[fflint]

Oakland seeks outline for city's revitalization
Report highlights areas needing work as officials plan gathering

Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 2, 2007

http://sfgate.com/c/pictures/2007/05/02/bu_oaklandskyline.jpg
Oakland city officials are looking at ways to revive the economy, especially in the downtown areas

Hoping to boost the local economy, Oakland civic leaders have published a report detailing how the city can nurture traditional industries such as transportation and health care while attracting new jobs in sectors like biotech and clean technology.

The 106-page report, "Taking Stock of Oakland's Economy," was unveiled Tuesday by the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. Chamber President Joseph Haraburda said he hopes the report will become the catalyst for the creation of the sort of public-private partnership that Silicon Valley cities have used to foster job-creation.

"We have strong indications from our partners in labor, government and business that they are on board with this," he said.

Also at Tuesday's news conference was Dan Boggan, chief of staff for Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, who said the report will be a focal point for discussion of the city's future when some 800 business, political, education and labor leaders meet on Thursday for a $75-per-person sold-out economic summit.

"What this report does is start the conversation," Boggan said. "Now we have to move forward with the hard part."

Implicit in the report, posted on the chamber's Web site, is the suggestion that Oakland hasn't done enough economic development in the past, and it scolds the city for having allowed Alameda, Hayward and Fremont to do better at attracting biotech companies.

"In the 1990s, while other Bay Area cities, including Oakland's near neighbors, were welcoming biotechnology, Oakland did not capture any of this burgeoning investment," the report said.

The document also carries a whiff of metropolitan envy, mentioning Oakland's "location in the shadow, as it were, of San Francisco and Silicon Valley," and alludes to it negative reputation for "urban violence."

During the news conference, McKinsey & Co. consultant Lenny Mendonca -- who oversaw the pro bono project -- tackled the issue directly, saying Oakland needs to "improve the reality and perception of public safety."

Rather than dwell on such weaknesses, however, the report focuses on the city's underappreciated strengths, such as the fact that it has outperformed the nation and the rest of the region in creating jobs in recent years.

Citing federal statistics, the report said that while the Bay Area as a whole lost jobs during the last six years, and payrolls nationwide expanded by just 0.6 percent annually, between 2001 and 2006, Oakland's employment grew at an annual rate of close to 1 percent.

"We are the center of the Bay Area," Haraburda said Tuesday. "We are the economic hub that drives this region through the Port of Oakland."

Noting that the city's economy has historically been a three-legged stool built on "strong manufacturing, transportation and healthcare industries," the report said all three sectors "are under pressure" from global economic forces.

It urged city leaders to consider the consequences of policies such as rezoning industrial parcels to allow housing, which could take land away from job-producing industries.

The report urges Oakland to protect its legacy industries, while working to catch up to its neighbors in attracting biotechnology companies.

Boggan said Dellums is already talking with UC Berkeley officials about how to make Oakland a hospitable place for biotech startups that spring from research done at the university.

The report also exhorts Oakland to orchestrate economic development in emerging sectors such as "green industry, arts, design, digital media and specialty food manufacturing."

[rs913]

Does anyone think downtown Oakland would have improved if the A's decided to move there? There have been other success stories where new stadiums have revitalized dead downtown areas. Not sure if the positives would have outweighed the negatives.

Also, anyone know what's going on with the Jack London Square redevelopment? I wonder what effect that could have on downtown.

(I know these are small issues within the larger question of which industries Oakland needs to build its economic plan around...)

[EastBayHardCore]

I don't get the feeling that the JLS redev is really affecting DT Oakland at all. It's too far removed and disconnected from DT by 880 in addition to being fairly autocentric.

[dimondpark]

I agree that up until now, the action at JLS is sort of separate from the rest of downtown cause its so removed.

[rs913]

I agree that up until now, the action at JLS is sort of separate from the rest of downtown cause its so removed.

Does anyone even know what's happening with the JLS plans? All that turned up when I searched the web was a bunch of press releases from 2003 suggesting parts of it would be done in 2005. That California Harvest Hall sounded promising, but is it on hold?

[suga]

Go stooopid dummmm

[briankendall]

A couple things.

I do think Downtown would have improved if the ballpark proposal would have gone through. Quite a few people who work for the City of Oakland including the City Manager and head of the Community and Economic Development Agency got canned by Jerry Brown for supporting that. They and others had a very strong belief that it would have been a great catalyst for development.

I thought it was a great idea especially if it was coupled with increasing the density around the ballbark to allow for highrises (on the other side of Thomas L. Berkeley Way). There is currently and 8 story tower going on there.

At the same time the Forest City Development on Telegraph/San Pablo/Thomas L. Berkeley Way and 19th is well underway and will add a couple thousand residents. Also, at the corner of 19th and Telegraph Forest City has proposed a possible 18 story tower across from the Fox Theater.

There is a second tower that is proposed for San Pablo and 19th that would be over 20 stories. Additionally the Fox Theater is under reconstruction and will be a huge catalyst for the neighborhood.

The retail Downtown is booming and over 87 businesses have moved Downtown in the past 3.5 years reducing the vacany rate from 25% to 8%. that represents 180,000 sq. feet of space that has been leased up. 60,000 of that retail space had been vacant for over 10 years!. There is a lot of great new restaurants coming in as well as nightclubs, art galleries, other retail, etc.

A great website for information on the Uptown area is http://www.tndwest.com/uptownneighborhood.html or www.tndwest.com and find the uptown neighborhood section.

[CHapp]

Quite a few people who work for the City of Oakland including the City Manager and head of the Community and Economic Development Agency got canned by Jerry Brown for supporting that.

Dang, Jerry Brown! At least the A's wouldn't be shopping around for a new stadium in Fremont or wherever if you hadn't opposed the downtown ballpark! :hell:

Otherwise thanks for the tidbits of good news you've given, briankendall. :) Can't say that I care much about JLS--downtown Oakland is much more important to me. :yes:

[briankendall]

Regarding Jack London if your looking for information you can go to www.Oaklandnet.com. You can go to the Redevelopment area and click on the Central District and go down to housing and see what housing is going on down there.

You should also go to the Planning section of oaklandnet.com. Click on "List of Major Development Projects" and there you will find a list of projects... 21 pages. Its so small I can't read it so I printed it out.

http://www.oaklandnet.com/government/ceda/revised/planningzoning/MajorProjectsSection/default.html

I agree that JLS is a bit disconnected but that is slowly changing and slowly but surely it will merge more and more with Downtown in terms of retail, foot traffic, etc. There is a lot of development housing wise and this will translate into more retail. Up to now there has been mostly loft projects away from Broadway. There is change on Broadway happening now though there is the 8 Orchids condo tower going in at 7th and Broadway next to the freeway and at 200 Broadway there is an 18 story tower that is underconstruction now w/ 11,000 sq. feet of retail. There are of course dozens of loft type projects and the Oak to Ninth Project all of which have brought or will bring thousands of new residents. But your right in that its a bit of a car centric place like SOMA in SF.

What will be the best scenario is to get Broadway between Embarcadero and 5th Street revived. The retail there is for the most part lagging although there are some good ones such as Soizic, Everet and Jones, Stoneridge Gallery, I am redoing a great building at 2nd and Broadway that will have 4-5 nice new businesses.

Also the Jack London Inn at Embarcader and Broadway has a proposal to ax it and construct a 26 story 310 foot tower at 444 Embarcadero. It was supposed to go to the planning commision at the end of March but I am not sure what came of it.

A great website to go to for general JACK LONDON DEVELOPMENT INFORMATION IS www.jlda.org. Its the JACK LONDON DISTRICT ASSOCIATON website and gives a rundown of development including HARVEST HALL.. go to the DEVELOPMENT area of the website. or you can go to www.jacklondonnews.com there is a little bit of info there too but not much on development. You can also go back to www.tndwest.com and go to Jack London area of the list of Oakland areas the site covers.

Let me know if you want other information about Downtown.

[fflint]

The most vibrant part of downtown Oakland, IMO, is Chinatown. I was there last week and really enjoyed walking around and sampling some of the food.

[briankendall]

Yes Chinatown is definitely vibrant but other areas are starting to gell more especially for day into evening restaurants/bars. My hot areas are:

1.) Old Oakland with Tamarindo, B Restaurant, Le Cheval, Breads of India, Air Lounge, Arsimona a sports bar, and coming soon is Levende East owned by the person who has Levende on Mission/Duboce.

2.) Grand/Broadway definitely another hot area with Luka's and coming soon Franklin Square Bar and an 8,000 sq. foot Ozumo Restuarant #2 from San Francisco and an 8,000 sq. foot vietnamese restaurant and bar at Grand/Webster called Vo's There are also a bunch of great art galleries on Grand and a few around 23rd and Telegraph.

3.) Telegraph Avenue is being completely redone with new sidewalks historic lamposts etc from 16th to 20th and there is great new restaurant/bar owned by the same person who has Tacubayu on 4th street in Berkeley and Dona Tomas at 51st and Telegraph. That will be opening at 19th and Telegraph soon. Plus the redo of the Fox theater.

[rs913]

Thanks Brian for all the info on DT Oakland! Seems like there's a lot of promising stuff going on...it's encouraging to hear the area has so much going on even though Jerry Brown killed the ballpark deal.

I was mentally including Jack London Square as part of "DT Oakland" - using a broader definition of the latter - but I can see why people think of them as separate, as they're currently separated not just by 880 but also several blocks where there's not a lot going on (yet).

Any thoughts on what the major obstacles are for DT Oakland to continue growing? Seems like they really need to get those residential towers built and get people living there.

[Clevelumbus]

Damn, anyone know where that picture is taken from??

[briankendall]

Right now there is a bit of cooling in the housing market but there is currently well over 2,000-2,500 units under construction in DT right now so thats great. At 1.7 people per unit for Oakland thats at least 3,000 people and thousands of units have already been built and thousands more are in the planning stages. After the current projects are done well see what happens. There is a lot of demand for housing I believe though from chinese and asian americans for more housing in and around Chinatown. The projects built so far around Chinatown have gone very quickly and fetched over $500 a sq. foot.

Also, there are 4 large class B historic buildings that are being turned into lofts with ground floor retail condos. Ozumo bought one of these prominent retail spaces and is planning from what I know a large 6,000 bar and restaurant.

At the same time there is a huge amount of increasing demand from people being lured away from San Francisco. A lot of the new businesses opening Downtown are East Bay residents but there are more and more and more business owners looking for space in Oakland especially after the sick leave fiasco in SF... I have had dozens of calls from business owners wanting to bail on SF in just the past two months.

In terms of office the markets for class B and class A I am fairly certain are very tight. Oakland was never overbuilt and always places very highly in mags likes Forbes etc as "best places" to locate corporations.

There is currently a 12 story addition to an office building on Franklin and 21st. Shorenstein is moving forward with a 25 story (?) office tower at 11th/12th/Jefferson. There is a second 20-30 story very seriously being planned for a vacant lot on Broadway. Additionally the Swig development group (right?) is planning a possible tower within Kaiser Center.

[BTinSF]

Friday, December 7, 2007
Developers floating plans for Oakland retail
San Francisco Business Times - by Ryan Tate

The neighborhood around the Oakland Coliseum is poised for a wave of retail development, including a new Toyota dealership and a 160,000-square-foot retail center.

Developer Dinesh Maniar is expected to soon seek city permission to build the retail center at the site of the former Home Base store at 633 Hegenberger Road, just east of Interstate 880, according to Councilman Larry Reid and a city planner.

Reid said Maniar has letters of intent from several "major" retailers, who Reid declined to name, and is in the midst of lining up further tenants to anchor the project. The retail complex will be a "power center," a strip mall with "big box" and "medium box"-sized stores. Maniar did not return calls to his Montgomery Realty Group Inc. office in South San Francisco.

His interest in the area coincides with other development plans in the neighborhood, which in the past five years has added auto dealers like Lexus and Infinity and a retail center anchored by Oakland's first Wal Mart.

Ron Goode Toyota out of Alameda is planning to move to a seven-acre site adjacent to the Wal Mart and a few blocks down Oakport Street from the Lexus and Infiniti dealerships, Reid said. The new dealership will rise four stories, resulting in 164,000 square feet of indoor space.

The dealership complex will include a restaurant on the third floor. The relocation brings 60 to 70 permanent jobs into the city and, more importantly, significant sales tax dollars. Car dealers are among the top sales-tax generators in the city, though Reid did not have a specific estimate for the Toyota site.

Groundbreaking was set for Dec. 6.

"We're trying to change the district and attract retailers so that revenue does not slip into surrounding cities," Reid said. "You've got this huge critical mass of retail and housing. That helps change the community."

Nearby Oakland International Airport, just down Hegenberger Road, has helped fuel the activity with more traffic. During the five years ended at the start of 2007, airport passenger traffic grew 26 percent to 14.4 million.

A new Holiday Inn is set to open in March on Hegenberger adjacent to the airport Hilton.

Reid also believes BART will be able to break ground next year on a rail connector joining the Coliseum BART station to the airport. Bombardier Inc. of Montreal is now in negotiations to jointly fund construction of the line.

rtate@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4968
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/12/10/story11.html?t=printable

[peanut gallery]

1.) Old Oakland with Tamarindo, B Restaurant, Le Cheval, Breads of India, Air Lounge, Arsimona a sports bar, and coming soon is Levende East owned by the person who has Levende on Mission/Duboce.

Pacific Coast Brewing Company!!!! Sorry, just had to add one of my favorite places in there.

[roadwarrior]

My problem with Oakland and surrounding areas is that although they are building clusters of high end condos, it has not yet leant itself to a place where you can walk around and feel safe. Some examples of this are the transit villages of the Coliseum, Fruitvale, West Oakland Bart Station, Emeryville and Oakland City Center. While those places are no doubt nice and much more affordable than SF, I wouldn't feel comfortable having my fiancee walk the dog outside at night. It seems you really have to drive or take a cab to get anywhere. I'm hoping that as more scale arrives, this changes, but I'm not bullish on Oakland for the near term.

[sf_eddo]

I think two of Oakland's greatest strengths re: attracting the information economy is both BART and Berkeley. Oakland is currently the second most transit-friendly job destination in the Bay Area behind San Francisco's Market Street and Berkeley provides an automatic innovative and highly intelligent and motivated workforce.

It's funny - living in Oakland, you don't really think of it as super ghetto or super violent. It just is what it is. Perception is probably 3/4 the battle.

[sf_eddo]

Also, I am totally in favor of making DT Oakland more attractive to businesses - but it has to come monetarily and that means kickbacks to businesses and incentives to move to Downtown.

I am not in favor of trying to attract big businesses to any of Oaklands established neighborhoods - probably because of disnvestment, Oakland's neighborhoods still feel like they have the gumption and diversity and character that their neighborhood counterparts in San Francisco have long since been washed clean of.

[BTinSF]

Friday, November 21, 2008 | Modified: Friday, November 28, 2008 - 1:01 AM
Living wage crimps Oakland restaurant plan
San Francisco Business Times - by Sarah Duxbury

The Fox Theater restaurant is proving a hard hole to fill.

Dozens of restaurateurs have toured the 3,000-square-foot space, and no fewer than eight have said they can’t make a project pencil out at that site due to Oakland’s living wage requirement.

The Fox hole’s fortunes could be turning, however. Business proposals from restaurateurs were due Nov. 17, and three were submitted. Phil Tagami, whose firm, California Capital Group, has managed the Fox rebirth, said that two other parties unaware of the formal proposal process expressed interest in the site, despite the wage requirements. He declined to say who submitted proposals.

The Fox Theater restaurant space is bound by Oakland’s living wage ordinance because the city invested over $100,000 in improvements. The ordinance requires employers to pay workers $10.39 an hour if they offer benefits and $11.95 an hour without benefits. That could cost a restaurant owner an additional $175,000 to $225,000 per year, Tagami said.

“The whole point was to get out of San Francisco” with its high labor costs, said Trip Hosley, the owner of Sauce in Hayes Valley and one of the restaurateurs put off by the wage ordinance. “But as much as I don’t like what we have in San Francisco, at least everyone’s paying it.”

In Oakland, a restaurant like Flora right across the street is not forced to pay the higher wages, Hosley said.

Max’s Restaurants also toured the site as a possible location for a Billy Berk’s restaurant; it also balked at the wage issue.

Oakland is undergoing something of a restaurant renaissance, with several high-profile eateries under development, none bound by the living wage ordinance.

Not everyone finds the living wage a deal breaker, as the new proposals attest. If the theater is a success once it opens in February 2009, it could generate enough business for a restaurateur to stomach paying a premium on labor.

Tagami will present the proposals for consideration on Nov. 24. A restaurant could be open as early as August.

“The good news is there are interested parties,” Tagami said. “The underlying message here is that in questionable financial times, there’s still hope.”

sduxbury@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4963
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2008/11/24/story11.html?b=1227502800^1737295&t=printable