Before the end of WWII, Oakland's City Manager at the time, Charles R. Schwanenberger, began raising hopes for renewed development in the district.

Revised plans called for a new main public library, a central fire station, police administration building, and a new jail in the area.

The long-delayed widening of the 12th Street dam, at the time a traffic bottleneck for motorists, destroyed the Gardens of the Oakland Auditorium, and dashed hopes for a Civic Center at that site.

A new use for the Kaiser Convention Center was proposed in 2006: a redevelopment designed to nucleate a cultural and educational district with the neighboring Oakland Museum of California and Laney College.

In 2001, the Oakland Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church proposed a replacement for the St. Francis de Sales Cathedral, which was damaged in the 1989 earthquake and subsequently demolished.

The diocese hired a Swiss architect who designed a grand cathedral featuring curving steel beams coming to a point some fifteen stories high.

Coalition of Advocates for Lake Merritt (CALM), an Oakland group proposed an alternative plan involving a remake of the 12th Street Dam halving the number of traffic lanes from six to three in each direction.