless people, the city is finally close to buying one in Uptown.

If all goes as planned, the purchase could be completed as early as May 2, said Oakland Housing Development Coordinator Antoinette Pietras at a City Council committee meeting Tuesday. City staff hope to have it ready for people to move in by the end of 2019, after it shores up funds and staff to operate it.

The council’s Community and Economic Development Committee approved the $7 million purchase of the “Grand Hotel” at 641 W. Grand Ave. It will go to the City Council for approval April 17, and for adoption May 1.

The three-story building — built in 1906 — may be able to house up to 140 people in 70 units, according to a city administrator’s report; city officials said that number may be lower as they are still considering how to configure the beds.

There are 10 people living there at the moment, most of whom are overseeing the building’s renovation, Pietras said; the current owners have agreed to keep the remaining units vacant during the purchase negotiations.

The building is expected to be renovated by the time the city closes the purchase, she said. In addition to the purchase price, the city expects to pay an additional $20,000 in closing costs and fees.

The building was bought in 2015 by Uptown Residences, the report said. Before the company’s purchase of the building, it had several code enforcement violations, and was at one time red-tagged, Pietras said.

“The building had been plagued by problems, including drug nuisance, public nuisance, failure to abate building code violations, failure to pay rent program service fees, and violation of hotel, motel and rooming house operating standards by the city,” the report said. “After acquisition by the current owner in 2015, these problems were resolved.”

The City Council voted in June 2017 to allocate $14 million of funds from Measure KK — a bond measure passed by voters in 2016 that provides millions for infrastructure and affordable housing projects — toward the purchase of transitional housing. The remaining funds may be used to purchase second and third transitional housing facilities, said Assistant City Administrator Christine Daniel at the meeting.

The center’s services will be modeled after those of the Henry J. Robinson center in Oakland, and will be overseen by the Department of Human Services’ Community Housing Services Division, the report said.

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It will cost about $2 million annually to run the facility, Daniel said. Oakland council members have approved about $300,000 of city funds to be used to run the facility, and city staff will be looking to the county and other sources to fund the remainder.