On Tuesday night, there was a special meeting of the Planning Board to approve a few interesting items, which included the Alameda Landing site-wide landscaping plan, the Waterfront Promenade plan, and Clif Bar headquarter plans. The staff report can be found here.
Clif Bar Headquarters
As has been well advertised, the Clif Bar headquarters will be housed in an exisiting warehouse that will be rehabilitated. Additionaly, they will be rehabilitating a second building into a “parking shed.” The warehouse that Clif Bar will be headquarted in is approximately 72,000 sq ft and will be converted to a 100,000 sq ft of space for Clif Bar and other related support functions. The warehouse itself will be redesigned by ZGF Architects and the parking shed will be designed by SMWM. One of the major concerns that arose with this portion of the waterfront being so heavily commercial is that it would end up being lively and active during the work week and work hours, but abandoned much like the Marina Village and Harbor Bay Business Parks after hours and on weekends. Clif Bar has promised to include at their headquarters a number of support uses that will also be open to the public and hopefully will provide that after hours and weekend activity to keep that portion of the waterfront “alive.” Some of those uses are that have been specifically noted as being open to the public:
- Clif Bar and Grill Restaurant (Mediterrean style)
- Luna Lounge (coffee club type space)
- Clif Bar Retail Store
- 272 seat Theater with Balcony
One of the amazing things that Clif Bar is going to try to do is that provide natural lighting in such a way that they will not need to use electricity during the day. Of course, they are also attempting to secure a LEED platinum rating as well and mentioned that they would be studying the feasibility of harnassing wind power in addition to solar.
Want to watch the presentation? It starts at 1:04 on the video feed.
The Parking Shed
As mentioned previously, the Parking Shed will be designed by SMWM, the building behind the Clif Bar headquarters has been earmarked for the Parking Shed. There will be 160 parking spaces in the Shed. They are pretty much going to keep the building as is, trying to keep as much original fixtures as possible. The only color they intend to add into the Shed is a bright orange. According to the staff report (starts at page 11) they will be introducing huge lettering on one side of the building spelling out “parkingarage” (when I say huge I mean, building height letters). I imagine that this will appeal to some and not appeal to others. Me, I like it. I’m into caps. What is neat about this Shed is that it is intended to be a space that could be converted to something other than a place for parking like space for an indoor farmers market or concerts and events. Or at least that is what the report says.
Landscaping
Interesting, but it’s a more of a wait and see sort of thing. It’s easy to draw full grown trees into plans, but usually the reality is such a bummer to what is drawn. Psst…to anyone reading this that is responsible for the Alameda Landing website, can someone update it with the powerpoint slides that have been shown for the Alameda Landing project and its pieces?
Only a handful of people came out for public comment, all positives, no negatives. I skimmed the rest of the meeting, evidently Board member Mariani wasn’t into the “parkingarage” sign, as I imagine that others probably won’t be into either. Anyway, from what I skimmed through, everything was approved, with conditions of course. I’ll just wait for the minutes to be typed up which is so much quicker than having to watch the video feed.
I would have done more of a cut and paste-y analysis for you all, but the PDF was the same old same old (although hopefully this should be the end of the non searchable PDFs from the city), check out Stop, Drop, and Roll’s pick up of some of the items I missed, most notably the staff report about incorporating Measure A compliant housing on the waterfront.
