Juarez, an Oakland political operative and businessman with real estate, entertainment, and other ventures, wrote to port executives and the port’s board of commissioners on May 16, alleging that two weeks earlier he had been unlawfully locked out of his offices at 1211 Embarcadero, a building owned by David Duong and his family. The Duongs also own Oakland’s recycling company, California Waste Solutions, which has its headquarters in the same building.
Juarez told port officials that the Duongs were investors in his company, Evolutionary Homes, and that he’d been granted access to a ground-floor suite in the building since August 2023. But on May 3, Juarez claimed in his letter, he discovered the Duongs had changed the locks on the office suite, preventing him from entering. According to the letter, Juarez confronted David Duong and two of his relatives, Kristina and Andy, on the first floor of the building. An argument ensued, Juarez wrote, and the Duongs summoned several people to the site who allegedly “orchestrated a physical assault and robbery.”
Evolutionary Homes’ business address is 1211 Embarcadero, Suite 300, according to business records filed with the California Secretary of State. However, on a recent visit to the building, The Oaklandside noticed a shipping container visible on the ground floor in Suite A. It’s unclear if those containers belonged to Evolutionary Homes. But Oakland City Councilmember Carroll Fife told The Oaklandside this week that she was shown Evolutionary Homes’ shipping container houses by Mario Juarez and Andy Duong in a ground floor space of the building around the beginning of this year.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Andy Duong told police who responded to an incident at 1211 Embarcadero on May 3 that it was Juarez who had acted violently by allegedly carrying a gun and telling him that he had “cartel” people surrounding the building. David Duong did not mention Andy Duong’s statements to the police in his letter to the port.
