But at a hearing Monday night to discuss the station and other cultural landmarks within the Central Station residential development, board members said the project is missing the important details needed to recommend which portions of the station should or should not be saved.

The old Southern Pacific train station sits in the middle of a planned mini-city of 1,571 residential apartments, lofts and town homes.

Although loft pioneer Rick Holliday bought the station and several empty blocks around it — 29.2 acres in all — he has sold most of it to BUILD, a for-profit arm of affordable housing developer BRIDGE Housing Inc.

The land has been subdivided into nine developmentLandmarks board wants more details on plans for historic Oakland station areas and shopped to different housing developers, but there are no detailed plans that show how the whole thing is supposed to look.

Carol Galante, executive director of BUILD, told the board that historic buildings defined in the project's environmental report would not be demolished until final building plans are submitted to the city, ensuring that the historic buildings would be saved if for some reason the new project fell through.

But to make enough money to restore the main hall of the train station, she said the station's baggage wing — a 9,000-square-foot room where porters and redcaps did most of their work — will have to go. The train station property will be subdivided and housing will built in place of the baggage wing.

That doesn't sit well with some residents of the West Oakland and descendants of porters who worked for the Pullman car company. They compare destruction of the baggage wing with the pre-civil rights era oppression of blacks. Nor would they be content with an African-American museum or community space in the main hall. The baggage wing must stay, they insist.

"That train station was part of a freedom run, of blacks getting out of the South and starting a new life," said Leo Handy Jr., a member of the Alameda County chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute. Randolph formed the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, one of the first black labor unions, in 1925.

Board member Rosemary Muller said she does not know at this point whether the wing should stay or go, but she questioned whether there would be enough room left around the main hall for parking, catering trucks, offices or other service areas to make the station reuse viable.

"In order to use the main space, you have to have room to service that space," she said. "Otherwise, (you'll) come back and want to subdivide the station because you need space to service the hall."

Other board members also wanted to make sure the baggage area isn't used in the final plan, and they questioned the height and proximity of new housing around the station, and whether the buildings would block views of the old depot.

After two hours of discussion, the board ordered the developer to prepare a feasibility study showing possible scenarios of how the restored station would be used, with and without the baggage wing.

It left the final decision up to the Planning Commission. The feasibility study is to be presented to the commission before it meets March 16 to vote on the project's environmental impact report.

The board recommended that the front view of the station remain clear and without encroachment into the plaza facing Wood Street. It did not object to the developer's proposal to remove portions of railroad track in order to reopen 16th Street for emergency access.

The board asked to review Holliday's detailed plans for reusing Lew Hing's Pacific Coast Canning Company warehouse when they are completed. The plans will include efforts to memorialize Hing's contributions to the Chinese community and Oakland's economy at the beginning of the 20th century.

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