October 2026
“More Than Just Real Estate”: Walking with Friendship Christian Center to 50 Homes for West Oakland Seniors
When Rev. Dr. Gerald Agee and his wife returned to Oakland after Bible college, he carried a single charge from Isaiah 61:4: repair the ruined cities. For three decades, Friendship Christian Center has lived out that call by housing people in recovery, feeding the hungry, and opening a meat market, a thrift store, and more, meeting each need as it came.
This month, that ministry took a new form. Friendship Senior Housing opened at 1904 Adeline Street, with 50 affordable homes for seniors on the land where the church once stood.
DCG Strategies was privileged to serve as the congregation’s advisor and owner’s representative along the way.
A trust worth protecting
The land had never been an ordinary asset. In 2005, Friendship bought a former funeral home for a million dollars it didn’t have, raised a little at a time from people who grew up in West Oakland. Rev. Agee felt the weight of that gift.
“They were entrusting me with what they had purchased for a worship center,” he told us. “It would be the worst scenario for me to frivolously even think about doing something with that property without really covering every base that I could possibly think of.”
By then, he could see that seniors he’d grown up with were being pushed out of Oakland. The site was ideal for senior housing, across from De Fremery Park, near the library and a senior center, with a bus stop out front. What he needed was someone on his side of the table.
Finding an advocate
That need surfaced at a gathering of pastors working through the housing crisis together. The group concluded that congregations needed an owner’s representative: someone who knew the development business and also understood pastors. That was where Rev. Agee first met DCG.
Rev. Agee is himself a licensed real estate broker, but, as he put it, “real estate market and sales is different than real estate development. It’s a totally different beast.” He was looking for a partner who understood both the complexity of development and the realities of pastoral leadership.
“What was most important to me was character,” he said. “There was a sense of truthfulness … and a real care for an understanding of the problems and the issues of the African American community in Oakland.”
Knowing what’s negotiable
Our first job was to make sure Friendship understood the strength of its position. As Rev. Agee likes to say, “Don’t let anybody tell you that you’re not bringing anything to the table when you’ve got the land.”
“DCG showed us that we didn’t have to sell the land. We didn’t have to lose the land. We didn’t have to give up the land, which was big. That was major,” he said. “The second was that there is a negotiating point with the developer for the developer fee.”
Armed with that understanding, Rev. Agee interviewed more than eight developers. Most offered the church 10 percent of the developer fee, and one offered 15 percent. He was prepared to push for a third. Then Don Gilmore of Community Housing Development Corporation offered 50 percent without being asked. Because Rev. Agee knew what was possible and what others were offering, he recognized that proposal as the rare partnership it was. The church kept its land, shares meaningfully in the project’s value, and will be able to fund its ministries for years to come.
Staying at the table for eight years
The work began in 2017. Lease-up began eight years later. Throughout that time, Rev. Agee attended project meetings weekly, sometimes more often, at DCG’s urging.
“DCG advised us to be a part of those meetings, because I always say, ‘If you’re not at the table, you’re going to be on the menu,'” he said.
We also helped Friendship understand the kind of team a project like this requires: architects, lenders, contractors, and public agencies who would need to “become one mind,” as Rev. Agee put it. “I believed that. I embraced that. I preached that. And I experienced that as … the team was coming together.”
What the church brings
Perhaps the most important thing we helped Friendship see was the value it already held. That included the land, and also nearly three decades of goodwill in West Oakland.
“If you could put a dollar to that, that is major,” Rev. Agee said. “That’s what DCG helped us to understand: that there was more to us than just what it looks like.”
That credibility is already opening new doors. Having shown what can be done, Friendship is now in conversations about other vacant land in the neighborhood.
In his words
We’ll let Rev. Agee have the last word, because we couldn’t have said it better, and it would sound odd coming from us:
“I recommend DCG to all pastors that are thinking about developing on their land, because it’s a major, major undertaking. It’s more than just real estate. It’s really managing highly skilled, professional people from the beginning to the end. … They understand the business, but they also understand the need for the church.”
Congratulations to Rev. Dr. Agee, the Friendship Christian Center family, Don Gilmore and CHDC, and every partner who helped repair a piece of West Oakland. And welcome home to the residents.
Is your congregation wondering what its land could mean for its mission? We’d be glad to talk: [email protected]
