AMG: “It’s a lot closer than ya’ll think”

Both John Knox White and Michele Ellson touched on the issue of the Civic Center Vision plan that was unveiled last Wednesday at the CIC meeting.

According to Interim City Manager, Ann Marie Gallant, this all came about because of the Council Referral item to analyze what could be done with the Carnegie Library given that the previous plan to turn it into a Planning and Building permit center was no longer feasible.   When she came back to the Council she talked about how they would need to figure out a way to “bundle” the Carnegie Library with other projects to make it financially feasible to redevelop.

So from the starting point which was trying to figure out what to do with the Carnegie Library till last Wednesday we went from Carnegie redevelopment to a whole “vision” for the Civic Center area which expands pretty much all the way to Park Street.

But this isn’t just a vision folks, according to Ann Marie Gallant, they’ll have a financing and implementation plan all within the next 30-45 days.

Yes…days…

Which is amazing since this is literally the first look that the majority of people in Alameda have had of the “vision” for the Civic Center area.   While the consultants and the Interim City Manager make much ado about the “stakeholders” that were involved in this process, the stakeholders were pretty much limited to:

• City staff
• Park Street Business Association
• Alameda Architectural Preservation Society
• Private property owners for which they had made plans to implement their “vision” on.

Brief digression, as a part of the “first look” video of comments by  Frank Matarrese check out his sliding in the anecdote about talking to someone that thought the garage wasn’t big enough.

So about how they will try to finance it.   What it sounded like since Ann Marie Gallant has tied this into the “asset management” of city resources (aka land) that parcels of land owned by the City may be sold off in order to raise capital for this project.    We will know more in 30 – 45 days according to the discussion on Wednesday night, but I’m really curious as to which parcels are nearly “transaction” ready.

Of course to caveat all this, what I have seen so far, I like.   I like the “shared space” planned for the Central side of Parking Lot C.  (although personally, I think the whole of Parking Lot C should be reclaimed for a public plaza and nix all the parking) I like the idea of having bulb outs.  I like the redevelopment of the old gas station across the street from City Hall and Towata flowers next door.  I like re-jiggering Times Way and other small streets into more pedestrian friendly crossings.    I like activating the space where CVS Pharmacy is.    I’m not jumping up and down about the idea of more movie screens for Alameda Theatre.  But in general, I like it.

I just don’t like the removal of the public from the process of forming a “vision” for a new and improved Civic Center area.   I’m not in love with the idea that this was presented at a CIC meeting under the agenda title: “Civic Center Vision Plan” without any description or link to the power point that would allow the public more information about it and that it was only after the meeting was complete that the “public” was allowed a copy of the powerpoint presentation, or rather any information about the vision itself.  What I’m not in love with is that the first look was unveiled, not at a community meeting to get feedback from a populace that tends to be pretty interested in land use issues, but rather under Executive Director (aka City Manager) Communications.

And, what I don’t like is that, from what I understand, the only public meetings moving forward to discuss this plan/vision will be the usual Alameda boards and commissions: Planning Board, Transportation Commission, Economic Development Commission, etc…

After all as Ann Marie Gallant explained, the implementation of this vision is “a lot closer than ya’ll think.”