Today at 2:00 p.m. if you happen to be around you can watch the ceremonial handoff of Alameda Point from the Navy to Alameda. All the magic is happening with special guests Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roger Natsuhara. On the Alameda side will be Mayor Marie Gilmore and City Manager John Russo.
This is the Phase 1 conveyance and the handover should have much pomp and circumstance and probably a few long winded speeches as well.
If you go, here’s where you can park and stuff:
And speaking of the West End, I heard that the the family that owns WesCafe has opened Webster Station. Anyone try it yet, it has very few Yelp reviews and I can’t seen to find a menu online either.
Of course tonight is the Planning Board meeting about the “Entry Site” aka Drive-Thru parcel aka Where In-N-Out is going. Some folks seem to be confused as to where the this parcel is, here is the location in context:
This map, while not as attractive as the Catellus one, has the map rotated correctly in context to the Google map:
The site map
So, it’s not in Alameda Landing itself, but rather on the remnant parcel. Just to note, the parcel initially was supposed to be housing which would have just been the worst idea ever. After looking at the map produced by the Traffic Study folks, the one above, I wonder if it would be better to flip In-N-Out’s drive-thru queue to the other side so that it runs along Webster as opposed to Stargell. Remember when I wrote that pedestrians would probably cross at Stargell at Webster anyway? Well it appears that there is pretty bad access for pedestrians to actually get to In-N-Out from that side as well. Which, I’m guessing, is meant to discourage folks from walking to In-N-Out from that direction, but will probably not. The more I look at the plans, the more I hope that the Planning Board will be able to tweak it to make it more pedestrian friendly even though it is a rather car-centric little mall. Doesn’t mean that pedestrians still won’t try their best to get there on foot.
Blogging Bayport Alameda 
I’m getting the feeling that this shopping center will end up being one big traffic cluster-fuck and bring way more harm than good to the west end.
Comment by Jack Richard — June 24, 2013 @ 10:41 am
@Jack, it is starting to look that way … I hear there was a rash of break-ins over the weekend on the West End and having a 24×7 gas station + a burger place that is open until 2AM might make things even worse.
Comment by alameda — June 24, 2013 @ 11:33 am
contrary to popular belief, the Sky is not falling. This shopping center will be good for the West End. People won’t come here to rape and pillage us because we finally have something decent for our citizens. I actually think more people will come here to shop, eat and get fuel, as opposed to all the other bad things that some of us feel will happen.
I remember these same thoughts being expressed about the theater and parking garage. Its was going to bring in a bad element, cause major traffic jams, and basically ruin Park St.
Comment by John P.(L) — June 24, 2013 @ 11:55 am
I don’t think that having a place for people to buy gas at 1:00 a.m. and want a Double Double at midnight will magically increase the number of home invasions. What happened over the weekend is unfortunate, but conflating that with home burglaries is no better than the lady warning that there would be an uptick in rapes once the parking garage was built on Park Street.
Comment by Lauren Do — June 24, 2013 @ 12:17 pm
#4 Well looking ‘on the bright side’ between the ‘hairpin turn’ and the Tube being clogged the bad guys are less likely to make it out of town.
Comment by frank — June 24, 2013 @ 3:06 pm
4. Lauren, I agree on late night venues adding to crime.
I made so much noise about the Stargell exit last week that I decided I needed to go see if I know what I’m talking about and I think I do and I don’t. Pictures can be deceiving, i.e. the graphic provided here looked worse than the reality, to me anyway. What is more, it’s amazing how much one can ignore if you are intent on getting somewhere. When I do use the tube I’m always concentrated on Constitution and the last time I actually took the hairpin Stargell exit was before it was reconfigured and still had one lane. I didn’t even realize that. The length of the run up to the exit is more ample than it looks on paper, but I did note that because the outfall bends left you can’t see ahead to the exit when you are still in the mouth of the tube, which means people traveling too fast may get a rude awakening if traffic does back onto the off ramp. Signage could even be mounted on the wall of the tube exit. I need to drive it a few more times because I couldn’t decide about the likelihood for back up. A light will be added and there will obviously be more traffic than today. As of this afternoon, I’m thinking if these destinations are wildly popular it’s easy to imagine autos at full stop from the light will be backed up into that turn.
5. Frank, that’s assuming jsanders is full of sh-t and the bad guys don’t ALL live at APC. But he is and they don’t.
Comment by M.I. — June 24, 2013 @ 7:45 pm
6:
How in the world did I become involved in this conversation?
Comment by jsanders128 — June 24, 2013 @ 9:14 pm
C’mon Lauren … you can do a lot better than compare my comment to that crazy “rape” remark. As much as I see the need for Target/Safeway at the West End and the need to plug the tax drain/offer better choices, I am not convinced that a “low rent” (as you put it) burger/gas station combo at one of the main entrances to the city is something to be thrilled about. All I’m saying is that there is potential for trouble (it is not just burgers and gas that will be available at that magical hour, as currently proposed).
Nothing more, nothing less.
Comment by alameda — June 24, 2013 @ 9:42 pm
Alameda: then you could write that as a member of the community you aren’t thrilled about In-N-Out, that’s a perfectly acceptable opinion and one shared by a lot of people I am guessing. But tying a rash of weekend break-ins to a development in its planning phases and saying “yup, it’s going to cause more crime in surrounding neighborhoods” is not a valid critique.
Comment by Lauren Do — June 25, 2013 @ 6:00 am