An offering to the development gods

Catellus, Catellus, Catellus…why have you seemingly abandoned us?   I suppose that I would be okay with the lack of development at Alameda Landing if I hadn’t read two recent press releases/news reports about Catellus going after more large scale projects even though they have yet to even build so much as a bathroom on the Alameda Landing site.   Apparently, Catellus is one of 13 developers who are bidding to redevelop the Oakland Army Base site, according to the East Bay Business Times:

Catellus Development Corp. and Federal Development LLC are among 13 developers who have submitted bids for redevelopment of the former Oakland Army Base.

The city of Oakland announced the bidders Thursday following a two-month solicitation of qualifications that closed March 10.

The companies will compete to redevelop 108 acres of the former base in west Oakland…

Esplanade appeal

At tonight’s City Council meeting on the agenda is an appeal by some Harbor Bay/Bay Farm residents of a commercial development to build office buildings along the shoreline near the ferry building.   According to the Alameda Journal article, the project, named the Esplanade, will be ten buildings housing four businesses.   What I actually find interesting about this project is that the units will be commercial condos where the units will actually be for sale, rather than for lease, to smaller businesses.

Personally I found the quote in the newspaper from one of the appellants a little strange:

…”It’s the entrance to Harbor Bay from the ferry,” Graber said Wednesday. “It’s a gateway to Alameda. It should showcase Alameda at its best.”…

Jobs! All we really want are Jobs!

The award for the shortest article ever on a highly complicated project/process goes to Carolyn Jones of the SF Chronicle.   Now, I assume that she was handed this assignment, given a deadline, and told to hop to it, but damn, talk about totally unsatisfying and plus soft on a lot of background.   Highlights anyway:

…A year ago, reuse of the old Alameda Naval Air Station was expected to become one of the Bay Area’s biggest success stories, attracting new businesses and transforming the area into vibrant new neighborhoods.

But the weak housing and retail markets have delayed many of those plans at least a year, costing the city millions in lost tax revenue, according to city officials.

“The public is rightly frustrated with the delays, but I think a lot of people are just becoming resigned,” Assistant City Manager David Brandt said. “They realize this is the new reality.”

West End openings

For those of you that don’t venture out that often to the West End there are a few significant (depending on your personal opinion) openings that have recently occured on the West End of the island.   First, Willie Stargell Avenue, formerly known as Tinker Avenue, has been opened from Main to Webster.   So all you folks who have had to make the long trek around to get to Alameda Point now have a more direct route if you are coming out of the Tube into Alameda.   Remember though, the speed limit is only 25 mph on Stargell and there are some optimal speed traps right now in case your lead foot and open road are too tempting.

Also on Webster, as reported by the Island, there is a new restaurant in town and it’s not on Park Street.   Hopefully this is a sign of new and good things to come on Webster Street with the opening of Acquacotta.   Webster Street shoppers may be familiar with the sign (which has seemingly been up forever) and the location which used to be Coffee for Thought.  From the limited Yelp reviews so far, it looks like Acquacotta is getting a big thumbs up from the majority of reviewers.   Personally I’d like to see the Cocktail Hour guy do a review of it as well.

Another opening on Webster that isn’t so new is the Dock Cafe which opened up right next to Tiny’s Candy Store, I think by the owner of Tiny’s Candy Store.   Although I have to say every time I have tried to go to Tiny’s it ends up being closed.   I suppose I should check the store hours before I go, but sometimes you just want to pop in.

And taking the place of what used to be a Taco Bell and then Dimitra’s Sandwiches is now a Mountain Mike’s Pizza.   For folks that like their pizzas with lots of toppings that are named after various mountains, this is the place for you.

Thursday funny

Because why does the funny always have to be reserved for Fridays?

If you are not familiar with the OG blog in Alameda, Island Life written by Owen Mould, it’s time you gave it a read see.   It is updated weekly and doesn’t necessarily concentrate on Alameda all the time, but sometimes there are the occasional gems that shouldn’t be missed. 

One of those gems can be located under the T-Shirt catalogue. The first is located on page 25 of the reader which shows an aeriel view of Alameda with the tagline:

Alameda: the CA Island that thinks it is a town located somewhere in the midwest.

Kicking ass and taking names

File this one under “Much Ado About Nothing” yet again…for those that have been following the “omigod AEF isn’t representing the interests of West End schools, I know because a “bunch” of West End parents told me so!”* here is a small update on the evil that is the Alameda Education Foundation.   Their board list is up.  Now I don’t know if it was recently put up or if it has always been there, but as I wrote on Stop, Drop & Roll under John Knox White’s take on the strangeness of the whole KASE/AEF attacks, I found the Board list pretty easily.  It was not in the main navigation tool at the top of the page, but rather on the right hand side bar, you actually had to scroll down to find it, but it’s right there under the heading of “Pages”  and, oh look, there’s also a “Strategic Plan” reflecting the direction that the new and improved AEF is heading toward.

Actually though, before I looked on AEF’s website I remembered that the Wayback Machine archives lots of sites, including AEF’s old site and list of Board of Directors.  Guess what, the list hasn’t changed that drastically from the current list.   Then I thought to myself, “Self, why don’t you just check the AEF website?” and so I did and there it was.

A crossing to bear

Unless you too have learned to walk on water like I have after my recent canonization to sainthood, a meeting on Saturday regarding the Estuary Crossing Feasability Study should be of interest to you.   Pedestrians and Bicyclists only though, no new plans to make a new crossing for vehicles.

Of course when we talk about bridging the estuary waters, our neighbor across the water is sure to be involved and in fact their first community meeting occurs on Thursday evening at 6 to 8 p.m. in case you can’t make it out to the Saturday meeting.   Saturday’s meeting is scheduled for 10 - noon at Pelican Pasta on Mariner Square Drive, I suppose folks who attend can get inspiration from the view.  This meeting is specifically to discuss the project opportunities and the constraints.    I imagine that one of the major contraints will be money.   After all the Berkeley bike and pedestrian bridge over I-80 cost $6.4 million to build, 20 years of planning, and five years to design and construct.   And, they only had to worry about making it high enough to have big rigs cross beneath it, we have huge ships on contend with.

State funding for schools is like a slice of pie

…you never know how much of you’re gonna get.

For those of you that don’t keep an eye either on Alamedans or on Rob Siltanen’s blog School 94501/94502 you are missing out on a great post by Rob S. delievered this weekend.   This addresses some of the commentary that has been cropping up in op-eds and letters to the editors in both our newspapers that has argued against the Parcel Tax.   That, of course, being that we should be putting our efforts into lobbying at the state level for our fair share rather than wasting our time trying to pass a parcel tax and further penalizing Alameda residents.    Rob S. tells us that it is necessary to do both and that there are folks out there that have been working hard to figure out an appropriate strategy to secure equalized funding for Alameda schools.   Highlights, but reading the entire post is highly recommended, particularly for those who have limited understanding on how school financing works:

As more and more Alamedans are now coming to understand, California’s school finance system is broken. But based on the complaints of Measure H opponents, I am concerned that not as many Alamedans also understand that many of us already have been working hard for years to fix that broken system and will continue to do so (probably also for years), regardless of what happens with the Measure H vote on June 3.

Cost of doing business

As mentioned by the East Bay Express blog, they are really stepping up the blogging ever since Chris Thompson has returned, the Bay Area Council Economic Insitute, which used to just be the Bay Area Economic Forum and has recently merged with the Bay Area Council, has economic analysis on the state of the region.   The Bay Area Council, as you will recall, were the big backers behind the creation of the WETA.   According to the East Bay Business Times, there is good news and of course, the bad news.   The good news, to borrow from the EBX’s characterization of the state of the region, we still kick ass.   The bad news is that we’re getting older and older, which means that we’ll have a lot crankier population and we’ll start to see a lot more early bird specials in our local restaurants, oh and everything costs more in the Bay Area than in other global metropolitan centers.

Highlights from the Business Times:

Housing prices, road congestion, education weaknesses, restrictive immigration policies and a growing retirement pool seriously challenge the Bay Area’s ability to maintain its elevated status, according to a report Wednesday.

The Bay Area Council Economic Institute’s biannual Bay Area Economic Profile analyzes the Bay Area’s changing economy and benchmarks its performance against Boston, London, New York, Tel Aviv, Stockholm, Shanghai, Singapore and major metropolitan centers…

Assessing the damage

The SF Chronicle writes – in reaction to? in support of? — the recent Larry Ellison-lowering-the-property-values-on-his-multi-million-dollar-home-story and tell us, you too can be like Larry.   Evidently it’s not just San Mateo county’s assessor’s office that is anxious to start lowering billionaire’s property tax bills, they want to lower yours too!  Highlights:

…If your home is worth less than you paid, chances are you also can get a temporary reduction in your property taxes - without a battery of lawyers or dubious arguments about functional obsolescence.

Just ask your county assessor for an informal review of your assessed value. It’s free and easy to do yourself.

…

Rather than wait for requests, assessors in some Bay Area counties hit hard by the housing downturn - including Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara and Solano - are automatically reviewing homes purchased in the past few years to see whether they qualify for a cut in assessed value for 2008-09…